health

Today was a thinly disguised upper body workout that was brutal in its simplicity.

We started out with ladders to warm up. We did the long (19 square) run, doing 2 sets of only like 6 - 7 runs. I'm kinda in a rut with those. :\

Next, we did progressive box jumps, standing two foot take-offs, followed by single foot take offs with double foot landing. Single foot landing (for either) is much harder. The progressive part was G putting the exercise pads on a handful at a time to increase the height of the landing. Kris ended up at about 4', I ended up under 3'. We jumped about 3 at each height. I had some good jumps, some not so good jumps (that didn't hurt because of the landing on the exercise pad) and some stalls (where I just stood there and could not get myself to jump - very strange). We started with the two foot take off, then left foot take off, then right.

Next, we checked our vertical jump (standing, two foot jump). I managed only 14" this way, which sucks unbelievably because I've done better. I don't know if the jumps beforehand hurt my height that much, but 14" is poor, poor, poor.

Surprisingly, we started in on upper body next. We did a set each of clappers (I did 8, and did fairly well), T push ups, chinese pushups, switch-hands jump over the ball (one hand on ball, the other to the side, explode up, switching hands on the ball), and walk over the ball.

Next we did the slapping swiss ball work. Man, this one was hard. Holding the ball under one arm, hold tight because it's going to be slapped, arm straight, the ball pressed tightly against the hip. G slapped it forward, backward, up, down and every other way. Switch arms, repeat. Then, hold it out in front, and slap away. Finally, balance in a pushup position, with the ball being slapped.

We did pullups next. I am going to do a pull up. Unaided. Damnit. But not tonight. I did 2 sets of 5 with Kris' help. Inner grip, palms facing out.

Abs came last. I told G I wasn't going to be at ASA on Wednesday, so I received a beating on this one. We did the normal bicycles, Russian crunches and V ups. I then did the incline bench rotations, partner pushdowns, and round the world ball toss with the 12 pound ball.

My abs and lats hurt. And it's not even tomorrow.

We worked with Pat today, as G had to dash to get home before 17 closed (blame it on the rain!).

I started late, Kris had already started. We did seriously abbreviated ladders: 6 half ladders (only 9 squares instead of 19). I didn't feel completely warmed up, which is a bummer, because I really like ladders.

The first exercise was the L drill: run straight for 10 yards, turn to the side and sprint to the cone 8 yards away, turn around, run back to the corner cone, turn and sprint back to the starting point. 2 to the right, 2 to the left.

The shuffle T-drill figure 8 was next. Sprint forward 10 yards, around the top of the cone, shuffle to the right behind the cone 4 yards away, shuffle around the bottom of this side cone, then back to the top of the center cone. Continue shuffling to the bottom of the left cone, shuffle around this side cone, then back to the center cone. Shuffle around the top of the center cone, and run backwards to the starting cone. That's 1. 4 to the right first, 4 to the left first, for a total of 8.

Horse-shoes and one-footed side-to-sides came next. This was a bit of a mini-circuit. The first half was hop between two cones 2 feet apart on one foot for 15 seconds, then switch feet and hop between the two cones on the other foot for 15 seconds. Immediately switch to the other half of the circuit, for another 30 seconds. Do 8 of these sets.

The second half of the circuit was the horse-shoe jumps, which had four cones spaced 2 feet apart, each at the corner of a square. Starting at the top left cone, two-foot hop backwards to the bottom left cone. Then hop to the right bottom cone, then the top right cone. Reverse back to the bottom right cone, bottom left cone, top left cone. Continue for 30 seconds (while the other person is doing the one-legged hops between cones at the other half of the mini-circuit).

The killer part of the workout was next. We did 30 seconds of ankle jumps (legs locked, use your arms to jump up quickly, height doesn't matter, just quickness), 30 seconds of high-knee hops (feet together, jump bringing knees as high as possible, height does matter, not speed), and 30 seconds of squat jumps. We did 8 sets of these. I was unable to do the squat jumps at all. Kris cramped at set 7 or so, but finished.

Last was a shuffle shuttle. Start at the middle, shuffle 5 yards to the left, shuffle back 10 yards to the right, shuffle back 5 yards to the left. I kept up with Kris for the most part. We did only four of these.

Last was abs. We did a 4 mini-sets of 15 seconds each of raised leg toe touches, bicycles, lawn chairs (lie down on your back, arms over your head, raise your legs and arms up at the same time, so that you look like you're sitting in a Kraft-matic adjustable bed), sprinters (bicycles, but hold the twist for 1 second before switching), 6" leg holds, 12" leg holds.

I continued afterward with an upperbody weight workout: chest press, lat pull-dows, seated row (my favorite!), assisted pullups, assisted dips, pulley bicep curls.

Today was an upper body workout. Today, and the next two weeks, to give my legs a rest. My cardio for the day was a mere 30 minutes on the StairMaster (whoo - I felt like one of those old ladies I've seen working out in the gym, not for a goal like kick-ass-in-ultimate, but to lose the 5 pounds that no one in the world knows is there but them). It was so short, but my legs were fine. Kris managed an intense lower body workout on Monday, which I missed for MPUL, so this complemented it well.

I've been doing rotator-cuff lifts every day. I'm using only 3# weights, but I've been very very consistent. Today I learned how to use the elastic bands to replace those exercises. I'm not sure if I'll do both, as the previous ones work well as shoulder exercises. These exercises are ones that I often see the baseball players doing.

I did only one set of the new exercises, because we were pressed for time. From now on, I'll have to arrive 15 minutes early to warm up with these.

I wasn't able to make class because I needed to be at MPUL tonight, so Kris went by himself. He said he had a great time doing sprinting drills. Here's what he gave me as his workout tonight.

Accelerations in the parking lot

A twist on the catch the ball before it bounces twice, a cone was placed away from G (not sure how far). Kris ran from the starting point to the cone, planted and cut towards G. At the foot plant, G dropped a tennis ball. Kris was to catch it before the second bounce. 6-8 of these

Sprinting with bands

With bands around his waist and G pulling backward on them, Kris did three sets of resistance sprinting. The first one was with small steps: feet moving just over ankles for quick feet work. The second was with high knees. The third was just sprinting as fast as he could.

Circuit

This circuit was a doozie. Probably would have worked better if I had been there to give Kris a bit of a rest.

• Jump rope
• Ice skaters with bands on legs, done in a semi circle. The first set with R foot in center, clockwise, then again counter-clockwise. The next set with L foot in center, CW and CCW.
• 4 boxes: hop over with both feet, then L, then R
• Side-to-sides over the weightbench (nominally the same as over the wood box, but higher by 50%)
• Frog hopping along 4 cones with both feet, land on R foot, hold, then sprint. Repeat for L foot. For the last 3, G calls out which foot to land on

And that would be two times through that circuit. Ooof. I'm telling you, Kris gets all the good ones.

Wall sit

Sit along the wall (i.e. back on the wall, legs at 90°), 25# weight on lap.

Abs (lower)

• 6-12" leg holds
• swimmers
• crossovers
• partner leg throw downs
• 6-12" leg holds with partner pushdown (ugh!)