Pre-Season Workout

Nate starts Panthers Football at the end of July. Nate's played flag football for a few years, but this is now the real deal. Starting in July they begin with 2 1/2 hour practices each day, five days a week leading until after their first game. The practices are hot, long and in full pads. Nate's never done anything quite this intense, so Nate and I agreed that it'd be a good idea to make sure he's in good shape going into practice. He's about 70 pounds, so he needs every edge he can get. We started these workouts about 2 weeks ago and have ramped them up to about 30-40 minutes long. We started easy with jumping jacks, some push-ups, sit-ups and sprints for about 15 minutes. We've worked it up to a complete circuit tonight, similar to what I do with Kirk and the guys at Triad.

The first day of the workout was tough. Nate had a hard time getting the exercises and they were tough to do. We had a long talk about what it was going to take for him to play football at his best, and the next day, he rocked it out in his workout. I asked him why the difference, and he told me that he'd thought a lot about our conversation, and he'd decided that this was something he really wanted and was going to do his best at. He has not complained once about any of this, which is way more than I can say about my workouts with Kirk. If I ask Nate to do 30 push-ups, he finds a way to do 40. He does this in every exercise, pushing himself just a little farther each time. I'm amazed to see the spirit he's got in him. He's very proud of the fact that he's up to 100 push-ups and sit-ups now, where he could barely get 20 in the first time. It's a fun time with Nate watching him gain in confidence in what he's doing, as a Dad, just beaming as he does it so well.