spar log!

[garmr]

Who: guts berserk and... you?
What: SWORDS PRACTICE!! SPARRING!!! PUNCH FRIENDSHIP?
Where: Training Area
When: After the sheetcake bonanza, during training time
Warnings/Notes: semi-open! Basically just a place to keep all the planned sparring threads together. Just hit me up if you'd like to do something.

(( Feel free to use the prompt below or have them be in a general training scenario - I will run with it! ))

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday hops off. "Here, try the hydraulics. If that doesn't work, we'll load up a freeweight."

She helps him settle with brisk efficiency; it takes some doing, since the machine isn't exactly designed for someone his size. She chatters while she does so, an unthinking stream of words meant to distract from the manhandling and general discomfort of having someone yanking you about. He likely doesn't need it, but a lot of her kids back home do - in the way nervous horses need a hand on them when you move behind - and she is gonna get home one day, so best to keep the habit.

"See, what focusing in allows isn't just for you to build up specific weak areas," she says, finessing his legs into the press. "It also helps in getting to feel where the muscles are, learning how to keep good form and posture while they're active or exhausted or both. You wanna take it slow; you see dumb meatheads clanging around superfast like it proves something, and all it means is that they've shot their form to shit and they're not actually working what they're trying to work. Slow, controlled movements, that's the ticket. Give it a shot."

[garmr]

Guts follows along with her, not minding the physical manipulating on her end as much he might have. Perhaps he had simply gotten used to her presence after living together for a few days, even if that was a bit unusual for him. His sword is placed beside them as he attempts to make room - the seat did feel rather small.

He eases into it, at first, feeling out the movement allowed by the machine, as she instructed. Okay. Movement down. Seems simple enough.

With an intake of breath, he tries to apply some proper force to it - and, well, this was a regular hydraulic exercise machine, meant for humans without batshit anime powers. The plate gets snapped back as if there were no resistance at all, and something old cracks somewhere in the mechanisms. When he tries to pull his legs back, the plate just kind of sidles over. The tension is lost altogether. Is something in the plastic housing spilling out?

This.. this did not sound like how Saturday was doing it.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday stares at the machine in pure, unmitigated astonishment for a moment.

Then she doubles over laughing. It takes her a solid minute to get control of herself, and she comes up wiping her eyes.

"Oh jeez, man, you broke it. I don't think these machines can handle you." She gestures towards the weight rack. "C'mon, let's try those."

[garmr]

She's laughing. Did he make a fool of himself?

"I appreciate you explaining all this, but perhaps I should stick to my sword..."

Listen, it took a good punishment and never failed him. It doesn't leak or break, and it was heavy enough to keep him in tip top shape. With a pensive look at the machine, he follows her over to the weight rack.

Well. At least lifting a metal stick with heavy weights on it isn't too distant from what he usually did.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday piles on an easy fifty pounds for demonstration purposes and stands at rest, gripping the weights with proper form.

"The reason I like exercises like this is that you can do them with anything heavy, or just your own bodyweight if you gotta. That being said, even if they look familiar there might be something new to learn, so let me know if something looks interesting or weird."

And with that, she launches into a series of exercises, narrating as she goes, that probably look familiar right up until she gets to the one-legged toe raises. That would be odd maneuver that involves standing on something and going up and down on her toes very slowly.

"Looks weird as hell," she says cheerfully, racking her weights back where they belong like a good gym citizen, "but it works your calves like you would not believe."

As always, she gestures to the body part she's mentioning. Her kids back home don't always know the same words for things she does, either. And this doesn't insult them, or make them admit ignorance.

[garmr]

So, kind of like carrying buckets of water, or carrying things around in general. This did seem more familiar to something he'd do to train himself back in his mercenary days. Strike with a weapon to get good at striking, run to build your stamina, and carry heavy stuff around to build your strength.

Moving up and down with a big metal thing on his shoulders is simple enough, so he approaches a free rack to look at the bar and check the weights. One plate gets manipulated around in his hands to get a good tactile sense of it. Since they were made of metal, his prosthetic could actually get something of a grip of it.

Plus, no machines or pulleys to accidentally pull out of place. He could do this one, he supposes.

"And how many of these do you do? A hundred?"

Two hundred??? Two hundred toe raises. It is supposed to be a Day for Legs, right?

[wheyoftheadept]

"For you? Hell if I know, you just broke the bank. I say go until you feel the muscles tiring, and that's your baseline. Then every time you wanna do a few more, even if it's just five or ten. You know the drill."

He does, really; he has to, or else he would have killed himself with that big ol' pigsticker of his. But there's always room for improvement. That's the jock's creed.

Sword is life.