Burnin Up the Sun

"I'm not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat."

This is one of my favorite quotes, poignantly stated by the great Michael Jordan.  His Airness knew a thing or two about sweating and pushing himself when others may have settled for working on just foul shots and 3-pointers. 

Today, we turned up the heat and this afternoon's practice combined the technical components of great stroke work with the toughness of a rigorous dryland routine.

A view from the 3-meter board as we work on our tans.

The guts of the practice had us split into two sections - three lanes of explosive freestyle work and two lanes of IM aerobic and anaerobic sets.  The freestyle group was excellent, combining work with fins and kicking and finishing with some high-tempo freestyle for 4x125s.  The IM group carved the most yardage of the trip and finishing their sets with 6x150s (100 IM, 50 Free) on a challenging, orange interval.

The Bison earned their meals, though, with their dryland efforts.  I can't tell you how fantastic it is watching teammates encourage each other and perform to the height of their physical potential.  There's no doubt it stings the muscles and lungs, but we fought valiantly through the soreness.  Dryland was broken into three parts and each part will be given a name that I simply made up :)

The beginning of The Panda...

Circuit I - The Panda ... executed 3 times

5 mechanical pushups done on the IRON GYM

50-yard dash

10-yard tricep balance walk on dip bars

5 pull ups

50-yard dash

* No partners are needed for this circuit.

At this point, the heart rate is very high and the legs are getting heavier.  The pull up bars are about 8 feet off the ground and doing each of the items may look easy, but after a long, physically demanding day in the pool and the sun sauteing your skin, this opening circuit was quite a bear.

Keep your feet up when you order Meatballs to Go...

Circuit II - Meatballs to Go...executed 3 times

* Grab a partner and a medicine ball

* 3 Russian Twists w/med ball...pass to partner

(Each partner does this 10 times each.)

* Both partners then sprint 100 yards around pull-up bars

This becomes a small respite for the shoulders, but the legs are still getting a workout, especially when your legs remain off the ground when doing Russian Twists.

Circuit III - Cannons...executed 3 times per person

* Grab a partner and a medicine ball

* Each partner chest passes medicine balls as hard as he/she can 5 times each.

* Partner closest to runway sprints to pull-up bars 50 yards away

* Partner A does 5 pullups

* Partner A sprints back to Partner B and chest passes resume.

* Once chest passes are done 5 more times, Partner B sprints to pull-up bar

* Partner B does 5 pullups

* Partner B sprints back to Partner B and chest passes resume.

THREE STARS for the afternoon

#3 - Keely Monge - super job durng both kick sets...dryland was done with terrific effort ... influential and quite encouraging to all teammates...

#2 - Darien Washington...aka Fire and Desire - the junior co-captain is in the best shape of his life, and it shows with each workout.  He's making tougher intervals and executing each circuit with textbook precision.

#1 - Trent Popovich - made tremendous impact on sprint freestyle group and led the charge in every dryland circuit.  One of the finest practices Trent endured as a Bison....

We returned to the bus with a feeling of accomplishment, fatigue and hunger.  The work put into today was extensive and complete and each Bison understands fully that we didn't sweat just to know what it felt like to sweat.