Day 32

Wednesday
Well I finally went to API , at 8am this morning. It's at the Home Depot Center, where the LA Galaxy soccer team plays. Not exactly a primo location, but it's good enough for fantasy football sensation TJ Houshmandzadeh, who's name I saw on the marker board.

The workout facility is underneath, where the stadium tunnels are. There I met my contact Adam, and it was off to get flexibility tests. This just consisted of stretcing my boy, mostly on a trainers table. Turns out my left leg, the leg I jump from, is more flexible. I already knew it was a little.

Next up, I learned all the strengthening exercises to do, which primarily strengthen my core. And by core, we're talking about the region between your belly button and your groin. It includes the abdominals, but the deep ones, not the rectus abdominals, or your "six pack". Another major player of the core muscles is the glutes (butt), and hips. I learned about 30 exercises and have no idea if i'll remember half of them. Most of them have some form of squatting and flexing of the glutes. As long as I focussed on keeping my weight directly over my flat feet, it meant that my body was in the right position. But I often forgot and wound up on my toes or heels...

There were also several exercises with a medicine ball, where I took different squatting stances and would hurl the ball against a wall.

I finished up with an endurance test, where I ran on a treadmill with an oxygen mask and a remote heart monitor in a band around my chest. I couldn't tell if the trainer was just being supportive, but I think I surprised him with how long and hard I could run. I'll bet a lot of the pro athletes don't even run 3 miles a day like me. Oh well, a boy can dream...

Oh, and at the end, I thought I saw TJ Houshmandzadeh. I asked a trainer after we left the training room, and he told me it was Isaiah Stanback, one of my cousin's players! I even put Isaiah's DVD highlight reel together. Though I've never met him, I didn't want to bug him while he was getting treated. The dude is HUGE, unlike the usual QB. I hope he gets drafted in the mid-rounds.

So the overall experience was good, but still feels incomplete, though I get a follow up consultation at some date in the future. Throughout the experience, all of the staff were totally cool, professional, and positive. They had told us we could film everything as long as they got to see the edit, but the main trainer who showed me the exercises said it's against company policy, and I didn't want to argue or make him uncomfortable. So all the high-priced exercises I learned might be forgotten. Also, we never specifically discussed dunking. They didn't even watch my jump to discuss my mechanics. I should point out, they haven't even sent me my review/results packet. So I'll look at that, and then give em some questions relating to my quest.

But I'm not too concerned, because I think the core exercises are what i need. Before, when I squatted, my knees totally hurt. But when done properly, by accessing the core, I was using my hips and ass, and my knees didn't hurt at all! So this is very promising. If I build a strong and stable core, everything flows from that. I will better mechanics, and less pain, and more strength!

The only real challenge from this new experience is 2 parts: 1. There were players there who do this workout as prescribed, 4 days a week. They work hard for hours, and need the 3 days off. But I have a job and that's just not possible... and 2. I don't belong to a gym, and not many of the exercises require a squatting bar or nautilus ( cool side note - their nautilus equipment is driven by compressed air, not weights...totally cool). So Mickey and I are gonna go over the list and figure out what I can do with my time and resources. I don't think I need to join a gym, but I may need to buy some basic free weights.

Either way, I wouldn't start these exercises until probably this Sunday.

Another thing about today, I didn't feel too dweeby, despite all the top physical specimens using the same facility, so I thank the staff for making me feel welcome. I'm sure I'll have a few more thoughts to add about API, but this should do for now.