In my adolescence I used to imagine a time when my arms would touch the sides as they emerged from a short-sleeved T-shirt, but this never came to pass. I entered middle-age with pipe-cleaner arms and a torso like a bendy straw. Several years of circuit training have done nothing to remedy this, but recently, with injury and attrition claiming all the other members of my Monday morning boxing group, I have started to flirt with weights.

I've never gone anywhere near the weights room before; there are big mirrors and harsh fluorescent lighting in there, and I don't need that at 7am. With Mike the Trainer now effectively at my disposal, however, I made a request: giant arms, please, and a chest like the Incredible Hulk. Off we went.

Weight training is much more laid back than aerobic training, if more fraught with danger. The leg machine boasts a warning ("Serious injury could result if carriage falls on user") that you won't find on a skipping rope, but then you can't skip while lying down. Because I am a weakling, I get knackered much more quickly with weights; I usually have to stop 15 minutes early in order to retain enough strength to put my coat back on. Once I knew my way round, I thought: I could be doing this at home, if I had some weights.

So I got some, on loan from Bowflex. SelectTech dumbbells have a sort of dial-a-weight system - spin a wheel on the dumbbell and it picks up the weights you want, leaving the rest in the stand - that makes the set very compact, with a range from 2 to 21kg each, in 1kg increments. I admired them daily. Occasionally I picked one up, but I could not long justify their presence in our sitting room on the basis that they were handy if you suddenly wanted to know what 8kg felt like. Bowflex sent round a trainer called Simon, who gave me a basic workout using an inflatable gym ball instead of a bench.

I did Simon's routine - exercises for the chest, triceps, biceps, back and shoulders - religiously, twice weekly. Well, twice. So far. As yet I remain my old pipecleaner self. How long is this going to take?

· Next week: Lucy Mangan tries a radical approach