Orientation

Today marked my first day at Athletes' Performance. The month ahead promises to be exciting and daunting.

I arrived at 7:15 am, early enough to eat breakfast at the facility before the beginning of my program at 8. I was quickly awed. I was directed to a pro-style locker room with padded chairs, full showers and a sauna. The lounge includes leather couches, a ping-pong table, billiards, and a bank of computers. The weight-room is huge (the size of two basketball courts) and there is also a rubber court, track and turf football field.

At 8, I was led to an office where Steve, AP's resident nutrition guru, asked me a few questions about my goals, measured my body composition and took some "before" pictures (which made me feel like Jared). After my flexibility was measured, I ran on a treadmill with a heart-rate monitor and a mask for 9 minutes. My morning was already over and it wasn't even 9 am.

The 3 hour break gave me a chance to star gaze. Athletes' Performance is known as a off-season training site for professional athletes, so I was surprised to find a large number of high school and collegiate athletes. Still, there were a few big names including Larry Johnson (Kansas City Chiefs) and Brady Quinn (Cleveland Browns) of the NFL, Dan Cleary (Detroit Red Wings) and Derek Morris (Phoenix Coyotes) of the NHL. Among collegiate baseball players, I saw Mike Leake and Josh Satow (ASU), Zach Etheredge (Texas-San Antonio) and David Cross (Virginia Tech).

The afternoon sessions weren't as active. We had a noon nutrition meeting where Steve showed a PowerPoint presentation. AP has a team of kitchen staff run by chef Debbie who prepares three meals per day according to Steve's personalized nutrition plan. Today I had a large bowl of granola in the morning, a burrito at lunch and steak, mashed potatoes and veggies for dinner.

There was a short workout at 1, where we focused on our core strength followed by a general orientation meeting and a meeting with my trainer, Darryl Eto. Darryl and two interns will train four athletes, which includes several baseball players. My training starts tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,
Ben