An encounter with a sadist...

It's probably quite mean of me to describe Phil as a sadist when he was really just doing his job with extreme prejudice. He turned up last Friday morning, a late replacement for James, who couldn't make our session. Where James is very tall, with movie-star looks (he used to be an actor), Phil was small and wiry, with a shaved head and a broad grin.

The grin got even broader when we got out into the park. We warmed up with a lap of the park, then went straight to the tennis courts. James usually gets me running round the court once or twice, then jogging along the short end and walking down the long side. Phil had me jogging round the whole court, walking along the short end, then running again, with a few squat and thrusts and the odd star jump or ten. Then he started to get me jogging in towards the centre of the court, then jogging backwards out again to the perimeter. At first I thought I was going to die of a heart attack. Then, when I realised I wasn't actually going to die (just sweat a lot), I thought I was going to fall over when I started running backwards. Eventually, I survived half an hour of this treatment.

Just when I thought I deserved a bit of a break as a reward for putting in the hard yards, Phil got me to sit on one of the park benches. Not for a rest, though. It seems that James must have told him my shoulder muscles are pretty weak, so Phil got me to perform a range of exercises to work those muscles, including pushing up against his hands, which were hovering just over my head. Instead of making it easier as I got tired, he pushed harder and harder against me. Once he'd worn my shoulder muscles out, he got me doing push-ups with my hands resting on the bench (when I say push-ups, that really should read half-arsed push-ups – they ain't going to take me as a marine any time soon, based on Friday's evidence). Then another of James' favourite exercises: getting me to step onto and back off the bench several times. Sounds easy. It isn't. Phil got me doing several reps of each exercise, then got me to do them all over again before letting me go home for a few crunches and stretches.

I shouldn't say this (in fact I'm pretty certain that when James reads this he'll just use it as a reason to crank up the volume on his sessions), but a session with Phil makes a workout with James look like a stroll in the park...