Session 8 of ASA's MVP class.

Another day of good old-fashioned ass kickin'.

Started with the ladder drills (with a twist!). LR-RL-LR-RL (my favorite!); L inside, R on top of ladder, L inside, R on bottom of ladder; R inside, L on top of ladder, R inside, L on bottom of ladder; L outside R, outside L; scissors; L foot out/in; R foot out/in; going backwards, outside, both feet inside, outside, both feet inside; going backwards, L, outside, R, outside, together.

G put the two ladders together, then had us do quick feet: every square (for several runs), then every other square (for several runs).

Today's workout was a leg workout. The first exercise was the long-short shuttle runs. The course was laid out from one corner of the room (opposite the equipment corner), run to about the middle of the room, turn back to the back corner (still facing forward), to a cone about 1/2 way back to the corner. At that point, turn to go forward to the next cone 45° up at the box. At the first cone, a disc gets thrown for catching.

We did several of these, then switched and did the run in reverse.

Next came side to side runs for time. A cone was placed in the middle of the room with another cone five steps from it, and another five steps from that one (for three cones, each five steps apart). Starting at the middle cone, run to the cone to the left, then back to the cone on the far right, then back to the middle. G predicted 4.8 for me, 4.2 for Kris and Ryan.

All of us slipped on the turns for the first few times we did the run. Kris' times were around 4.2 - 4.4. Mine were like 5.0, 4.8, 6.0 (I slipped) and 4.3 (Kris raced me. I suspect I cheated a bit, but no one said anything). Kris said when I stayed low, I did well, but that I seemed to be running tall for the most part.

Then we were back to leg exercises. We did duck walks from one side of the room to the other (the long way), while pushing a ball along between our legs. Kris had an elastic band between his ankles that he had to keep taut, which made the walk harder. I just had to squat walk. After walking down, turning around and walking back, we had 20 squat jumps. We did both of these twice through.

Next was the side to side "ice-skating" bounding, but instead of just side to side, we went forward the length of the room. There were cones spaced in a diagonal pattern, and we bounded from one to the next. After bounding a few times (maybe 4 or 5), we bounded with pausing at each cone where we sank into the position and held it. We looked like ice skaters bounding along. My butt hurt a lot after this.

The ab workout was even harder than all the other ones. We went through the whole set twice: bicycles, russian crunches, R elbow to left knee, L elbow to right knee, V-ups, back arches and twists with a weighted ball. The first set was hard, the second was even harder. I had to stop a number of times in the beginning of the second set, but was determined at the end of the second set. I did okay.

Friday's workout is 3x30, 3x60, 3x90, 3x90, 3x60, 3x30 at 85%.

My ass is tired.