I’m not unfit: I can dance round a carnival route for two hours and still have energy left, perform a four-minute song-and-dance routine without breaking a sweat, I can engage in an intense sword-fight whilst delivering a heroic monologue without pause, and I can (usually!) partake in a one-hour Zumba class without getting too out of breath.
Why, then, when challenged with a 10-minute ‘fat-busting solution’ DVD, do I find myself gasping for air well before the ten minutes is up?
Fitness DVDs, I’ve decided, are not designed to make you feel fitter. In fact, I think their aim is to make you feel as unfit as possible, so that you go out and buy more fitness DVDs!
Two minutes in, I’m planking, I’m hurting, I want to lie down.
Three minutes, I’m doing a strange, twisted version of ‘put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!’
Seven minutes, I lose the will to continue and decide that the floor is the best place for me.
Ten minutes: “Good job!”
I look up from my face-down sprawl to see a cheery American giving me a thumbs up. She doesn’t look tired. Either she’s had a coffee-and-cake break between each segment or else I’m just bitter at discovering I’m not quite as fit as I thought…I suspect it is the latter.
For beginners, she said; I dread to think what she puts her advanced consumers through.
A few hours later, I was working my proverbial socks off in a three-hour rehearsal: singing, dancing, acting and barely stopping for so much as a swig of water.
It repaired a lot of the damage done by the day’s earlier fitness failings and it got me thinking. Fitness DVDs, I decided, are like clothes – it’s all about finding the right style for you, and not taking it to heart if what you’ve bought doesn’t quite fit. Unfortunately, unlike clothes, you can’t return them after you’ve tried them!
So, the next day, the fitness DVD went into a drawer to join its many predecessors.
I don’t intend to take it out again.
Approach With Caffeine 