Stumps strikes again!
OK, so by now we all remember Stumps: she of no co-ordination, balance or, as it now seems, common sense. Bless. She won't mind Gym Ninja saying this, as she's fallen over/spilled stuff/dropped things enough times to know this herself.
Now Stumps bought a great big tub of Maximuscle Promax Diet (see links to the right of the blog for details) and was super keen to try the new flavour (strawberry). yesterday, Gym Ninja received a phone call from Stumps....
"Hiya....er, you know this Promax Diet stuff? Now this may seem like a silly question questions about it, but........" Said Stumps, a rummaging noise going on in the background as she spoke.
"Before you say it, don't even SAY anything stupid such as..'Does it come with a scoop' because if you do then you are an absolute bimbo!" Retorted Gym Ninja.
*silence*
"Er...how did you know what I was going to ask?" Answered Stumps...
*sigh*
"Well, in boxes of Horse Feed you can often be looking for a scoop ages and then don't find one!", She attempted to justify.
Oh please! Horse feed and quality whey protein? You link them both?
All excited about her new flavour, Stumps remained on the phone as she talked through what she was doing...
"I've just added the frozen Summer Fruits you suggested too", She explained "You know, to thicken it up like you said"......before...
*rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle*
"Hmm, maybe the shaker bottle isn't mixing it properly?" Said Stumps, all confused.
Oh.
My.
God.
After Gym Ninja had stopped laughing, she kindly explained to Stumps that you don't just chuck in big lumps of frozen fruit and give the Maximuscle shaker a good shake. Otherwise then you get big floating iced fruit lumps in a protein shake that rattle around. You have to BLEND the iced fruit first in a blender to crush it down and THEN add the protein shake to make it super thick.
Of course, 'how was Stumps supposed to know' was the answer fired back at Gym Ninja....
Ah well, she's on the right track and apparently now addicted to the stuff! Good girl.
This weekend has been super busy as it's been another Assessment weekend for Gym Ninja. The penultimate weekend before she qualifies as a Personal Trainer. The major hurdle of the weekend was the 8.45am Advanced Anatomy and Physiology exam looming over everyone like a big black cloud. Uhhhr. All the nasty stuff that just doesn't sink into ones head. Gym Ninja feels that once things goes 'microscopic' then she finds it hard to understand. Oh and anything using latin too...which pretty much covered everything that this exam wanted to test the person on really.
Saturday was spent in a state of nervous anticipation as the group compared how little they all knew about muscle origins and insertions. Looks like everyone was in the same boat though! At one point, the tutor brought out the skeleton and started prodding various parts of it as the group fired off questions...
"Where is the ischium" Asked one girl.
The tutor, who was standing behind the skeleton, reached forward and touched the ischium to illustrate where it was.....and for those unaware of it's location, it is between the legs (see this link). The curved part of the pelvis.
So he touched it, and as he talked, he stroked the ischium with his finger...and stroked it and stroked it and stroked it and stroked it in a rhythmical manner until..
"Oh please, PLEASE can you just stop doing that as it looks SO wrong!" Said Gym Ninja.
Well, the poor (male) tutor went pink! Fair play to the guy, he certainly looked as if he knew what he was doing, but this was neither the time NOR the place...
The day flew by in a whirl of paperwork, questions, core exercise demos (the Helicopter move on a Swiss ball was particularly fun-you have arms outstretched either sides holding dumbbells as you balance on a Swiss ball and rotate your body left to right like a helicopter, working the oblique muscles), PIF stretching which takes you past your normal range of stretch by activating the Muscle Spindles to contract and relax, and Foam Rolling.
Now, Foam Rolling seems innocent enough. A small tube shaped piece of foam that you roll various parts of your body over as a form of self myofascial release (if you pardon the expression). Well, it may seem innocent, but let Gym Ninja tell you, the moment you hit a knot you feel it BIG time. Like knives!!!!!!!!! Cue lots of screwed up faces in agony as everyone rolled up and down on Foam Rollers. if you've not tried it then Gym Ninja recommends you do. Fantastic for tight areas.
That night, having had a very scary mock exam before leaving the classroom, Gym Ninja was determined to revise hard. But she detoured to Asda. Bugger. Now it was 7pm. So she got home, and prepared dinner. She then just logged on briefly to send a few emails and then...ahhh! 8.30pm. Settle down with the books....but by 9.15pm Gym Ninja was virtually in a coma she was THAT tired! So there was no other option than to abandon the books and head for bed...where her dreams revolved around someone driving her Mini Cooper into her house walls, and muscle origins and insertions!!!!!
Surprisingly, this morning at 6am, Gym Ninja was calmer than anticipated. Perhaps because, by now, she'd given up on any last revision of muscle insertions as it scared her that every time she learned one, another one she'd previously learned fell back out of her head. So, leaving everything in the hands of God as it were, Gym Ninja headed towards the Assessment centre.
Everyone had reached the same level of knowledge saturation, and yet everyone sat there with their books open, blankly staring at the words in the hope that some last nugget of into would stick in their brains. Nothing did. Their brains were saturated. So, in they headed for a 90 minute exam from hell.
Oh and it WAS! It was the toughest exam Gym Ninja has had in the entire 7 month course. You could see everyone visibly whiten as they read the paper. Multiple choice is only as good as the knowledge you have in your head. If you don't know, they a,b,c AND d all seem plausible.....
Hang on...NO questions on Diabetes, Asthma, Hypertension, Arthritis or energy systems as expected, yet loads more on muscle insertions, origins and joint actions (AHHHHHR!) with a load on nutrition. WHAT? Nobody said nutrition would rear it's ugly head again-not after the hellish nutrition exam 3 weeks ago which meant that GN had NOT looked at it since (incidentally GN got her Nutritional case study back yesterday and passed with flying colours thank God!). Noooooooo! Oh and there were a few questions that GN has NO recollection of ever having studied at all!
So, sweating her way through the exam, Gym Ninja completed it in 45 minutes. Was that good or bad? Only time would tell......and thank GOODNESS it turned out to be good, with GN only getting 1 answer wrong. 1. MARVELOUS! 98% is a score no one would be disappointed with!!!!!!
Tonight GN has a rare night off study before tomorrow the coursework begins in earnest. Programme meso and microcycles to write on endurance, hypertrophy, strength and power training. A whole load of online soft tissue injury tutorials plus case study to complete. A postural analysis and corrective programme design to do for a client. Oh and the whole book on business marketing and planning plus cash flow, business plan and so on............AHHHHHHR! Let us not forget this is to be done for 3 weeks time when the FINAL exam, the practical, happens too.
On a positive note, Gym Ninja loves feeling organised. Lists ahoy over the next few weeks. The design and marketing side GN also loves and there is plenty of that to be done. Gym Ninja knows that for the flyer design she's going to end up doing a whole DVD presentation too. Ooops! Geeky!
Okey dokey-time to log off and enjoy what is left of her weekend (nothing!).
Back at the gym with a vengeance tomorrow people. No excuses. See you there!
Gym Ninja x
