What's a sit up?

Today, I learned the true definition of love. Not that Romeo and Juliet crap my daughter has recently tried selling us all on. I'm talking hard-core, unconditional love. You know, like the kind a mother has for her child. You may recall I told you my youngest was going to be playing Pop Warner football in the fall? Well starting in August he begins strength and conditioning. In his previous sporting endeavors, he's been more interested in the playing side than the practice and drill sessions. My older son is the opposite; complaining if he doesn't get a balance of play time and practice/coaching time. In an effort to try and make this sport work for him, I've come to realize that he will need to be comfortable with the sheer physicality that will be required for him to get through August. So today, I started training with him. Actually, training may be an overly generous term for our sessions.
Having no real idea what his "strength and conditioning" might actually be, I turned to the all-knowing internet for an answer. We found a program that on the surface looks very reasonable. It's from a group called youthfootballonline.com. The regimen consists of high knees, push ups, mountain climbers, pull ups, tuck jumps, and sit-ups. The suggestion is that you do each of the exercises for 20-45 seconds in succession with rest in between, for 2-5 circuits total. Since neither one of us are fitness gurus, I thought it would be prudent to start slow. We agreed to pick 2 exercises to start with, and add one each time we "train". I picked sit-ups, and he picked high knees. It seemed like a great place to begin.
Before we began, I had an errand to run, so I asked if he wanted to come along. Dick's Sporting goods has a rewards program and one of the ways you can earn rewards is by hitting your daily step target each day. (As you might imagine, we go through a fair deal of sporting goods in this household.) Always the thinker, my son suggested that we walk the pond area while we were there. An excellent idea. We did a couple of laps for a total of 1.67 miles. It was, in my humble opinion, a pretty decent warmup.

Now we were ready to get serious. He tells me that he will need me to hold his feet to do sit-ups. I told him to just do what we used to do and stick his feet under the couch. I wouldn't need to do that, however, as I had long ago mastered the art of the sit-up. Keywords, "long ago." Nature, it seems -- and subsequently her side kick, gravity -- are bitches. I went to do a sit up and much to my surprise, I was floor bound. At best, I managed a sad crunch. Incidentally, the same sound all of my bones made during this activity. Undaunted, I remembered everyone has to start somewhere. My son, meanwhile, is whizzing through sit-ups, presumably trying not to laugh at me. Do you know how long 45 seconds is? Apparently when you're exercising, it's just a titch under an hour. Just before I blacked out, the timer on the phone dinged. "Ding". Time for high knees. They may have started respectably high, but by the time the timer dinged again, they were more like shuffle feets. "Ding". Brief rest. "Ding." Go again. "Ding". And again. "Ding.". Thankfully my phone is in a protective case. It turns out lack of oxygen can make you a little snarky. We made it through 3 circuits before laughter and exhaustion made it necessary to stop.

After a few more household tasks, I suggested we cap the day off with another leisurely stroll. Sort of a greatly delayed warm down period. Almost 4 miles later, I'm pretty sure I really never was meant to be "physically fit". I can't even imagine what this program will be like by the time we're done adding in the other exercises. I sure hope this whole thing is helping him. I'm pretty sure I'll be dead before he ever even puts on his uniform for the first time. Ah, the things we do for love!