While eating correctly is approximately 80% of the battle to losing my weight, enough cannot be said of the importance of simultaneously exercising with Dwayne Davis.

 

I wish everyone could work out with Dwayne at least once for then I would get the sympathy which I believe I so richly deserve.

 

Let me say this before I continue, working out with Dwayne on a routine basis is incredible.  He is the most faithful, most uplifting, most supportive human being I know.  He allows shows up, he shows up early, he creates the workout routines and does every exercise he asks me to do BEFORE I do it.  He is a marvel and my friend.  THAT SAID, allow me to continue.

 

Dwayne is trying to kill me.

 

First of all he STRONGLY suggested that we meet at FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!!!  Yes, this ungodly time is when Dwayne is at his best.  I try to ignore the fact that this is the only time we can meet on a regular basis as it feels as if it is killing me by inches. 

 

Dwayne must have a sleeping disorder which plauges him starting around 3:00am.  He is always at the gym at 4:45am despite the fact that it doesn't even open until 5:00am (he has a key).  He hounds me to show up early as if 5:00am isn't early.  I am usually on time... but never early.

 

We meet three day a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday on which we alternately work out chest, arms and legs.

 

The first day I met with him I was foggy, groggy, tired, wore out and beat up and that was BEFORE the workout started.

 

He started me on the treadmill and then put me through my paces.  He asked about halfway through the workout, "How are you at sit-ups?" to which I replied that I hadn't done a sit-up in ten years.  Undaunted he said, "Well, you're going to today."  And I did... six of them.  Six excrutiatingly slow, agonizing sit-ups on not a flat bench, no, that wouldn't be bad enough, it was on a decline bench.  With my feet nearly straight above my head (so it seemed at the time) I felt as if the weight of the world was upon my chest as I struggled to make my upper body vertical.  I wheezed, I puffed, I squealed stuck-hog like... while Dwayne dispasionately looked on and upon my falling weakly back in despair he helpfully laid his hand upon my shoulder and forced me to continue on.

 

I lie not when I say that completing that workout was both the hardest thing I have ever done and the most courageous.  I thought my heart had stopped several times during that eternity of an hour as we completed a circuit which exercised every muscle of my body and shredded them at the same time.

 

I would have been pleased with the level of pain I was in had I known what the following days held.  The former was a mere shadow of the latter as I found out ever so forcefully when I casually sat up in bed the following day.  A bolt of white-hot pain shot through my abdomen, raced around my frame and lodged everywhere.  I hurt so badly.  I couldn't sneeze, cough or even yawn without intense pain.  I hurt so bad I knew there was a problem, perhaps I had ruptured, twisted, sprained or dislocated something so in a panic I called Dwayne.  "IT HURTS!" I yelled, waiting with great confidence for the condolences if not the outright apologies I so rightfully deserved.  But no... no, it was not to be.

 

I heard what I could not have heard, what I definately should not have heard.  It was a chuckle, a laugh, an outright guffaw followed by, "All right! We'll do it all over again tomorrow.'

 

The next day was worse.  Far worse.  Worse than anything I could ever have believed possible.

 

In the few weeks that immediately followed, I would leave the gym so weak I sometimes could barely lift my feet to clear curbs.  My arms were dead weights on the steering wheel, so tired they would barely get me home.  Many times I thought I was going to throw up and always would be so tired and weak I would fall heavily asleep the moment I sat down at home.  I thought I was going to die.

 

But soon, the pain, at least the long-term pain, faded.  Now, strangely, I enjoy it, for the most part and like to see the progress made in all aspects of our exercises.

 

For what its worth, I can now bench 270lb, can curl 105lb 7 times, can do 30 sit-ups with relative ease, can do 35 push-ups and for the first time in my life can do two consecutive pull-ups.

 

Is it worth it?  Yes.  Would I do it over again? NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!!!