Putting in Time for the Dunk

Operation GET SWOLL is well underway. I began upping reps and weight Monday, maintained that new level Wednesday, and am doing it again today. Saturday will be a running day (if I make it in - tonight I'm going to the Hawks game and may choose to continue the night's festivities). Sunday I'm going to try and make my football debut, then Monday I'll return to moving weight, but increasing the amount again.

After Monday's workout I bought some protein bars (le sigh) to double up with my milk. Wednesday morning we played 4-on-4 (only 9 showed) for about 45 minutes. Earlier in the week I was joking with another teacher about how I'd need to buy a pair of high tops if we keep playing. He asked me what size I was and said, "I gotcha". Wednesday morning he shows up with a pair for me to use! Having never worn high tops before, I was really pleased about the level of support they offered. It allowed for sharper cuts and stopped the mini-ankle rolls I'd come to expect with my running shoes. Afterwards I set them by his desk in the office, but he told me to keep them! So now I've got a pair of bonus high tops! How great is life?

We played 3 games, and I won 2. I shot okay, 3-7 (all jumpers), but missed a really great breakaway layup. Missing that kind of shot is just stupid. I've found that when charging the basket at a sprint you need to jump much earlier than you'd think, as your forward momentum carries you further than anticipated. I got in and banged around a bit too, getting some rebounds and assists. My one open drive to the basket got kicked away by another player. And I definitely need to work on ball-handling.

This is what I look like when dribbling.

But all that is secondary to the new year's resolution, of course. The squats are definitely giving me a huge workout. I pair a set of 10 with 20+ calf raises, and do that 3 times. I do two leg workouts: squats and either quad/hamstring or step-ups with 25# weights in each hand (although I'll bump that to 30# today). I may try the leg press machine today, but I feel that free weights give the additional attention to stabilizing muscles. I'll re-measure my vertical this weekend and try and get a read on my running jump... time to do work!