First day of Training 2010

After a tragic red eye flight to Toronto I have managed to gather myself and adjust to the minimal three hour time difference. Not sleeping on the flight really thew me out to lunch but after a few naps and a restless night I have combated and am ready to roll.

Yesterday was my first session in the sand and luckily for me, it wasn't heavy. I am really looking to get my "sand legs" back which is a term for to describe your muscle fibers (predominantly in the legs) ability to move in sand. It is a depressing process which leaves you exhausted and demoralized as your vert and lateral movement is that of a sloth during your first week! Luckily the adaptation is relatively quick so vertical and lateral explosiveness usually returns by the second week.

Lennard Krapp who is our head coach ran some developmental drills to re-form technique as he wants to overhaul a lot of our tendencies. I am open to the challenge of reconfiguring movement pathways that have been set over the last 8 years of playing beach volleyball as his vision is focused on developing Olympic caliber athletes. The practices have been stretching to 3 hours so I bowed out after 2 to stretch and recover.

After training we headed out to the gym facility to work with Chris Dalcin who is in charge of our strength programming. He has some great ideas and a masterful grasp on athletic training so I am looking forward to learning from him and elevating my physical prowess. The facility itself is way out in the middle of nowhere but I have never trained in a more athletically inspired gym. There isn't an inch waisted in the entire building and they have managed to create a multi-lain sprint track, artificial grass training ground along with a brand new strength section of "Hammer Strength" squat racks and machines which just happen to be my faves! Also, there is a chiropractic and athletic therapy business that operates out of the same office so it is pretty much an athletes dream facility. I am super excited to sweat it out in their complex and re-define my physical game.

I am sore from this first day of training and I still have a bit of Jet lag in the system; time for a nap.