Kai's Session

Last night Gus, Steve, Kenny and I attended our first fitness session together with Kai and a few Fakulti boys (not sure if it's Kenny's first time but that's irrelevant). Super hard, super tough session but I feel much better for it, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Started off with a light jog and stretching for a warm up, then we got stuck in. First up was squats in pairs. Pairs were back to back, with thighs parallel to the ground using each other for support. With a stretchy band underneath both feet and attached to your hands, you had to raise you hands above your head. Now Gus Guy will agree that I was rubbish at this. I think we did a set of 15 and then 10. In between we used a stretchy band attached to you ankles. Balancing on one leg and pushing your chest forward, you had to keep your back and outstretched leg straight. Then you lifted your heel to your butt, with the stretchy band providing resistance.

After this we moved over to the ladders, which were set up across the width of the field, with two cones in front, one about 10m the other about 20m. Kai pointed out that in a game people do not stand in the sprinting stance before they run (one foot behind, one in front). They will have their feet side by side. Most people then usually put on foot back and propel forwards. Doing this he said actually means you are slower off the mark. So he made us put our feet side by side in two ladder rungs, then do a 10m sprint. He made us take our first step forward and use our arms to help. So if you were to start with your left foot, your left arm would be high initially, take the step with your left foot and at the same time drive upwards with your right arm. After you got going concentrate on getting your hands driving and getting them high.

This was really awkward to start and didn't feel natural at all. He gave us races against each other to prove his point. After the "GO", one person put their foot backwards then propelled forwards and the other put their foot forwards. The person who put their foot forwards always run the short sprint. If you think you don't put your foot backwards you should try it out, everyone of us did it. So we did a far few sets of those both 10m and 20m. In between we did a few push ups (holding for a second) and chin ups (well these were basically lying on the ground and using the 1m high fence railing to pull yourself up).

By now I was getting pretty tired, but this was only the beginning.

Next was resisted running. Once again we got into pairs. Put a harness on that had a tail and with the other person digging their heals in and holding onto your tail, you had to do a 10m sprint. Main thing to concentrate on was your running form, pumping your legs, and most of all pumping your arms raising them above your shoulders. These of course got extended to 20m. Can't quite remember how many we did. Maybe 5 each, switching each time.

Then it was onto and an interesting invention, the bungee rope. Once again in pairs, attach one end to person1 and the other to person2. One person stands on the start line, the other starts walking backwards till the rope is really tight (maybe 8m). After "GO" person1 starts sprinting and so does person2. Person2 gets massive acceleration and its a race to the 20m mark. Did maybe 10 of these, 5 in front, 5 behind.

Once again we did push ups and chin ups in between activities.

Next was the parachute. Basically you had a small parachute about 4m behind you attached around your waist. Your job was to ensure it was fully inflated while you did a 20m sprint, turned around sprinted back. We had a race between two groups which also involved more push ups and chin ups at the end.

Last was another similar race to above, except this time every second person was wearing a weight jacket instead of the parachute. We ran through doing 6 sprints (3 of each). More push ups and chin ups followed.

Now I was really in hurting. We then did a few throws and anytime anyone dropped the disc it was an immediate 10 push ups. I think we did about 30 throws each side. I was proud to say that none of the Dingos dropped any or threw anything away.

I was stuffed, which in my book means that it was a great session. Gus, Steve and Kenny felt the same. Lets get some more NSW Dingos to the next one.

Gav