I use to think I am fairly fit until I came face to face with the reality that fitness goes hand in hand with flexibility. Just like any other normal ladies, I also had friends with whom we would encourage each other to exercise and sing along to the "Summer bodies are Made in Winter melody". I always preferred jogging to static exercise and would do some sprinting at the end of every jogging session for toned muscles.
One day while I was minding my own business, one of my friends who I used to jog with called and told me she found a soccer/football player guy who is open to training with all four of us. We used to start our training in the sports field which was just a 5-minute walk from our residence. Well, I agreed to the arrangement, I mean who would not want a free coach or personal trainer? Besides, football players' training gives a lean muscle look which is something I always admired in ladies who play soccer. We wasted no time and all four of us joined the guy the following day.
As soon as we got to the field, the guy instructed us to repeat after him and we had to do all the High Knee Skip, Skater Jumps, Burpees and Bunny Hops (looking like human rabbits). After 10 minutes of panting, we relaxed and I thought we were taking a break. To me, this was the first session of the training. But to my surprise, we were told that was a warm-up session and we still need to stretch before the main exercise which will have more reps. Ehh! okay, I thought stretching was going to be a bit relaxing until I heard him shouting: 'Carry it, it is your leg!". I gave a bombastic side eye to my friend who was on my left, and she was lying flat on grass like an African Rock Python that just swallowed a whole buffalo.
I wanted to laugh until I realised I was also not doing it correctly, the only difference is I posing like a lizard (Komodo dragon) still standing with my four limbs while she was on her tummy. When I turned my neck to my right side, my other friend who was a bit more flexible was in a frog position like she is about to lay eggs. The guy himself was supporting his whole body with just a left fist and probably the big toe we could not see inside his sneakers. Yoh! He was leaning to one side of his body while the right hand and leg were off the ground. He went on to lift and stretch his leg right foot towards his face.
We had to copy that to create a nice waistline! Well, I was not sure how this was going to work before even getting rid of the muffin tops, but all I kept hearing was: "Carry it - it is your leg!" As we were all giggling, our fourth friend who was standing like a Meerkat voiced out to say: "What kind of exercise is this?" - she looked so irritated and she added, "no wonder South African man football will never win the World Cup - so this is how our football players train in the field?".
We all laughed including the guy and seeing that we were struggling with "Carry it - it is your leg! training session, he decided to switch back to what we did the first 10 minutes. But that was after giving us a lecture on having to work on flexibility in our exercise routine. I disappeared into thin air after a week of "Carry it - it is your leg!. I got huge respect and a 5-second bow to ladies who play football and I carried my two legs back to my normal jogging routine.
