Literally the hardest workout in my life

I had the hardest workout in my life on Wednesday night.

I was a little bored with my normal workout regiment that night, and thought I gave the power circuit class a try. How hard could a gym class be, right? I guess I didn't understand what circuit training was, and boy I was in for a "treat"!

When I walked into the studio, there were only 2 other students and my personal trainer Juan, who was the class instructor. Juan was a friendly young fellow.

Juan prepared the studio by laying out exercise equipments around in a big circle: sets of weights next to a bosu, a high step with weights next to it, a pair of punching gloves and shields, a jumping rope, a set of swinging ropes, 4 hurdle hops, etc. There were totally 11 exercise stations. Meanwhile, another lady came in, so there were four of us in the class. I heard that normally there were six to seven people in the class.

Juan explained that we worked on a workout for 45 seconds, then took a quick break and move on to the next workout. When we were done with a circuit, we would start from the first workout again.

I started with bicep curl on a bosu. It was relatively easy, as I have done that before. The trick here was to be balanced on the bosu, and it was OK if I lost balance and stepped on the floor.

My next item was the hurdle hops. 4 innocent looking 1 foot high hurdles were placed in a straight line a few feet apart from each other. I hopped quite high and with my feet apart, so I saw myself looking funny in the mirror. Oh, after a couple of rounds my heart started pounding hard, and I could hardly catch my breath! I couldn't believe that it was just the beginning of the class and I was already worn out and wanted to quit.

Next, I did triceps extension, punching, shoulder press, jumping rope, swinging ropes, step up shoulder press, and crunches on a fitness ball. My heart was still pounding hard from the hurdle hop exercise, so everything became fifty times more challenging. At the end of the first circuit, I was already done, but it was only less than 10 minutes into the class. I was so depressed and thought I was going to eventually pass out. Juan was going around the room to give instructions:

"Feet together, jump, jump, jump."
"Come on, full extension."
"Give me a hard punch, you can do better than that."

I took every opportunity to slow down and take a break, when Juan was working on punches with someone else. I wish there were more people in the class, so he wouldn't focus so much on me.

I was huffing and puffing the rest of the class, and looking like totally out of shape. We did three more circuits. 20 minutes before the end of the class, Juan took pity on us and started the cool down early. I was more than a little relieved.  I wasn't sure if I would go back to the class again, but people reassured that the next class would be easier.

The next two days I stayed home and nurse myself. My neck hurt, my back hurt, my abs hurt, my torso hurt, my shoulders hurt, my arms hurt, my thighs hurt and my legs hurt. When I tried to get up from sitting, my thigh muscles gave in and my knees shake! When I laid down I didn't want to move, as my body felt so heavy, and any kind of movement brought pain and suffering.

The stiffness and painfulness started to subside on Sunday, and I could go back to the gym and happily resume my boring workouts.