[SF] Reporter Andy Walker is trying to get in shape in time for his wedding in December. With seven months to go, he reflects on a period of slow, but at a pinch steady, progress [SF ENDS]

WHEN the chance to write a regular work-out blog came along, I was determined not to let it fade away to nowt after a promising start. Anyway, welcome to my first update in six weeks.

I’ll hold my hands up, I have hardly been a slave to the cause in recent weeks – turning 30 has that effect. In an effort to mitigate my guilt, this is effectively two updates in one – a bit about the new programme I’m on at the Dolphin Centre, plus a CrossFit taster session I enjoyed courtesy of Joanne McCue Bannatyne.

In our catch-up earlier this week, Dolphin Centre gym supervisor Michael Hodgson set me away on a series of exercises using wall-mounted TRX straps. Once I got my head around the fact that I wasn’t about to pull the straps clean off the wall, the exercises were very enjoyable and hurt in all the right places.

I’ve got a new-look programme to get my teeth into over the coming weeks, so I will let you know how that’s going in a future post. No, really.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to turn down the chance of another free workout at the soon-to-open CrossFit gym at The Northern Echo Arena.

We had warmed up by jogging (limping in my case, I must get this foot injury seen to) the 600-odd metres around the outside of the stadium, before launching into an intense seven-minute burst of box jumps, squats and burpees under the guidance of coaches Lee Howe and Helen Morton.

I didn’t think it was possible to sweat so much in seven minutes. As with my Dolphin Centre workouts though, I felt great afterwards. Knackered, but great.