HUNDREDS of professional footballers who have played for the likes of Saints, Blackburn, Newcastle and England have all benefitted from having Alan Shearer on their side.
The legendary frontman hit the net a staggering 260 times in the Premier League – a total still head and shoulders above anyone else since the division’s inception.
I must admit that I - an overweight journalist who has only ever played any sport at grassroots level - felt a bit silly telling him to “keep going” when asked to pair up with the legend, during a High Intensity Interval Training class…
But I was lucky enough to be put through my paces alongside the top-flight icon, when trying out the state-of-the-art FORTIS fitness session from Speedflex, at their launch event at Fareham Leisure Centre.
Shearer attended as a Speedflex ambassador and, while he predictably outworked a mere mortal like me during the 30-minute session, the class allowed everyone to operate at their own level.
One thing everyone associates with the legendary Geordie is goals.
Despite being left absolutely blowing as the class reached its conclusion, I felt my goal had been hit when the 51-year-old told me I “did well”.
I even got the opportunity to speak to him about it afterwards.
Shearer said: “I had never done it with the public, or normal people if you like. I had always been doing it as part of my team at Speedflex, but in our gym.
“But when I did it (at Everyone Active Fareham), I thought it was brilliant. That’s why it just works.
“It worked for me as a 51-year-old ex-professional footballer. It worked for a young lady in there who told me she had just had a baby.
“It works for all shapes and sizes as well as ages. I know it works because I have done it for the past seven or eight years.
“It’s either that or cycling but that’s just a great body workout and I do it two or three days a week.”
The concept of a FORTIS class was based all around teamwork.
You pair up, with one person using the studio’s functional movement stations - a machine to carry out reps of a certain movement given by an instructor.
Your partner then has an area to perform other tasks such as mountain-climbers, squats, a plank or, if you need to – just rest.
Once one person has carried out a number of reps on the machine, you swap over. There was no need for weights on these machines, what you put in, they offered a level of resistance.
To be honest, there was no chance I was having a rest while Shearer was going for it on a machine next to me – but the option was there if I needed it.
You could also physically see how you were performing, judging by your heart-rate.
FORTIS links up to technology called MyZone – a monitor worn to show where your heart-rate was at throughout the session.
With coloured tiles ranging from grey at a low heart-rate, moving through blue, green, yellow and red to the highest maximum level – instructors can also see how much a class is working.
Judging by my heart-rate, I could obviously do with getting fitter…
Nevertheless, the session, advertised as HIIT Without the Hurt, was a superb experience.
The music was loud, the studio was new, fresh and impressive and the 25 to 30 people in the class all pushed each other to their maximum.
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