Pace & Go – 15 Minute Fast Fitness

Pace & Go is the soubriquet used by Jenny PACEy and Wayne GOrdon. Do you see what they did there? With their names and some sporty sounding words? Genius.

The pair introduce themselves as "world-class athletes, celebrity trainers and one of the UK’s leading fitness celebrity couples".

You know leading fitness celebrity couples? 

This pair are literally one of those! Along with, erm ...

Quite frankly, you’d think that would be enough for anyone but Jenny and Wayne are actually holding out on us. Their real claim to fame is that they are two of television’s Gladiators. From Gladiators.

Not the original LWT series from the 1990s but the more recent Sky 1 reboot, admittedly. But even so, who doesn’t want to be given fitness instruction by Enigma and Doom?

If you check out the official Gladiators website (and you should, its great), you’ll see that Enigma’s official profile describes her as follows: “Mysterious and beautiful, contradictory and unpredictable, Enigma is impossible to capture.” Which rather sound like it belongs on a Japanese t-shirt.

Foamy Kitten, dwarf bravery will always shine on you.

I think we can all take something from that.

Doom’s profile hits us with this: “Mere mortals beware, there's a dark cloud that looms, judgment day is afoot and Doom is your worst nightmare.”

Whoa. Heavy. So it’s rubbish weather AND it’s Judgment Day is and this guy is still my worst nightmare. That’s some pretty doom-laden doom, right there. Well done, sir.

Doooooom

I am a bit fuzzy as to what exactly used to happen on Gladiators. I know members of the public would come on to take on the elite forces of the in-house experts. I may have it confused with Robot Wars which had basically the same premise. The competitor would come in, they’d face one another in the arena armed with only a giant cotton bud, a flamethrower and a circular saw. Sometimes somebody got turned upside down.

Gladiators. Possibly.

Enigma and Doom were joined by a whole host of other ridiculously names and dressed Gladiators including Atlas, Oblivion, Goliath, Spartan, Cyclone and Battleaxe. Wait, Battleaxe? Seriously?

I assume Gladiators get assigned their names in much the same way that the gang were assigned theirs in Reservoir Dogs:

Gladiators Producer: Here are your names... Enigma, Doom, Inferno, Destroyer, Predator and Battleaxe.

Battleaxe: Hey, why am I Battleaxe? Battleaxe sounds like “Old Bag”. How 'bout if I'm Vanquisher? That sounds good to me. I'll be Vanquisher.

Gladiators Producer: You're not Vanquisher. Some guy on some other job is Vanquisher. You’re Battleaxe.

Enigma: Who cares what your name is?

Battleaxe: Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you're Enigma. You have a cool-sounding name. Alright look, if it's no big deal to be Battleaxe, you wanna trade?

Gladiators Producer: Hey! NOBODY'S trading with ANYBODY. Now listen up, Battleaxe. There's two ways you can go on this job: my way or the highway. Let's go to work.

“I’m not sure about the outfit either.” 

Battleaxe really drew the short straw on Gladiators.

The series ended in 2009. After which Jenny and Wayne hung up their shiny PVC hotpants and concentrated on their twin careers of competitive bobsleigh and celebrity workouts.

They’re part of a superior race of people, these celebrity fitness couples. They know it too. “Being fit and healthy is part of who we are. We love being fit, healthy, toned and full of energy.” Yeah, yeah we get it. You're totes amazing.

 Their website tells us that Jenny Pacey is “definition of being fit”. You hear that? She’s the actual definition. You look up ‘fit’ in the dictionary and this is what you see:

Twice. Once for each meaning of ‘fit’.

The workout contains three fifteen minute workouts : Sofa Circuit, Bodyweight Blast and Buddy-Up Training, each with its own warm-up and cool-down session.  The Bodyweight Blast is great but the other two are slightly more awkward.

The sofa session seems to assume that you have one hefty bit of furniture of exactly the right height that will withstand any amount of pressure and has several feet of clear space on each side. If your living room doesn’t resemble Jenny and Wayne’s below, you may struggle a bit.

The Buddy-Up workout, on the other hand, is designed for two people to do together. Lovely as it is to see Pace ‘n’ Go working as a team, I can’t help feeling that they may have misjudged their audience a bit. Surely most people do exercise DVDs on their own.

“You don’t need any equipment,” Wayne tells us. “Just a training friend, lots of enthusiasm and a sense of humour!”

Sorry Wayne, I don’t seem to have any of those things to hand.

Best Bit

Wayne is a source of fascinating information. “If you think about it,” he says at one point, “Athletes are some of the fittest people in the world.”

You know, Wayne, I hadn’t thought about it but now that you mention it, I think you may be onto something. People should be told.

Athletes. Apparently fitter than other kinds of people. Who knew?

Worst Bit

You know that Buddy Workout is really just  Pace ‘n’ Go rubbing our noses in their privileged celebrity fitness lifestyle. Look at us! Bending and stretching together in perfect harmony. Leaning our weight on one another in order to make each other stronger like a tortured analogy for something-or-other.

It’s like they are looking out of the screen at every poor sod trying to struggle through the workout alone and laughing in our sad single faces.

You wish you were us, don't you?

Difficulty Level

Sometimes the day after I’ve done one of these workout DVDs, bits of me feel sore and I know that it must have been doing me good.

That’s certainly the case here because following this workout, my right thumb is absolutely killingme. The rest of me is fine which I assume is because, despite all appearances to the contrary, I am in tip-top physical shape. Apart from that thumb, which was clearly weak, underworked and letting the rest of the team down.

Thankfully now that I’ve kickstarted those tardy thumb muscles into action, I am well on my way to looking like the definition of fitness, myself.

Work those thumbs!

Would I do this Workout Again?

I’ll keep an eye on the thumb. The moment that seems to be slipping back into its previous flabby state, I’ll be straight on it.

Jayne Torvill – Lose It!

Jayne Torvill is, of course, one half of one of the world’s greatest double acts. Right up there with Morecombe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie and the Kray twins. 

If you type "World's greatest double act" into Google images, this is the second picture which comes up. I'm not sure if this is fantastic or an indication of the End of Days.

Like any of them, it feels odd for one to be doing something without the other. I keep expect my spellchecker to autocorrect her surname to “Torvillanddean”.

Apparently she is allowed to branch out and do things on her own occasionally. Although judging by this DVD she is only permitted to do so if she fulfils her quota of references to Ravel’s Bolero and her famous dance with Christopher Dean.

This one.

So we get a section called the workout called the “Bolero Blitz” where Jayne and her trainer, Dan Little, start the routine on their knees do a bunch of workout moves and them fling themselves to the ground at the end in a tired homage to the famous routine.

Well this looks familiar.

Because of course, Jayne Torvill is an Olympic gold winner in the most arty of Olympic events since Olympic medals for Literature were discontinued in 1948.

In 1984, the people worshipped them as gods.

Interesting fact about Torvill and Dean’s Olympic Gold winning routine in 1984: Did you know that the reason that Torvill and Dean started their routine on their knees doing the swaying body stuff on the ice was because the music was slightly over the maximum allowable time allotted? Keeping the bottom of their skates off the ice for the first 18 seconds was a way to circumvent the time limit rules.

Cheeky blighters.

This then went on to inspire so many copycat routines that the Sports Authorities banned kneeling on the ice. Presumably in order to prevent someone deciding to stage a routine based on Jeff Wayne’s War of theWorlds performing the whole thing on their knees until the final four minutes.

Christopher Dean as Julian Clary. Jayne Torvill as the Judderman.

Torvill and Dean are now coaches and creative directors of Dancing On Ice which I have never seen because apparently I never watch anything that might prove useful for these reviews. It’s usually described as “Strictly Come Dancing” with skates. I never watch Strictly Come Dancing either but it’s handy to get essential differences like that straight in my head.

Also, everybody is a bit less famous.

The workout sections include a Warm Up, Ice Body Burner, Bolero Blitz and Crunch and Tone.

I hope Jayne doesn’t do any presenting on Dancing On Ice because if this DVD is anything to go by, she’s really very bad at it. It’s lucky her trainer, Dan Little, seems happy in front of the camera because poor Jayne really doesn’t seem that comfortable to be there. 

It's OK, Jayne. Don't panic.

There’s not much rapport between the two, sadly. They have one quick conversation where Dan tells Jayne that he’s “no Christopher Dean” and that’s about it. Dan carries the whole show. He could have done the whole thing just as effectively on his own. Although if he had, the Ravel’s Bolero references would have seemed a bit odd.

Torvill and Dan

Best Bit

Dan the Trainer does actually explain how to do things properly He demonstrates the correct way to do a squat at the beginning of the warm-up and talks us through different moves as we come to them in a clear and straightforward manner. 

Unfortunately half the time he’s doing this the camera is zooming in to a close up of his face or pointing directly at Jayne’s knees so we don’t get the benefit that we might if we could, you know, actually see what Dan was talking about. But that’s hardly Dan’s fault so I won’t hold that against him.

Useful Dan is useful.

Worst Bit

Like Lorraine Kelly’s ‘walkercise’ the other week, this workout massively over-estimates the amount of space participants at home might have available to them. Jayne even mention the fact that the DVD  is for people to do in their living rooms so it’s not like they think everyone’s planning to do this in the local village hall or something.

Dan and Jayne skip from one side of their exercise studio to the other, they sashay forwards, they pony backwards. “Why don’t we take this a bit further?” says Dan leaping backwards with gay abandon. How about we don’t Dan? I’m having a hard enough time following your instructions as it is without having to adapt them for my limited living space as I go along.

Pictured: Leaping with gay abandon

Difficulty Level

Well, it was certainly fast. There were bits where we were supposed to go: Funky Knee! Arm Thing! Funky Knee! Skate Shuffle! I was only able to manage a couple of funky knees before having to quickly rejoin Dan and Jayne for step touches.  Still that seems to have been their intention. As Jayne says in her introduction “It’s hard work but hopefully you won’t notice because there’s loads  of moves for you to concentrate on.” I feel that Jayne may have confused the concept of “fun” with that of “confusing”.

Probably not as difficult as this, though.

Would I do this Workout again?

I think I might do. The workout itself is pretty good though I suspect that’s more down to Dan than Jayne. The soundtrack’s pretty dire though. You know Torvill and Dean actually released an album of them singing love songs back in 1989? It’s on Spotify and everything. I think if I do Jayne’s “Lose It!” workout again I might turn the volume right down and listen to this instead.

David Haye – Box and Tone

David Haye is a former heavyweight boxing champion and a former unified world cruiserweight champion. He holds the The Ring counterweight title which I assume means he was best in the world at defending himself against straggly-haired Japanese girls crawling out of television sets.

Aren't you a tad overdressed there, Dave?

Boxing’s not really my thing, to be honest. I’m not sure if I’ve just been unlucky but any time I’ve tried to watch it, it always seems to turn into a fight.

He's clearly very good at it. His nickname is “The Hayemaker” which as it turns it out is a clever play on his name and a type of boxing move. It’s not, as you might have supposed, a reference to the Canadian punk band.

Everybody, sing along!

David Haye was in the jungle last year in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. He came 3^rd while fellow C-List Celebber, Charlie Brooks took the 1^st place spot. Interestingly, Ashley Roberts of the Pussycat Dolls came 2^nd. 2012 could have almost boasted a CLCW hat-trick were it not for the fact that the Pussycat Dolls workout doesn’t have the Pussycat Dolls in it.

Charlie and David demonstrate the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

The workout is a no nonsense collections of punches, blocks and circuit training. “Whether you’re fit or not, don’t worry” says David. “You won’t be taking any punches here – just dishing them out.” 

Don’t get excited. None of the workouts actually afford you the opportunity to punch anybody. We punch the air while David talks us through it as though he expects us to have square off against an opponent at any moment. He admonishes us to keep our skulls protected while assuming the basic stance and shows us the best way to deflect a punch from a 20 stone man.  


It’s like he’s forgotten he’s making a fitness DVD and is instead preparing us for the forthcoming apocalypse where we will require the necessary skills to deflect jabs and uppercuts from unprovoked attackers at any moment.

Luckily, if that does happen, I am now slightly more ready for it than I was before I did the workout.

Never let your opponent turn you on your back like a cockroach

Best Bit

This is great fun. Who doesn’t like pretending to punch people while being spurred on by someone who PUNCHES PEOPLE AS A JOB. During the Shadow Boxing section, David wanders around his group of workout buddies and encourages them to throw their punches in his direction as hard as they can. I was quite jealous. That’s the kind of fitness trainer you want.

"Bow down before me, mortals"

Worst Bit

As you can see from the screenshots, the whole thing looks terribly dark and drab. I’m not sure if they just were intentionally trying to recreate the ambience of any underground fight club, but a few more lights wouldn’t have hurt.

And maybe some scatter cushions. An Athena poster or two. Brighten the place up a bit.

Weirdest Bit

At the beginning the DVD offers us the chance to select a left or right-handed option so that we can watch the version where David mirrors our movements. It’s like he really cares about each and every one of us. Even freaky left-handers.

You're offering me too much choice, David!

Difficulty Level

David is adamant that this workout is for everyone regardless of fitness levels. The workout includes easy versions of squats, press-ups and star jumps. Because, he recognises, not everyone has been working out quite as intensively as he has for the last 20 years. It’s still ridiculously difficult. I’m not sure when the last time I worked out this hard for a celebrity.  I think he might have scared me into it.

How can you say 'no' to this man?

Would I do this workout again?

Oh yes. At the end of the Warm Down, David says “If you stick with this training programme, I guarantee you’ll be part of Team Hayemaker in no time.”

Because let’s face it, when I find myself in the Full-on Streets of Rage post-apocalyptic future, that David has been preparing me for, I definitely want to be part of Team Hayemaker.

Bring it on