January 25th

I decided to change up my workout today.  I want to start playing soccer again once I get in shape, so I decided to do some of the work that we used to do before soccer practice back in the stone ages.  I am not sure what most of the exercises are called, but they wear you out very quickly.

The first is called the Mexican Hat Dance.  You put one foot on top of the ball, and then jump in the air. As you are doing this, you take your foot off of the ball and bring the other on top.  As soon as you touch the ball with the second foot, you switch back.  You wind up jumping up and down switching feet very fast (once you figure out the motion).  This will wear you out quicker than you realize, and the ball is usually rolling around the floor, so you have to chase it while jumping.  This is a very good exercise for building your touch skills on the ball, and of course it is a great aerobic workout.

I call the second exercise the triangle, but I'm not sure what the actual name is.  You kick the ball a little ways out in front of you with one foot, then bring it back with the other foot.  You then kick it laterally back to the first foot, where you proceed to kick it out in front of you again.  When you do this correctly, the ball goes in the shape of a triangle, hence the name.

The third exercise has no name as far as I'm concerned (except maybe "the crazy ass-kicking exercise").  It is very simple, yet very effective.  You spread your legs out a little, and kick the ball back and forth between them.  It sounds simple, but when you go as fast as I do, it kicks your ass.

All three of these exercises are meant to increase your ball control skills, but I am using them to get back into shape right now.  As stated before, I want to start playing soccer again, so of course these exercises will help with that.

I also did 10 push-ups.  It was very hard to do those, so immediately after I dropped my knees to the floor and did 6 more girly push-ups.

It has now been ten minutes since I finished my workout, and my arms and legs are not working properly.  It's amazing that I used to drive home from the gym feeling like this almost everyday!


Update - Dinner consisted of great northern white beans with sausage over rice.  Cornbread would have been really good with this, but the meal was already fattening enough.

Since I've been eating better lately, the grease left after draining the sausage actually made my stomach a little upset.  Its been a very long time since that has happened.  With me it usually only does this when my stomach is no longer used to the grease.  This is a good sign.