Yay! Lisa joined us! She's signed up for the class, so we'll be seeing her twice a week. Whoo!

Today's workout focused on arms. Not in a workout sense, but in a movement sense: quick arms propelling quick feet. I was also working on moving my arms forward and backward, and not across my chest.

I also asked G about intensity level. Should I be going all out, all the time, or should I try to pace myself. G was actually surprised. He thought I was already going all out. Essentially, he was reducing the recovery time each time, to adjust for our improved performance. Whoops. My bad.

I started early with my ladders, with G giving me direct feedback about moving my arms. I tend to chicken-wing my arms, keeping them away from my body and often crossing my chest when they come forward. It really helped to have G give immediate feedback.

• LR RL LR RL
• twisting from the outside: L foot on the right side, twist to put R foot inside, L outside left side, R next to L, twist to put L foot inside, R outside right side, L next to R, etc.
• Outside L-in
• Outside, R-in
• Outside, R, outside, L, outside, together
• Ali shuffle
• probably more

We started off with the I of pain and square drill. Kris and Lisa worked the I-of-pain, while I worked the square drill. My first time was about 11.6, with the subsequent three being about 10.5. I think I cheated a little on those three. The last one was 10.9, which was around the time all my runs should have been. Not cheating on that one.

We switched, and I ran the I-of-pain, while Kris and Lisa ran the square drill. I ran the I-of-pain as hard as I could. I needed longer than the 30 second rest. My legs felt spent at the end of the drill.

Next, we had the equivalent of running ice-skaters. Instead of side-to-side ice skaters, we shuffled forward. We were working on quick feet. It was a little difficult for me, more so I think for Lisa. Kris, with his fast feet, had no problem. The cones were about 3 feet apart, width-wise, and 2 feet forward-wise. The goal was to shuffle through the cones, around the outside, facing forward. Shuffling forward. We ran 5+ of these runs. We then faced sideways, instead of forward, and quick-feet ran around the cones. We went through this way a good number of times, too. It was difficult to get the arms moving quickly and correctly in synch.

The star-shuffle came next. It was a small circle: only one step between the middle cone and the outside cone. It made, once again, for quick feet and fast arms. We couldn't get a full shuffle in, so we had to move quickly. We went counterclockwise twice, then clockwise twice.

Kris offered a suggestion to G to modify the exercise. Instead of shuffling from cone to cone, G walked around the circle, adjusting his distance from the center cone. We shuffled from the center cone to G, as he walked around the circle.

Wall ball came next. Kris and Lisa started out playing wall ball against each other with the 8# ball. They threw from their hips, playing twice for a minute each round. G and I played next, with the 6#. When it came time to play throwing overhead, using abs, of course, G had Lisa play wall ball with me, instead, with the lighter ball. 8# was 2# too heavy.

Abs, of course, were last. The first set was a three exercise round: ab pull downs with the weight machine, bicycles, and big ball balance (where we balanced in a plank position with elbows and forearms on the ball, then back up, with just hands on the ball, butt in the air). We each rotated through the three exercises. Next were cross-over V-ups, similar to Lisa's cross-over bicycles from the workout she developed for us. There was another few ab exercises.

The last ab exercise was 6" leg holds, for only 30 seconds. No problem.

Today was yet another rough day at ASA Baseball's MVP training class. I don't know why I'm never quite able to do this class. I often feel I'm just completely, terribly and permanently out of shape. Either that, or I need to do more on the off days.

Started with the usual ladder drills. Now there's something I think I should probably start doing every day. Along with situps, pushups, chinups, stretching, hamstring exercises and having sex.

• LR RL LR RL ...
• L-in R-top L-in R-bottom
• Fast rotate R foot first (outside, straddling the ladder, rotate 90° putting L in box 1, R in box 2; rotate back to straddling, advance to put L in box 2, R in box 3; continue), followed by L foot first
• Straddle L-in straddle R-in
• Straddle L-in straddle R-in straddle together
• R-L traversals: R-L to the left side of the ladder, R-L inside a box, R-L to the right of the box - I can never get this one right.
• Might have been another one in there...

We worked with the big boxes to start the session. With three aligned in a row with a 24" space between them, jump over each quickly, then sprint at the end. I was totally psyched out, and kept pausing between the boxes. When I did manage to keep going, I was totally flailing.

Our next box exercise was jumping off one onto the floor, then immediately onto two stacked up. 2 sets of 10. Kris managed to leap onto three stacked up for his second set, though he missed one and scraped his shin really hard on the corner of the top box (leaving hair and flesh caught in the grain - ew!).

Because we were unable to complete the box jumps, we did mini-hurdle runs.

• Facing left, land each foot between two hurdles; repeat facing right.
• Both feet together, hop over each hurdle
• Facing left, feet together, hop over each hurdle; repeat facing right.

Next came 2 sets of 3 exercise rotation: sumo walks, side to sides with sprints, toe touches on the box. The sumo walks were walk the length of the room crouched down, back at a 45° angle, feet in a wide-wide stance, pushing a weighted ball. For extra goodness, we had to hold a rubber tubing loop apart with our feet.

Side to sides were the standard ice-skater like movements, followed by a sprint at the end. We did two for each set. I thought the point of this exercise was to drop deep into the stance. I was mistaken: quickness is the way to go. So, I did much better on the second set.

I also need to work on keeping my arms in when I sprint. My elbows go out, and my arms will cross over my chest to get going fast. Better to keep the elbows in and move them directly straight back & forth.

The toe touches weren't difficult. The usual. At some point, however, during these sets of three exercises, I stood up quickly and had a head rush. It lasted longer than normal (I'd say, 15 seconds, which is 12 seconds longer than my head rushes normally last), which was strange and a bit disturbing.

The abs workout was different. More ball work than usual. Our first exercise involved sitting next to each other, about six feet apart, and tossing the 8# ball across the body at the other person. After, eh, about 20 passes, we rotated 180° and threw at each other again, working the other side.

Next we put our feet together, facing each other (still sitting on the floor), and did chest pass situps to each other. G had to hold our feet down for a while.

Next were back-to-back ball passes. I passed down each time, Kris passed up. The first was Kris' left shoulder to my left hip. Then we switched to his right shoulder down to my right hip. Unfortunately, I moved into his shoulder as he passed the ball, and was smacked right in the nose with the ball. It hurt a lot. Stood back up and continued, though.

Next we did standing ball tosses, from the hips, push out at the person standing about 12 feet away. The 8# ball was a little too much for me, so G and Kris did the first set, and I did a second set with G and the 6# ball.

Regular abs after that. Bicycle, Russian crunches, V ups, lower back, regular crunches, stretch.