by Hector Mackenzie
REMEMBER that song called Tubthumping by anarcho-punk rockers, Chumbawamba?
Love it or loathe it, it's one of those infectious tunes that invades your brain with or without an invitation and refuses to leave.
While it's no surprise to learn that Tubthumping was the band's biggest ever hit, it's somewhat alarming to realise that was 14 years ago. I expect you know it.
The chanted chorus runs thus, "I get knocked down, but I get up again / You're never going to keep me down / I get knocked down but I get up again / You're never going to keep me down." It's a simple, defiant never-say-die anthem if ever there was one. Their politically active singer got himself in all the papers by pouring a jug of water over former deputy PM John Prescott's head, you may recall.
Nine times out of ten, slightly irritating though it now is, that song will gee me up to keep going when physical exhaustion dictates lying down in a dark corner would be the better the option.
Everyone has a pick-me-up tune. Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road, Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon, Elvis Costello's Oliver's Army and Shed 7's Going for Gold all do it for me. along with a host of others. I'd recommend them all for your gym/getting-through-the-day playlist.
None of them, though, was going to pick me up from the dizzying setback of last Tuesday's Move It to Lose It weigh-in at Dingwall Leisure Centre. Within a split second of standing on the scales, it became clear that the 2lbs I'd lost the week before had mysteriously reappeared. Curses!
Granted, I was still 4lb up since starting the programme in mid-November but that was of no consolation whatsoever. If I feel I've failed, no one is harder on me than myself. I haven't felt that grumpy since my last pay freeze.
The usually uplifting half-hour group workout that followed was, frankly, torture. Crankiness, low self-esteem and press-ups don't tend to be a great combination.
Was I the only one of the 1,500-plus folk signed up to the six-week High Life Highland shape up for Christmas scheme to have backslidden? (Do tell!) It felt like it.
After a couple of days of moping and a moment of weakness involving a trifle, I decided it was time to snap out of it. It didn't help that my local gym was going to be closed for the rest of the week (what is it with swimming pools and roofs in Ross-shire?) or that wherever I looked (including the gym of Inverness Leisure Centre) I kept seeing Christmas menus, adverts for chocolates or entire supermarket aisles dedicated to heart-attack-in-a-box confectionary and cakes. Talk about kicking a man when he's down...
After the humiliation of my coordination-free body attack class, I decided it was time to try something different: kettlebells.
The kettlebell looks a bit like a cannonball or a curling stone with a handle and it's used to perform "ballistic exercises" that combine cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training.
The basic movements, such as the swing, snatch and the clean and jerk, engage the whole body at once in a way that mimics real world activities such as shovelling or farm work.
Funny, isn't it? As a kid I used to shovel horse manure, clean school toilets (don't ask), kick a ball against a wall endlessly for hours and cycle in to Inverness from Munlochy for a holiday job in Dixons. I didn't think anything of it. Weight was never an issue, oddly enough. Now I scurry to the gym at lunchtime and swing cannonballs between my legs in my spare time...
Anyway...kettlebells. Burly Russian musclemen hurl them around in eye-watering 175lb weights. I decided to start with a more modest eight-pounder.
The first session the swing technique left something to be desired and I awoke the next morning with an aching back.
Actually that was a bit like the manure incident, but to be fair there was a ton of the stuff to shift with a single shovel.
The second time, studying the teacher's technique, it all started to make sense.
For the girly warm-up, I'm all at sea as usual, getting seemingly simple moves horribly wrong. Familiar territory.
When it comes to the swings round the head, round the waist between the legs it kind of makes sense. There's perhaps a long-established neural link to those days of shovelling, well, you know what.
Whatever, I intend to finish this programme smelling of roses.
All together now, "I get knocked down but I get up again..."
