I called the number on the ad, and a nice lady told me that there is a video on their site that I could check out, and that the first time is free for newcomers. Oh boy, I love free stuff. I had a friend who was also interested, but after seeing the video he told me that "it looks a bit lame". I don't know, I liked it.
Even though I'm a programmer, I consider myself as a guy in pretty good shape, I have been playing squash for ~2 years, and have been doing running regularly for ~8 years, I don't drink like an idiot, no drugs, I don't even drink coffee (I know, a programmer is supposed to turn coffee into code, whatever). How bad can a bit of "endurance training" be, right? RIGHT?
Right.
So I arrive at the place, there are about 6 guys besides the trainer, I think it was 3 women, 3 guys. Nothing special about the warmup, running a few laps around the court, indian hopping, something similar to jumping jacks (not sure about the exact translations for these), and so on.
15 minutes
The first exercise was 2 sets of side-hopping to the front wall, then back. Next came 2 sets of spider crawling, then 2 sets of crawling on all fours, but facing the ground, then two sets of the same thing, but with one leg up in the air. I started realizing that I'm probably using some muscles that I haven't used since like, high school, and started looking at the other guys if I'm the only one who's lagging behind. Of course I was. Then two sets of squatting-turning-squatting to the front wall and back.
30 minutes
Not 30 minutes have passed, and I probably used up about 70% of my stamina. I was already looking for opportunities for cheating, so I could save a bit of energy. Obviously the trainer caught me walking a few steps, and I had to go back and do it properly. Not good.
Next exercise, everybody lines up at the wall, the first guy does some leg bending thing, with the left foot in front, second guy does the same, but with the right foot in front, the 3rd guy does some upper body lifting while laying down and facing the ground, the 4th, and 5th guy does the same as the first two, and the 6th is fucked, because he has to run to the other corner, do 1 pushup, run back, 2 situps, run, 3 pushups, run back, 4 situps, and so on until 11. (36 pushups, 30 situps, 12 laps total, if I'm counting it right). I started in the 2nd position, doing the leg bending thing. It wasn't too bad, but every time I stopped to regain a bit of my sanity, I was told "Come on, no stopping, continue".
Okay, switch. I'm in the 3rd position now, doing the upper body lifting thing. I was already thinking about hitting the cancel button, and giving up, but somehow I managed to survive that. Somewhere between the 4th, or 5th spot, my ears clogged up. I'm not shitting you, this actually happened once before, when I played through a squash traning, then went playing soccer for 3 hours, the same thing happened. It's extremely annoying to hear yourself breathing. I made it through somehow but I seriously don't remember how.
45 minutes
6th spot. Oh god. The trainer explained the exercise again, making sure I got it. I tried negotiating something like "Is it possible to go only until 5?", only to receive the look, that said "did you just seriously try that". Okay, no negotations. It was worth a try. I figured out how cleverly evil this exercise is, the closer I get to finishing it, the more times I have to do the pushups and situps (I'm brilliant, I know). Every time I did the run, I was told that "no jogging, this is supposed to be running". When I was about the 7th lap, I was told not to slack, since the more I struggle with it, the longer the others have to do their exercises, adding a very nice touch of psychological warfare into the mix. Also, I was running in front of the others, who could nicely observe how much I just struggle with the stuff. It was very convinient.
Cooldown
After finishing it, I gave up. No way I can stand back into the 1st position (that would have been the last step in the exercise though), so I just said that I need a bit of time in the bathroom. Do you know that feeling when you have to take a blood sample, and the nurse cannot find a vein, so she starts just stabbing around, until she finds one, and your blood sugar is already low since you were forbidden to eat before it, then you start seeing stars?
Oh and I also had to vomit. There was only one time when I threw up because of alcohol, and I had the same feeling, I didn't know this was even possible. The trainer guy came out to check on me, asking if I was alright, and if I could come back. I told him if I get up from this chair, I'm going to throw up on the floor. "Nah, that's alright, that's what the cleaning staff is for, you have to start somewhere, you were doing nicely so far". I didn't really want to turn a friday night into a nightmare for the cleaning staff, so I said no and thanked for the occasion. It would have made an awesome pickup line with the ladies though:
Random girl: So, what do you do in your freetime?
Me: Well, nothing special, I just go to a military grade endurance training nowadays
Random girl: Wow, how is it going?
Me: Very good, last time I was doing so well, I puked on the trainer
So it was bad?
Nah, I'm already thinking about how I could get some of my friends into a bet about who chickens out first. But seriously, it was more like I heavily overestimated myself, and underestimated what this is about, I might try it again after a year. In case you are in Hungary/Budapest, and interested in it, you can find more info here.