"No pitching for two months…"
Ken muttered to himself on the way home from the train station, his mind wandering.
He had approached Coach Hanada in order to find a resolution for his poor pitching, but he didn't think the guy would give him such a stipulation.
There was only 6 months remaining until the system finished its upgrade, which meant he'll only have 4 months remaining once he could pitch again.
'How can I get back to my form by not pitching?' He thought inwardly.
While he might not understand this part of the coach's reasoning, Ken agreed that he needed to strengthen his body considerably. In addition to the shoulder strengthening exercises he'd been given, the coach also told him to focus on his legs and core.
Power was derived from a strong base, therefore he needed to ensure his foundation was firm.
Ken was silent for a while before he pulled his phone out and began to type a message.
"Coach says I need to work on my core muscles, do you have any suggestions?"
Not even a few minutes after sending the message, Ken received a lengthy reply.
He read the message, blinking a few times in disbelief.
"That guy is crazy…" He muttered, feeling his muscles twitch, as if they were complaining.
Of course he had consulted the resident gym junkie Hiroki. If anyone knew about core and abdominal workouts, it would be the Greek God himself.
Ken let out a sigh, yet his features morphed shortly after.
"I've just gotta do it…" He said, gripping his fist tightly.
While others might just take the easy way out and wait for the system if they were in his position, Ken felt a burning desire to prove to himself that he could do it.
After making up his mind, Ken jogged all the way back home.
"I'm home." Ken said aloud, heading straight past his mother in the kitchen.
"Welcome home Kenny, how was your—"
"Sorry mom, I've got some workouts to do."
Before Yuki could finish her words, Ken had already run up the stairs to his room, leaving her standing alone in the Kitchen.
"…"
Yuki stood silently for a while, before letting out a harrumph and returning to what she was doing.
Not understanding his own plight, Ken quickly got changed and opened up his laptop, searching the names of the exercises on the Internet. He hadn't heard of half of them before, so he was worried that he would mess up without proper guidance.
After around 20 minutes, Ken's face turned a little pale. Only now that he knew what each exercise was did he realize just how much work was ahead of him.
With these exercises in addition to his morning run and club practice, he would be burning a ridiculous amount of calories. Ken already knew that he would need to increase his caloric and protein intake for the best results.
Ken let out a deep breath and began his workout, starting with his upper body and shoulders first. He had a limited amount of equipment on hand so he had to improvise some of the exercises.
Almost straight away he could feel the burn of his shoulder muscles, letting him know that he was doing it correctly. It took him around 30 minutes to complete the upper body regime that the coach had provided, but by the end he was half exhausted.
"Haaah damn it that's tough…" Ken mumbled, staring at the ceiling as he was laid out on the floor.
After a few minutes rest, he jumped into the core exercises that Hiroki had sent through.
"You son of a…"
After only a few minutes of the workout, Ken felt that his abdominal muscles were on fire. All he could do was grit his teeth and persevere, digging deep with as much discipline as he could muster.
By the end of the core workout, Ken was spent.
"A-ARGH CRAMP."
Ken panicked as his abs began to cramp up, giving him an unexplainable pain. Thankfully he knew what to do in that situation, quickly moving onto his stomach and performing a prone ab stretch.
It took almost a minute to finally calm down after which Ken let out a contended sigh.
Yoga was something that he had performed as a part of his routine when he first got the system. It had been a while since he used it last, but the stretches seemed to be quite beneficial in this case.
"May as well finish my routine then." Ken muttered.
After an additional 15 minutes, he was finished with his brand new workout routine. All up it had taken him over an hour to complete, yet he could already feel the aftereffects.
As long as he could make sure to use progressive overloading, there was no doubt that these workouts would do what he needed them to do.
"Time to shower." He announced, hearing his stomach growl a little in protest.
Around 30 minutes later, Ken returned into the Kitchen only to see his mother already eating dinner by herself.
"Hmm? Is dinner ready?" Ken asked, not seeing a plate set out for him.
Yuki briefly looked at Ken before completely ignoring him, returning back to her meal.
"Umm…" He stood awkardly, not knowing what he'd done wrong.
GRUMBLE~
Yuki's eyebrow twitched as she heard the protest from her son's stomach. Her face softened a little, particularly when she remembered that he'd been going through a lot lately.
Yet there was a stubborn part of her that didn't want to relent.
"My dinner is ready, but I don't know about yours." She responded in a sassy tone.
Ken frowned, fighting back the hunger. His half-empty mind tried to think how he could have offended his mother.
'Why is she angry? We didn't even really speak this afternoo—'
"Ah…"
Suddenly he remembered he didn't even greet his mother when he came home this afternoon, rushing straight to his room to begin his workouts.