Personal Trainer

Improv Asylum has recently entered into a partnership with the Boston Sports Club located in Government Center. As a result, all mainstage actors have free gym memberships.

Once I started going regularly, I couldn't stop. I really enjoy the gym now despite years upon years of rolling my eyes at everyone else's gym stories*.

One day at the gym I was "recognized" by one of the trainers as being from IA. After that whenever I went we would acknowledge each other with a node or a wave. Just last week I saw that a friend of mine is also a client of his so I stopped to chat with them about personal training. I'm not generally what people may refer to as a "hard sell," so before I could stop it, I had signed up a free session.

"I've got good news and bad news," Kevin said as I entered his office**.
"I'm a former Marine. So the good news is if you train with me you'll be in the best shape of your life. That's what the Marines do, have done for years." He raised his eyebrows and continued, "the bad news is you're going to hate me by the end of it."

He wasn't kidding.

During our first session Kevin pushed me past every limit I have. Like the hero in a movie montage from the eighties, I shook, I fell down once, and I shook my head at him while he barked at me. My knees screamed, my muscles burned and I almost threw up.

His sense of humor and taste in workout music are both similar to my own, which made it all a little more bearable. A little.

At the end of the session I was planning to thank Kevin and then take some of the things he showed me and add them to my own workout. Instead - when he reached out to fist bump me and said "so are you going to train with me?" I said "yes."

Because I was afraid he would punch me otherwise.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------** *Sorry, Liz.
** or, according to the sign on the door: his "fitness lab"...