I arrived at the gym all freshed and pumped up to go… In fact, I was so happy, Andy asked what was wrong with me, which is always a joyful start to any bouncy lovely session.

Tonights session was one of my favourites so far, for many reasons, and Wednesdays should always be this brilliant,forever, by law.

We started off with the usual array of on-the-spot madness, where Alexis barks random things at us to do on-the-spot. I love Alexis for many reasons, but when he tells us to run “FAST” on the spot, and then wanders off for a little chat, forgetting us poor bastards are still running as fast as we can without moving, I want a wild llama to come in and eat his head. It’s a habit of his which is really fun to watch, but not when you’re victim to it. He sometimes rings his mates when we’re doing the plank and forgets us until about 11 hours later when we’re all dead from the neck down.

Whilst we were buggering around on the spot, Bruce arrived, late, dressed as a cross between a Ghostbuster and a hostage. The lovely big red overalls were quite an odd thing to wear around Singapore, but when Bruce said he’d parachuted straight in it became clearer. He took about 15 minutes getting changed, which was probably a good idea, because we just ran around the ring kicking ourselves in the arse, followed by lunge twisty things, then hitler walks where we try and knee ourselves in the head, followed by gay skips and some silly arse sideways run with legs flailing around… It’s called the maccarena or something french/welsh.

Next was our circuits, which the strangely infectious-yet-I-always-want-to-kill-him-by-my-third-burpee Alexis made us do at the start of the session instead of the end… I instantly suspected he had something up his wizards sleeve! 3 lots of 10 pushups, crunches, mountain climbers and f*cking burpees, with a 1-minute break between the 3 sets. It was good to get these out of the way early on, but with a memory like Alexis has, you never know whether you may end up doing them again at the end because he forgot or because he’s on the phone ordering more happy juice.

After the circuits, we were at those hoseropes again, skipping… on the spot… there’s a real theme here. All this on-the-spot training… The 10-second bursts were there again. Actually, this is where Alexis forgot we were going “FAST” while he popped off for a chat, not the earlier stuff (too lazy to take it out, so pretend he did both). Hurling those ropes around at such a speed it a death sport in itself, it’s like a huge blender and things start to blow off when you really go for it. (Actually, that wasn’t the rope, it was Mark). The hoseropes are growing on me, and you know what they say – No pain, no gain. Waddaloadaballs!!!!!

I developed another it-could-only-happen-to-me type skill tonight. Since the start of this training, I always seem to be the one getting stuck in the ropes getting in and out, because the big fellas use the third rope, and I use the second rope, which means I get stuck. However, my newest brilliance whilst getting in is holding the second rope down, but it slipping on my sweaty hand and twatting me straight in the nuts. This happened THREE times tonight resulting in REAL pain! Between the three lots of that, and the handbrake incident on Monday, I can’t imagine i’m going to see this week out with two balls.

We moved onto heavy bag work, where I was teamed up with Thomas. Thomas is a delightful chap who everyone calls “Tommy Gunn” on account of his oversized man arms. For those of you that haven’t had the joys of the Rocky boxset, Tommy Gunn is the ungrateful bollox in Rocky V who Rocky (naturally) kicks the crap out of at the end of the film – only this time in a car park. Having just googled “Tommy Gunn” due to my obsession with accurate research, Tommy Gunn is also an action figure and a porn star, so big congratulations to our Thomas for his successes, and our thanks for finding time in your busy porn schedule to do some boxing with us. In all seriousness, Thomas isn’t actually on steroids like everyone says, he actually underwent the surgeons knife last year to have his legs swapped with his arms, so now he has leg sized arms, and arm sized legs. You’ll understand why Thomas is getting it in the neck in about three paragraphs!!!!

Anyway, the heavy bag work I was on about before I sidetracked myself into Thomas bashing…. I somehow ended up with 10oz gloves which felt really weird and light. Andy had us doing 2-minute sessions of just jabs, then just crosses, then jab cross, then punchouts. Exhausting yet still one of my favourite circuits.

After this, we were into the ring for more shadow boxing cum padwork. Shadow boxing with our partners, whilst they hit our gloves/pads and we shouted instructions at them. This was good fun too, and we are getting nearer to sparring, which apparently starts after Chinese New Year!!

The last exercise, which is normally the plank is a new exercise which Thomas brought to us. This exercise far exceeds the humble burpee in its complete and utter stupid and pointlessness, and was invented by a man that history remembers as Mr Stupid; Johnny Stupid to his friends. The exercise is to get into the plank position (press up kind of position, but on elbows rather than hands) and push yourself up into a push up position. This may sound easy, but given that you are working your core and your arms and shoulders at the same time, this exercise is HARD HARD HARD!!!! It is also, however, the stupidest, most pointless invention ever ever in the world, second only to the heated toilet seat. This exercise will never be any use to anyone and should be outlawed under yet another stupid agreement made somewhere in middle Europe. I am guessing by now you realise that I hate it, and Alexis was like a child with a new toy when he saw the drunken, collapsed, useless fool this made me become as he near collapsed with laughter watching me.

In fact, in my last collapsing moments of that horrible stupid exercise, Alexis, through his evil laugh did say “I’ll read about this on your blog”.

Well, I hope you did Boss

Into week 4 we pop, and a new month is upon us – already 2010 is disappearing all too bloody fast. The new years resolutions are doing pretty well: the ciggies are gone – last one in 2009, the new obsession with fitness is well underway, and the only alcohol i’ve consumed this year was when it was force fed to me under duress in Cambodia…. The other new years resolutions to include more swearing in my diet have also been spurred on by my obsession with fitness and my new friends at Vanda, all of whom have been struck down by the tourettes virus that seems to be making its way around camp.

So, up and out at 7am this morning for a lovely run… i’ve got a nice 2.5 mile circuit that I enjoy, so I decided to do it at pace this morning. Now, when I say pace, anyone that has read my last Saturday blog must remember that it’s not necessarily pace to anyone else, just to me.. and to me, it bloody hurts regardless. My speed is relative to my stump type legs, so my left-right-left-right ratio is just as fast as the normal length legged man, hence the pain. I got home cursing the world because of the pain it has caused me, and sweat all over the place – an unavoidable habit that always impresses the wife, especially when I make small lakes around the apartment for her to find later on.

I was bloody knackered after my run, so went straight to the shitty food section of the cupboard where the healthy carbs live. Breakfast was a mixture of oatmeal, muesli, yoghurt, bluberries and some wheatgerm that I found in the fridge. Not that I know what it tastes like, but it was like eating the gravel off the bottom of a fish tank! I forced it down regardless, as I knew the benefits would be better than the enjoyment factor. It was a few hours later that I realised this ‘roughage’ would no doubt become more popular when travel is powered by natural waste, because if I had a plane powered by what this concoction had pushed through, i’d be writing this blog from the Carribean!

Anyway… enough of that shite….

I got down to Havelock having driven my nice new shiny second-hand car there for the first time and saving the extortionate rip-off taxi tossers fee. Yes, of course the car cost more than a load of taxi rides, but I could sweat where I wanted to… Actually, I couldn’t, but more about that later…..

Warm up was the usual 8 minutes of arsing around: jogging on the spot, with super-speedy bursts, star-jumps and hokey-cokey type forward-backward shuffles, that for some reason, I can never get right. I get all fidgety when i’m doing stuff on the spot – it’s like you’re not really trying very hard or something… it feels lazy. I can’t imagine there ever being much call for any “on-the-spot” events in the olympics any time soon… Although, 100-metres on the stop could be quite entertaining, and if you ever did have an on-the-spot olympics, you could reduce the stadium to the size of a small tennis court, and everyone could have their own on-the-spot olympic stadium in their garden, and host their own olympic events at cocktail partys! How could would that be??? Actually, it would be really crap, and if I had any sense i’d delete that whole section.

Next up was skipping with the hosepipes… If you can imagine a length of hosepipe, with a rolling pin at either end, then you’ll get the idea. Alistair, one of normal height people, enjoys twatting himself around the back of the head with his skipping prowess, so there is always a positive side to everything. To be perfectly honest, he has one of those backs of head that was made for being twatted with a rope. We skipped at normal pace, with Andy barking something that sounded like “fast” every now and again, where we all tried to rotate the big feckers at a faster pace without slicing our own heads off. Anyone who has ever seen the most excellent sitcom “Father Ted” will obviously remember Father Jack, sitting in the corner of the room shouting “Arse”, “Feck”, “Drink”… Well, that’s pretty much what Andy reminded me off, except he hasn’t got white hair. Luckily it’s not just me that hates these ropes – they’re a bugger to grip with hand wraps on, and quite hard to sustain… Nevertheless, I tried a speed rope halfway through as mine was “broken”, and I found I couldn’t use it, so it went back to the hosepipe again.. thou shalt not be beaten by hoserope. I realised halfway through that my left hand had gone numb due to my wraps being on too tight, so that was a welcome break and another reminder that half-man-half-dwarf should probably stick to easier sports, like running on-the-spot

Next up was our heavy bag work. Tonights fun was punchouts consisting of 15-second, 30-second and 1-minute rounds, with about 30-seconds break. Punchouts are basically when you stand face on to the bag and punch it as hard and fast as you can. Very knackering, but I do enjoy these.

After that, we pairred off in the ring, and hit our opponent in the head. Alexis enjoyed demonstrating this by hitting me in the head before he’d given us the instructions. I think he read the bit in my previous blog where I called him a bollox, and he was getting his revenge! We did this for three lots of two minute rounds, the same as our fights will be. This was quite challenging for the guys newer than me, as co-ordination in these drills is tough. There were a couple of good headshots that went in by accident, and probably a few more on purpose in retaliation!

Last up was our circuits, which were now up to 3 sets of 10 pushups, 10 squats, 10 crunches and 10 fcking burpees, three rounds. So, 30 lots of everything, with a 1 minute break between sets (90 of everything in total). I was absolutely bolloxed at this stage, and feeling the effects from my early morning run. Alexis is always at his happiest when he sees us in pain, so he was literally singing when he saw me collapsing in a heap of my own sweat!

The final nail in the Snelly Balboa coffin was the 2 lots of 1 minute plank…. I managed it, but cursed every person i’d ever seen in my life, including on tele, to help keep me planked. It did work, and I apologise to all of you. I shall write letters to those people from the tele.

I walked out of the gym a shadow of the former half-a-man I was upon entrance, squelching as I walked due to the sweat collecting socks I was wearing. If you ever need to collect your own sweat, purchase Adidas towelling type socks, as they hold close to eight gallons in each sock, and make you sound like you have your own personal lake in each shoe. I wasn’t originally sure why this would ever be a good thing, and you are probably reading this thinking i’m an eejit, but if you are on a really long run with no water breaks, i.e. robber, illegal immigrant, all-round bad bastard, then you may need to find your own water whilst hiding out in deserts or cupboards. So, if you are on the run, wear Adidas socks! You’ll never die of thirst! I can’t vouch for their ability to filter sand though, so careful you don’t choke if you are in the desert. Also, hiding in a cupboard probably won’t generate as much sweat as you’ll, so try some on-the-spot exercises when you need additional fluid,

I got in the car, and remembered that because it’s a shiny new second-hand car that I didn’t want to soak the seats with sweat. Before I left, I cut a bin bag in half so I could sit on it, and retain all the sweat neatly in my crotch area rather than the seat (btw, that was a finding as opposed to a pre-planned activity). The bag idea, I thought to myself, was quite ingenious until I went around a corner a little too fast, and nearly lost a bollock on the handbrake due to the slippy lake I was sitting in…

It was all too much for poor old me, and Monday had to bugger off with all the other bad Mondays i’ve discarded to hell. I was in bed at 10pm dreaming of fluffy clouds and bacon.