Do you speak Sports?

This week was my very first workout session. I have never ever been to a real workout in my life. But since I am determined to shed these pounds, I decided to better make friends with the gym now. So, I signed up for this gym class that meets three times a week for an hour.
My alarm rang at 5.30 am. I immediately knew that this would be bad. Very bad. How can anybody work out at that time of the day? But it was the only time that fit into my schedule. The rest of my day is planned out with… well… other important stuff. So, I dragged myself to the gym in the middle of the night.

To my surprise, we didn’t really get to work out at first. A nice lady sat down with me and the other three guys that were crazy enough to get up at this time and handed us a sheet of paper with lots of numbers. These were the results of the fitness test we had to take the week before. I would love to give you more details about this fitness test, but I can’t because I almost passed out and lost all memory about this experience of torture.

So, here I am sitting in the middle of a gym with this list of numbers trying to follow a lady that goes on and on about body composition and oxygen consumption, about relative perceived exertion and respiratory exchange ratio. I have absolutely no idea what she is talking about and try to make sense of all the abbreviations on my sheet of paper. What are “Relative METS”? What does “FEV1/FVC” stand for? We hadn’t even started working out yet, and I was already lost.

Excuse me, can you explain the RevHR to me again?

Let’s see. Oh, that’s a typo. Haha. That would be really bad if that value was the right one.

Yep. Turns out it wasn’t a typo.

Apparently, all these numbers showed that I am in bad bad BAD shape. Dude! I don’t need a sheet of numbers to tell me that. I can look at my reflection in a shopping window and I would know that.

But finally, we were about to work out. I picked that thing that looked remotely like a bike. It had more buttons and lights on it than my tv remote control. So, I started paddling. Every now and then the coach would stop by and check my heart rate and then disappear again.

Hmmm. I was just about to like that exercise, sitting there on my high-tech bike and paddling comfortably when this coach lady came over to me and started shouting numbers. I was confused. I thought we were done with the numbers part. What on earth does she want from me?

23, 138, 50

I was lost again. And here she came back:

23, 138, 50

I wanted to say to her what I always say to my students: "Speak in complete sentences, please! Where is your verb? And I also wouldn’t mind some nouns and I need at least one or two motivating adjectives if you want me to go on over here on my high tech bike."

But I didn’t dare to say anything and she kept on yelling: 50, 50, 50!!!

I realized that this whole sports thing was like a foreign language to me. She might as well have yelled “cincuenta” or fifty in Chinese.

In my desperation, I thought, maybe she is talking about the breaths I should take per minute and I started panting along. Judging from the weird look on her face, that wasn’t what she meant.

She kept on saying

23, 138, 50,

23, 138, 50

23!!!, 138!!!, 50!!!

until I finally dared to ask:

Excuse me? What does that mean?

These are your training zones.

My what?

Well, don’t you remember the numbers from your sheet?

Uhm, no. Was I supposed to memorize them?

Your heart rate is too low. And off she went again.

Okaaaaay. So? What now?

My heart rate is too low. Does she mean I need to bring it up? But how can I increase my heart rate? Usually, my heart just joyfully skips along and I never tried to influence it. Can you really influence it at all? I mean, if you really could, why would people need pacemakers or get heart attacks. Why would I always get my heart broken???

I was just about to start pondering about deep philosophical questions concerning my heart and life in general... when I realized, she might want me to paddle harder. But what a crazy idea! I mean, it’s not like I am going anywhere on this high-tech bike-thingy. So why would I paddle harder? But then I looked at her and could see her face and before she could even start mouthing the word "fifty" again, I paddled harder.

Yep, turns out that's what she wanted me to do. Two minutes later, time was up.

Now, I am back home. I just came out of the shower and think, I will lay down again. Just for a little bit... no longer than 3, maybe 4 hours. After this workout, I am physically and mentally exhausted.