A couple of weeks into January, all those fitness goals made in the post-Christmas haze of overindulgence may already be running out of steam. So far my ‘new year, new me’ resolutions are ticking along steadily, based around simple but achievable goals of expending more calories than I eat, drinking water and doing an at-home app yoga workout every day jammed between work and school runs.
But these low-key goals were turned on their head this week when I was invited to a swanky London private members club for a workout with WWE Women’s United States Champion Chelsea Green. Despite being years older and visibly chunkier and squidgy-er than the rest of the class of assembled fitness influencers and journalists, when the chance came my way I couldn’t resist busting out my most supportive sports bra and giving it a go.
The 33-year-old star took us through our paces in an intense HIIT workout which included several of the moves would-be wrestlers do in their tryouts for WWE. We fought through an eight station circuit with a range of different moves including squats, weighted military presses, sprints and rowing.
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While all of these are movements I’ve used in fitness classes before, the most revolutionary addition is the squat wedge. The block transformed the positioning of my body while doing the often-hated move, keeping me better aligned rather than hunching over and allowing me to get deeper into the movement in a way that felt so beneficial it’s still radiating in my legs two days later. While I have no doubt the Eight Club’s versions were suitably premium, I’ve already snagged a £15.99 set I can use at home.
However, I wasn’t keen to incorporate everything I tried into my fitness regime. My biggest nemesis was a repeated bunny hop movement over a workout bench. Sounds easy, but doing these bench hops for two minutes at speed without stopping ended up making me feel so queasy, Chelsea took pity on me and suggested a lower impact option instead.
Any feelings of guilt on not hacking the pace ended abruptly watching Love is Blind’s Bobby Johnson who, even as a former personal trainer, found the deceptively simple movement heavy going ninety seconds in. Green explained it was one of the moves in the WWE try-outs that most wrestlers struggled with: “So many people end up vomiting doing this one. Loads of them,” she said cheerily.
Working out with a WWE Champion was pretty intimidating, but I ended up stopping the wrestler in her tracks with a death stare usually reserved for my kids at their most aggy – all because she screamed in my face while I threw a weighted medicine ball on the ground over and over again. I may not be able to throw someone from a turnbuckle – or climb one come to think of it – but clearly my glare has the impact of a superkick, leading her to whisper apologetically: “I would never normally shout like this, just so you know. It’s only for the pictures. Just keep going, you can do it, imagine you’re at Disney World!” Oh go on then.
WWE’s Chelsea Green encourages Narin Flanders to feel the burn… whether she wanted to or not
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Forty five minutes and hundreds of squats later, I came away with 500 calories incinerated and without having vomited, both of which I took as a win. I also left with an even deeper respect for the work ethic of the athletes leading a new era of wrestling.
This month saw the celeb-laden, high profile launch of WWE programming on Netflix, who signed a ten-year, $5 billion (£4.09 billion) deal with the brand that looks set to take wrestling back into the mainstream.
Fans in the U.K. can now watch all weekly episodes of Raw, SmackDown and NXT live or on demand as well as more than 30 years of archived content and every new premium live event including WrestleMania, all within the cost of their existing subscription. Sky customers can also get access free as part of many packages and you can now even select your favourite wrestler as your Netflix profile avatar.
Taking a break from torturing me with my workout, the Women’s US Champion explains why the partnership is such a huge deal for WWE: “We have such a great fan base already but now to be able to open that up to 283 million subscribers in 190 countries is like nothing we could have dreamt of,” Green says. “The WWE universe is so devoted and they care so much about us and hopefully we’re now inviting the rest of the world to join us in the fandom. It’s really exciting.”
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The first Netflix episode of Raw has already been viewed more than six million times, with WWE shows trending in the UK top ten most watched list every day so far since the launch. It would appear we’re on the edge of a resurgence. Wrestling just might be cool again and British fans look set to get a ringside seat.
* WWE arrived on Netflix earlier this month, with all programming available on the streaming service in the UK, including RAW, SmackDown, NXT, Premium Live Events and WWE Archives. Viewers can buy a standalone membership direct or currently get it free as part of Sky TV deals in their January sale here .
* The Road to WrestleMania tour runs throughout March and tickets are available now via Ticketmaster. As well as the SmackDown and Raw shows in London and Glasgow there are also events in Nottingham and Belfast.