What does it take to break the endless cycle of work, wine and Waitrose ready meals? An intensive course of military-style fitness that promises to turn us from fat into fighting fit in eight weeks. Personal trainer Adam Mansfield of AM:PM is an ex-Royal Marine commando who was in charge of putting new recruits through their paces and plans to do the same with us. Can his intensive programme of four hour-long outdoor training sessions a week whip two of the Gallery team into shape in two months? Follow our mud, sweat and tears blog and see how we do….
Day 1: Monday
Location: Millbrook
We’re meeting our personal trainer – all 6’5” of honed muscle – down at Millbrook to get a record of our starting weights, fitness levels and body fat percentages. It’s not good news. I’m nearly a third fat – 28%, but it shouldn’t surprise me, all that toast and Toblerone had to take a toll somewhere. My training partner is 25.9% which, for a man, is straying dangerously close to ‘obese’ territory. At least we’ve got something to work with.
We run through a couple of exercises to give Adam an idea of our fitness levels; a fiendish ‘bleep test’ which involves running between two markers until we lose pace, push ups, sit ups and then a timed run around Millbrook field. We can’t believe how wrecked we feel when we finish.
At home later on, I feel sick when I think that was just a tester session and we’ve got a proper one the next day. Why am I putting myself through this? Well to be honest, left to myself I probably wouldn’t. I complain about my tummy and my flabby arms, but never get round to doing anything about it. I don’t have the time or the motivation for the gym and I lose enthusiasm if I don’t see results quickly. So an intensive programme that guarantees results is just the answer. It’s just whether I can take the pace….
Starting stats
Gallery victim no 1
Female
Weight: 9 stone 13 pounds
Body fat percentage: 28%
Gallery victim no 2
Male
Weight: 15 stone 2 pounds
Body fat percentage: 25.9%
What we did – Session 1 – Milbrook Park
- Meet, greet and welcome
- Measurements and individuals body statistics
- Fitness assessments (Multi Stage Fitness Test (bleep test), press ups, sit ups, quarter mile run, pull ups)
- Cool down and stretch
For more details about Adam’s personal training courses, give him a call on 07797 743742 or check out his Facebook page AMPM Training.
