Simon Binns, cage fighter

I need to get back into shape. I’m 34, developing a beer gut and am a short step away from moobs. Still good looking, mind you.

I always thought I could throw a half-decent punch. I did a bit of boxing and judo as a teen and have no qualms about having a grapple. It turns out my feet were wrong, my stance was wrong, and my hand position was wrong. Apart from that though, I pretty much had it nailed.

I tried playing football, which lasted 20 minutes and ended up with me getting booted in the eye. In fairness, it spared me from another 40 minutes of huffing and puffing after the ball, like a sumo wrestler chasing a van full of pasties up a hill.

So when a friend of mine suggested I try a hardcore session with a proper MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, I was a bit apprehensive, but thought ‘how hard can it be?’

Five days. That’s how long it took me to recover from an hour of training.

Kam Atakuru is a big man, but, annoyingly, a really nice chap. He fights out of Kaobon gym in Liverpool but runs personal training sessions in The Light in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. For £30, you get an hour’s fight training from someone who knows what he’s talking about, and he also takes small group sessions at a discount.

When I arrived, he threw a bottle of water at me. “That’s for you. I bet you haven’t brought one?”

Damn it. I’m clearly not prepared for this.

I had to warm up, which normally means sorting my iPod out or putting BBC News on the treadmill telly. Kam made me run up the maximum incline on the treadmill, dropping it every ten seconds, then raising it back to the top again. Not too bad, but more taxing than watching a Florence and the Machine video at 8 kmph.

Then the hard work started. Caterpillar walks to get properly warmed up – four times across the gym. This was when I started to realise how totally inflexible I am. Kam laid his hands flat on the floor next to his feet. I could barely get past my ankles.

After that, it was time to put the gloves on. This was combat-based training after all.

I always thought I could throw a half-decent punch. I did a bit of boxing and judo as a teen and have no qualms about having a grapple. It turns out my feet were wrong, my stance was wrong, and my hand position was wrong.

Apart from that though, I pretty much had it nailed.

After some useful tweaks by Kam, I was planting decent combinations on the pads and ducking out of the way of his (massively telegraphed) hooks. I was enjoying this. It was...not easy, but comfortable. “Right, now give me 50 punches.”

What? All I can remember is a feeling that I might keel over and that counting to 50 is pretty hard when you’re chucking punches continuously. Then more combos, then 30 punches, then 20, then, I felt like my arms were made of spaghetti.

But that was easy compared to the lunges. Oh, the lunges. My action was pretty good, but it was made harder by the inclusion of dumbbells. Then they were superset with a frankly punishing exercise where I had to assume a press up position then move my hands up and down on the floor, either side of an invisible line. Four sets of 50, then 40, 30 and 20. And that was an hour up.

It was knackering. I was sweating from everywhere and thought for a horrible moment that I was going to be sick.

The day after, I could barely lift my arms to type. I looked like a rubbish Thunderbird puppet. My legs, shoulders and bum cheeks hurt. Kam said he was going to work every muscle and he wasn’t lying.

And I loved it. In fact, I’m going in for another session this week.

I don’t mind the gym, but you never push yourself as hard as someone else does.Conversely, you never encourage yourself as much as someone else either, especially someone who is used to being in that environment and constantly training for a competitive edge.

A few more of these sessions and the beer gut should start shrinking. That said, I’m currently eating a bag of skittles while writing this; although I feel more moved to go down the gym afterwards and attack a punch bag for half an hour this time.

No lunges though. I’m not a lunatic.