No Pain, No Gain

Is it vanity or masochism, wonders Karin Brynard, that drives one back to the sweaty trenches in the gym every new year?

- Marlene van Niekerk

My poor old Mum would have keeled right over if she could see me now –on my back in a room full of people, legs up and knees spread wide.

How unbecoming, she’d say. How unladylike and uncouth, lying there like a floozy with your ‘fannygaloo’ pointing at the ceiling. You look like an upturned frog, a spatchcocked roast chicken. Worst of all, you’re paying for it.

“Wider-wider-wider!” the trainer yells. “Stretch! Spread the knees! More. Feel the burn! Adductors must work!”

Adductors-adschmuctors. I’m not even sure I have those and, if I did, where on my body you’d find them. Because my everything is burning.

It’s my first day in an exercise class and I curse it. I signed up in afitofNew Year determination to shed the stuffed python that had settled in around my waist over Christmas. And this class, everyone swore, was the real deal. The trainer is the very best – degrees and certificates galore. She’d transform any blubbery old nag into a sleek, svelte filly. But nobody mentioned the agony involved. To the 10 th degree. My teeth will be ground to stumps long before I can feel my ribs again.