Bodily Exercise Profiteth (a) Little

One of the benefits of living on a campus with nearly 4000 young people is the constant motivation you sense to be active and even a feeling of guilt for being so out-of-shape. This impression comes home to you when you get up at 6:30am each morning to set out on your daily "walk-about" the campus only to find that teams of students have already been up for almost an hour (since the sunrise) and are vigorously engaged in battle upon the soccer pitch that occupies the better part of the center of campus. If only I had the energy and stamina to be out there running around and kicking that ball! 

Well, Sandy must have picked-up on those unspoken expressions by means of her feminine intuition. How do I know? She hired one of the seniors on campus to be our personal trainer! His name is Aleksey. He's a national judo champion from Uzbekistan. Not only is he in spectacular physical shape, he also speaks four languages -- Uzbek, Russian, Korean and English -- so his mind is as fit as his body! Now, every Wednesday and Friday evenings, we meet Aleksey in the campus health club -- located on the basement level of Shalom Dormitory -- for our training sessions. 

They begin with warm-ups and a series of stretches. We then proceed to running on the treadmill for about 12-15 minutes at various levels of speed. Aleksey is working us up to 8 km/h, but at this point -- three weeks into our training -- we're doing well to make it to 6 km/h -- a nice jogging pace. Then comes the squats. Three sets of 10 rep's each by the end of which the tops of my thighs are beginning to burn with pain. But, we're only about half-way through our program.  

Next, Aleksey demonstrates three floor exercises. The first one requires us to lie on our backs, pull our heads up at 30 degrees, fix our eyes on a point on the wall, and then lift our legs up and then lower them down -- sloooooowwwwwly -- until they are about two inches off the floor, and then lift them back up again. We repeat this exercise 6 to 8 rep's for two sets. Now, lie back and bring your heels toward your bottom so that your knees are raised up about 12-14 inches; extend your arms placing your hands on the tops of your thighs and then raise up siding your hands up toward your knee caps and hold it there! Gently, lie back and repeat this exercise now 6 to 8 times for two sets. 

Tired yet? I forgot to tell you that in between each set of exercises you are to get up and walk around in order to keep yourself loose all the while controlling your breathing with long and deep inhalations followed by slow exhalations. Now, back down on the floor -- this time on your stomach. Bring your knees up under you with your palms flat on the floor in front. Gradually extend your legs back while you arch your stomach in and your head back almost forming a C with your body. Got the picture? Now do that 6 to 8 times for two sets. 

We're nearly through. At this point, we move to the exercise machines. The first one requires us to sit in a chair and place our feet on a platform that is connected to a set of pulleys. The cable running through the pulleys is connected to a series of weights that allows you to increase and decrease the amount of weight that your legs will be lifting as you push the platform with your feet. We start with 20 kilos and gradually move up to 30 and then 40. Finally, we head over to the last apparatus. This one is a bit tough to describe – not because it is particularly complex, but because it requires your body to bend and stretch in ways that are not a part of the normal range of physical activities you might encounter in an ordinary day. 

Here’s the scene – first you place your thighs on pads that are set at about a 45 degree angle. Then, you place your heels up against a set of rollers. This essentially locks the lower half of your body into a slanted position. Now arch your back up with your hands raised up in the surrender posture (because at this point in the training you are ready to say, “I give up!” – but you don’t). Instead, you slowly lower the upper half of your body down farther and farther until you are now making an A frame with the highest point of the A being your bottom – you feet form on base and your head is the other base of the A. Now, raise-up slowly (inhaling along the way) back up to the arching position. Repeat this movement 6 to 8 times for two sets. 

Did you survive? Aleksey keeps a close watch on us so we don’t overdo it. One time last week, though, Sandy couldn’t make it to the training session, so I was working on my own with Aleksey. Another one of my international faculty colleagues, Alex from Australia, was also doing a workout in the gym on some nearby equipment. He happened to overhear me say to Aleksey that I wasn’t feeling as sore as I thought I might be this the level of training I had been through thus far. Alex, looking out for my best interests, shouted over, “Don’t say that Mate! Yaur trainer will pushya even haawrrder!” 

Needless to say, that was the last time I made any comments about not feeling sore. In fact, it was the last time I've not been feeling sore as I’m finding that this bodily exercise is profiting – a little. So far, though, a very little.