My Journey With Health And Fitness – Not As Easy As I Thought

Wahoo! Yesterday I had to have my A1C blood test done. As a reminder the A1C test measures the average amount of glucose in your blood over the last 3 months. Normal A1C is under 6.0%, mine has come in at 5.3%. I think the last time I had an A1C that was out of range was in 2018 though I acknowledge from 2018 to 2021 it was controlled with medication. Currently I know it is absolutely controlled by exercise.

This morning was high intensity strength training. I got there at my normal 5:15am arrival time. I looked at the exercises on the whiteboard and thought hmm, that doesn’t look too challenging. I should have known better as this particular instructor always makes the class challenging.

There were 3 sets of exercises listed each with 2 exercises to be done. The method was simple, the 1st exercise in each set was strength and each round you would do a decreasing number of reps while increasing the amount of weight. The 2nd exercise was more cardio/core that was the same each round.

I chose to start with barbell snatches. These are far more challenging that dumbell snatches and I am not a fan. After you completed a round of the snatches you went out into the parking lot for a quick run. I will note, for all the strength exercises you did the following reps 10,8,6,4,2 for a total of 5 rounds. That of course meant 5 rounds of running. The 2nd set was strict press with a barbell. Nothing difficult here in terms of the mechanics, you simply pressed the bar up and over your head doing so by pushing through your legs. Let me assure you that every weight I added was challenging. After each round you then did 20 hollow rocks (think your body kind of in a v shape as you rock back and forth). Now if you do the math that means I did 100 of these brutal things. Finally it was split lunges on each side. Naturally you had to keep increasing the weight you were holding each round. And the cardio? 20 kettlebell swings which again means I did 100 in total.

I can appreciate that this doesn’t sound too bad but it was. By time I finished that last kettlebell swing I was soaked with sweat and had no interest in doing the 5km walk home but of course I did the walk. I couldn’t believe how I had thought it was going to be a realtively easy class, it so was not.

After walking home from this not so easy class I rested up for a bit and then it was off on a 10km walk. And for reasons I don’t understand I managed to walk at an really good pace for the entire walk. Let me assure you if it is raining tomorrow I will feel no guilt in not walking 20km during the day.