Butt-Kicking

Posted Aug 31, 2009 by Patty Kim

Updated Aug 31, 2009 at 09:04 PM

I had a looooong week at work last week, and by the time Friday rolled around, I was done. Put a fork in me.

Yeah, I slept for almost 12 hours! Of course, that’s nothing for me.

After all, I hold the all-time sleeping record of 21 hours straight in college. (Why didn’t my roomies worry about me?)

When I finally joined the living Saturday, I needed to do some damage at the gym.

I ran for seven miles in the A/C, but it was still pretty miserable.

You’d think I’d be well-rested and ready to go after 12 hours of sleep. Not so much.

The plan was to lift after that, but I almost went straight home because I was pooped. I managed to talk myself into finishing three exercises and getting back to the comfort of my bed.

As I set up in the free weight room at Lifestyle’s, I heard a knock on the window separating me from the group exercise room.

It was Melissa, my favorite killer trainer. She waved me in to the room where I noticed a group of others running back and forth, forward and backward, across the room.

“Welcome to class!” she greeted.

“What?!”

“It’s kickboxing. Come join us!”

The thought of stomaching an hourlong kickboxing class with Melissa “I’m-Tough-Enough-To-Make-It-On-The-Show-’American-Gladiators’ ” made me want to crap my pants.

But because I’m so competitive—and mentally challenged, as well—I stayed.

People, I hate to admit it, but I almost vomited during class.

Our warm-up consisted of sprints forward and backward across the room. We did a scorpion stretch that felt great.

Then we moved on to squat jumps. All the way across the room. You SUCK, squat jumps! I hate you.

We went through some abs exercises, and by then, I was ready to call it a day.

We hadn’t even gotten to the dang kickboxing yet!

But when we strapped on our gloves and grabbed the mats, that was a good feeling! I did a pretty good job of punching and kicking the heck out of Melissa!

We actually inserted a tabata jump-rope workout.

In other words, 20 seconds of FAST jump-roping and 10 seconds of slow jumping. We did eight intervals for a total of four minutes of jump-roping.

Doesn’t sound that hard right? Then YOU try it!

Let me tell you, when that hour was finally up, I was so thankful I didn’t toss my cookies.

Melissa says I have killer cardio. What can I say?

I’m a masochist.