Weight Training (phoenix/Invites)

[Jack]

Jack turned the corner of a busy city street block, wearing a pair of black Adidas track suit pants with a black bonds tank top, white Adidas short with the black stripes running along his thighs under his trackies, similar white Adidas runners and finally his normal black leather addidas training bag, a spare change of clothes, his hands wraps, drink bottle and any other useful training gear that he’d need when doing an instance work out. Jack had his ipod in as he walked down the street not far from his gym, he had recently signed Phoenix up for a lifetime membership across the fitness first chain which was a huge giant in America let alone the world. Jack reached into his pocket as he felt it vibrate, flicking his N97 open Jack used the full qwerty keyboard to respond quickly and accurately before shutting it and replacing it in his pocket. His music was loud so he was very blocked off from the world, not caring about all the noises around him or the people he passed. The steady beat could be heard by anyone near him, he rounded the last corner and took another sharp right. Going through the nice crystal clear automatic doors into the lobby. Jack used his card to scan himself in before he made his way to the change rooms, removing his clothes he put anything that he wouldn’t need to train into his storage locker before locking up and making his way into the weights area, with only a towel, drink bottle, phone, ipod and wrist wraps.

Jack decided to go for a quick jog to warm his body up, he turned his music up loud bobbing up and down to the music as he ran at a casual 18 kmph. He sighed as he looked at the time, phoenix should been here ay minuet, whether or not the male decided to join in on his warm up or not was completely up to him. Jack would have a bike ride and ergo to go after his quick run, it didn’t take long to run the three kilometres, Jack got off the treadmill and started doing a few basic stretches on the spot before moving over to the electric bike. He got on and began to cycle, building up speed holding it around 25 kmph. A few minutes would pass before Jack rounded an imaginary corner in his head as he raced around the track. Jack clocked two Kilometers on the bike before he slowly came to a stop jumping off and moving toward the ergo. He stood in front of the ergo stretching his legs and quickly all his back muscles, moving his gear off to the side so no one would trip over it, Jack sat himself down in the sliding seat adjusting everything he turned on the ergo and set his preference deciding to do a one kilometres time trial with a bit extra time at the start to warm up and at the end. The row started at a nice and easy pace, beeping him when the computer told him to row faster or increase his stroke length , it steadily built up before a countdown to his 1000 meter time trial. *Beep, beep, beep. BEEEEEP!!!!!!* Jack’s stroke lengths increased, leaning in as far as possible before bringing his legs in. Pushing off with his legs before using his strong abs to bring his torso back as far as possible followed by his arms. He would repeat using al his muscles groups from strongest to weakest perfectly. The machine beep and he slowed down, rowing another 500 meters he stopped. Stretched he would cracked all his joints before standing up, having build up a little sweat he took a sip of water and walked over to the bench to wrap his wrists waiting for Phoenix.

Jack flicked open his phone and sent a text to Phoenix informing him he had warmed up and was waiting for him to get ready.

[Phoenix]

Phoenix rounded the corner of a block somewhere in San Diego, hoping to whatever deity everyone fooled themselves into believing these days, that Jack hadn’t screwed up the address that he had just sent Phoenix and had got something correct… for once. Deciding to reply to Jack’s text, Phoenix would simply answer that he was only a short distance away and that he should warm up while waiting for Phoenix. Following the GPS built into his iPhone, Phoenix would have his headphones plugged into the audio jack at the same time listening to a playlist of his own composition. The playlist was a combination of all of Phoenix’s favourite music and to anyone else it would seem like an explosion of outdated music and noise condensed into 50 tracks, however, to Phoenix the playlist was a masterpiece, consisting of artists such as Parkway Drive, Avenged Sevenfold and Breaking Benjamin as well as the compositions of Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Baque. Phoenix found the transition from violent music with hidden melodies to the beautiful and flowing harmonies of classical music to be very calming and intriguing. On autopilot, as his headphones blasted out Dies Irae, Phoenix would make his way through streets that he had never heard of, memorising the route as he went as Jack would no doubt want him to return to this place… frequently.

Sighting the gym from a block away, Phoenix would cross the road and briskly walk into the gym, flashing his gym card to the receptionist and entering the change rooms. Currently, Phoenix was wearing his usual combination of clothes, an unmarked t-shirt with some form of jacket on and a pair of casual jeans, however, in the old basketball bag the he carried with him, Phoenix had a pair of basketball shorts and an under armour long sleeve skivvy shirt. Changing with speed into the clothes that he had brought with him and depositing his bag into the locker that he had been assigned, Phoenix would look at his watch and see that he was perfectly on time and wouldn’t keep Jack waiting for much longer.

Entering the gym, Phoenix would navigate through the seemingly endless array of exercise machinery and try to locate Jack. He shouldn’t be that hard to miss, thought Phoenix to himself, after all, he is a veritable giant. Pulling out his iPhone to text Jack asking him where he was, Phoenix would notice that he had missed a message from Jack, glancing at the text message, Phoenix saw that Jack had completed his warm up. As Phoenix had memorised Jack’s warm up from their endless hours of training together, he would navigate his way over to the ergo area where he saw Jack sipping some water and cooling down after his warm up.

“Nice place, I was worried that you would get the address wrong, I mean, I know how incapable you are with technology.”

Teasing Jack, Phoenix would sit down just in front of the bench Jack was positioned near and began going through a basic stretching routine. Stretching one leg forward and bending his opposite knee, Phoenix would touch his left foot to the side of his right knee, reaching forward to grasp his extended right foot with both hands, Phoenix would feel the burning sensation in his calves as he constantly and gradually applied more pressure to the stretch. Thirty seconds later, Phoenix would complete the same stretch albeit on the other side and the stand up feeling slightly more limber than he had a minute ago.

“So what’s up first, Jack? Knowing you, you probably have a program that stretches on for a ridiculously long time for me already planned.”

[Jack]

“Nice place, I was worried that you would get the address wrong, I mean, I know how incapable you are with technology.”

"Coming from you, someone who carries that outdated piece of shit"

Jack was making reference to his I phone, a severely lacking product across all fields. But this wasn’t an argument about who was better Apple or Microsoft after all Microsoft was always going to win so there wasn’t really any need to argue about it. Jack cracked his neck as he waited for Phoenix to continue his usual speech. While Jack had told Phoenix training started around 3:30, Jack had expected Phoenix to be here much earlier. Jack having already warmed up had grown a size or two, the blood rush already moving around his body he certainly looked bigger.

“So what’s up first, Jack? Knowing you, you probably have a program that stretches on for a ridiculously long time for me already planned.”

“Right well you haven’t warmed up yet, I want you to ride 2 K’s run 2 K’s and then row 1 K got it? While you do that I’ll get the weights all set up”

Jack would leave Phoenix to do his quick warm up while he moved off firstly moving to the free weights area. Finding a strong heavy bar he picked it up and walked to a squat rack. Placing the bar on the pegs he went off and brought back 20 kilo weights two at a time. He placed them either side of the bar, for their warm up and heavier exercise, in total he had 600 pounds split into two groups of fifteen , twenty kilo weights.

For the warm up Jack would place a hundred pounds either side of the bar, securing them on with bar pins he would wait for Phoenix to finish. Finally remembering the belts Jack rushed off to find two spare, clean weight lifting belts . Returning to the weights rack, he placed the belts on the floor and continued to stretch going over in his head, phoenix’s new training program .

He has certainly gotten faster and stronger, thus explosive power is exactly what he needs and with constant conditioning practice he’ll become quite the formidable opponent. Very few things will be able to stop him once he gets a little more fighting experience under his belt.

Jack would breath out as he went into another deep stretch which focused on the groin area.

He would be a valuable asset on the track team not to mention the basketball team, it’s a bit late for the track team but certainly I’d be able to convince him to join the Basketball team in time for next season

[Phoenix]

Phoenix heard the vague insult towards his sense of judgement and intelligence and decided that he would respond.

“You should remember that I only use this phone because it was easier to program it in Unix.”

Hoping that Jack wouldn’t start up some stupid argument that would only further waste his time, Phoenix would wait for Jack to answer his second question. Knowing that it was going to take a while to process the question and then think up the correct response, Phoenix glanced around at the area of the gym that they were standing in. Seeing exercises bikes, tread mills and ergo’s nearby, Phoenix deduced that Jack’s program was going to revolve around those, but he hoped that Jack realised he needed a little bit of time to warm up beforehand.

Seemingly, Jack did realise that Phoenix required a warm up before he tried any difficult training such as weights or strengthening. Instructing Phoenix to warm up for a total of five kilometers, he would the move off to the weights area, no doubt to do some more of his own exercises in the spare time.

Walking around to the exercise bike, Phoenix would adjust the seat to a reasonable and comfortable position so that when his leg was about to hi the bottom of his pedal that it was only slightly bent at the knee. Pushing the start button on the machine, Phoenix would begin pedaling at a mild speed before slowly speeding up until he was at a comfortable speed, enjoying the warmth that was spreading throughout his leg muscles. Hearing a beep from the machine as it signaled that he had already reached the required distance, Phoenix would reduce his pedaling sped until it came to a complete halt before sliding off the seat. Walking over to the nearest treadmill, Phoenix would once again push the start button, increasing the speed until he was at a comfortable pace. Casting his mind away from the mundane tasks at hand, he would think of the future and how he was going to shape it to his will. An interrupting beep sounded again and Phoenix switched machines over to the nearest ergo. Sitting down, Phoenix would set off at full strength, powering away with his arms and his legs just like Jack had showed him long ago, Phoenix would watch the distance speed past until he pulled back as far as he could once more and let the handle fall to the ground as the distance clicked over 1 kilometer.

Standing up off the ergo, Phoenix would reach down until his palms were flat on the ground. Completing the short stretch, Phoenix would walk over to where Jack was and watching him for a while, noting that he didn’t seem to be lifting just as much as he used to.

“I’m warm, let’s go.”

[Jack]

“I’m warm, let’s go.”

“Right spot me please”

Jack would walk up to the rack, he would make sure his feet were a tiny bit wider then shoulder width. Due to his height he had to bend considerably low just to get under the bar let alone squat. Adjusting his position until he was satisfied with his stance he would push up performing a half squat, walking back a few steps before stabilizing himself. When ready he would make sure to adjust anything that was wrong, satisfied he would slowly bend at the knees . His height made it awkward to do a full squat without his knees travelling too far in front however for someone of his height it was, understandable. He would continue to lower his body slowly, pinching his shoulder blades and keeping his back straight with his head straight and slightly looking up. Breathing in on the way down he would push up instantly, letting out his breath. Once he reached the top without locking his knees he would repeat the long slow process. Bending as if he were sitting down in a chair, his butt lead and his body followed. Jack would repeat the process fifteen times before returning to his starting position, knees bent he walked toward the rack and slowly lowered the bar back on the pins.

“Right your turn”

Jack would motion for Phoenix to take the bar, this was the first of five sets by the end of it they would be doing close to max weight at only five reps. Jack would help guide Pheonix through it making sure he kept good form the whole time through it. Counting from one to ten. This was an easy enough exercise, best to start low and build up until you find out where you are. The funny thing was he weighed more then what was on the rack.