Testimonials

Bernie Quinn, School of Business Enterprise & Management, QMU

Russell Rimmer, School of Business Enterprise & Management, QMU

"Hitting your fiftieth birthday isn’t a great gig, ask anyone; well ask anyone who has ever been 50 that is”, said Bernie Quinn, Lecturer in Business, Enterprise and Management. “This may amaze those of you who know me but this coming of age happened to me fairly recently. Apart from realising that I hadn’t achieved my youthful aspirations of becoming a millionaire I also realised that many years of corporeal neglect had left me stranded in a body that was no longer a temple to health, vitality and well……in proportion let’s say. Being honest, I’d turned into a fat lad!

“But fate is a fickle mistress”, said Bernie.  “A few days after the dreaded birthday occurred I bumped into Dougie Gair from the QMU Sports Centre. He clearly recognised a lad who was in need of his services and casually dropped into conversation that he had recently qualified as a personal fitness trainer. I took a deep breath and heard myself say, “sign me up”. Lucky I took a deep breath because I was going to be taking an awful lot more pretty soon.

The initial personal training sessions surprising turned out to be rather enjoyable for Bernie. He said: “I enjoyed the banter with Dougie as he assessed my overall fitness (non-existent), I enjoyed the nice stretches, the introduction to lifting nice little weights again and overall I enjoyed the fact that I could still breathe and walk a straight line after an hour with Dougie.”

However, as with all nice things, the session began to change as Dougie upped the ante.  Bernie explained: “Now, don’t get me wrong, it didn’t stop ‘being nice’ but it did stop being relatively easy. The first thing that I noticed was that Dougie clearly had an inability to count properly. Here’s an example: lifting weights above your head whilst rolling a ball up and down a wall at your back at the same time requires that you count how many times you actually complete said manoeuvre. So in the early sessions as we try to get to grips with this particular torture I know that in my mind I have completed say twelve repetitions but imagine the dismay to hear the personal trainer say “three”. He doesn’t even say a quick 3 as one syllable, but instead this is a long drawn out sort of “theee-reee” sound.  Pretty disheartening I can tell you. Anyway I’ve now discussed with Dougie several times his inability to count simple repetitions but he is adamant that it’s me who is wrong, eh imagine!”

Ten sessions later, Bernie’s a new man! He no longer fears the sessions with Dougie nor whatever new methods of physical torture the personal trainer may have devised since they met previously.

Bernie said: “The first time Dougie introduced me to ‘the plank’, he said: “It’s to exercise your core muscles.”  As I struggled to shift my body off the floor, I said, “Here’s the thing, I don’t think I have any core muscles.”  Two months later, (shhh don’t tell him) I secretly now love this particular exercise.”

Bernie Quinn did not take on the challenge of getting fit on his own. Let’s face it, it always helps to have a friend in tow to encourage and challenge you along the difficult road ahead. His partner in crime was Russ Rimmer, also from Business, Enterprise and Management.
Russ begs the question: “What is this penchant to worry about changing body shape at 50 … or older? Bernie is a great bloke, but has the whole world become hedonist, image conscious and overawed by ephemeral, passing vitality? Perhaps mid-life crisis is one theoretical framework within which to explain Bernie’s frequently red face, profuse perspiration, and his certainty exercise is doing him good. Or is it that his clothes have shrunk in the wardrobe between outings?”

Russ thought he was above it all. He explained: “My muscles had migrated to my brain and a jolly fine thing that is. Higher things than the ephemera of body shape occupied my time.  Things such as synthesising research findings, thinking deeply about why we know what we know and figuring out how to convince QEU that I had a winning proposal on teaching quality. Happy and content I am in the pursuit of these intellectual gymnastics.”

Then he had an epiphany. “Well, a sort of Australian, big-mouth moment really”, Russ confessed.  “A couple of months ago, I casually said to Bernie that we needed to get on with the research he and I were contemplating, as I could be dead by the time it reaches the journals. Suddenly, it was as if I had left this world and plunged into Hades. Bernie at work and Gill at home were suddenly singing a choral piece about my health, lack of muscle definition and expanding middle. It wasn’t all that personally uncomfortable, but it was sung painfully out of tune, and was very difficult to ignore. There was no sympathy for the vision of graceful decline into languorous inaction, slippers, dressing gown and the study of deeply philosophical tracts. Let me say, I was getting the full cacophony at home, in transit and at work! No thick-skinned Aussie battler has endured so much for a quiet, inactive life.” Eventually, Russ relented and consulted Dougie, whom he describes as a “slim, compact, well-balanced, intelligent and perceptive young man”. Russ said: “It was definitely preferable to hand my body over to him than continue to listen to the Bernie-and-Gill chorus.  I have a programme – first one ever – and a deep understanding with Dougie that it is OK to mis-count Bernie’s reps, but not mine. I appreciate Dougie’s care in organising a programme for the older me, where I regain muscle definition, perspire a little, but Bernie looks redder and perspires more on his 50-year old plan.”

Dougie has been so successful with Russ, that he is now contemplating playing basketball with colleagues at lunchtime.  He said: “I think I detect enthusiasm stirring, despite my best efforts to suppress it.  Perhaps I am getting keen, as it is 40 years since I played basketball last.  All those years ago, my aggressive form of basketball attack was considered to come straight from my experience in Australian Rules Football. It probably hasn’t changed.  Oh, Dougie, what have you unleashed?”