Training Doubles and a Deal

[deezcastforms]

Chiaki and Fuuka were both locked in coming down to the end of their run, pushing themselves alongside Shiori. Fuuka trying to gain that last bit of ground, and Chiaki trying to hold the bluenette off. Chiaki didn't even notice that Shiori went down until she herself was tumbling to the floor after the trainer collided with the gamer girl's legs. "WHA?!" Chiaki yelped.

"Oh!" said Fuuka. Her position behind Chiaki and Shiori, both of whom were falling forward, allowed the bluenette to both see the accident and avoid it rather easily. Momentum forced Fuuka to dance around her two friends a bit to not run into them, but it barely even forced Fuuka off balance before she was able to re-steady herself. "Are you two alright?

"Ugh," groaned Chiaki. Yeah, I'm good. I think." It seemed safe to assume that Shiori was also alright considering her focus on the results of the race. "I know Fuuka was past us before I fell over the line. I'm not sure whether or not your hand reached out over before she made it though? Oh, and Shiori," Chiaki added on. "I hope you know good balance and coordination exercises. Because we're starting with that, and you're doing them with us."

[FreestylePoet]

Shiori grumbled into the track. In the last five seconds, she'd given herself road rash, lost a race, and then got assigned extra work... by one of the girls she was supposed to be training! She got up with a huff, dusting the rubber pellets off herself. "I guess you're right," she conceded to Chiaki. "My coordination is just poooop. Always has been. I was planning on just working that into our sparring so we could get some functional balance training, but I guess yoga makes for a solid warmup too."

That seemed like a good plan. Having convinced herself of that, Shiori skipped away to a bundle of yoga mats, in each of two boxes labeled CLEAN and DIRTY. "Nice of them to provide these. I bet most wrestlers have workout mats at home, but guess LAW's got some cash, huh?" Shiori rummaged through the exercise mats, looking for one that suited her. Of course, she picked Koto-Chan Blue, although somehow Shiori doubted that it was branded that way.

With her chosen mat in tow, she set it up a few feet away and waited for her charges to do the same. Privately, she was sweatdropping, because it seemed that her enthusiasm had cornered her again: She had no idea how to lead a yoga session! Sure, she'd done some during PE, but that was it. There had to be some memory or another to dig up here...

"Brain blast!" she suddenly shouted. "Uh, ignore that. American cartoon reference." Deep in the recesses of her mind, there was one source of good yoga knowledge she could think of. "Follow my lead." Breathing in deeply, she lifted one leg, posting its foot on the inside of her knee. Her palms slapped together, and she slowly raised them to the sky.

Spoiler

Her poor balance was immediately evident as Shiori wobbled in place. More than that, she was nervously side-eyeing Chiaki in particular, who was almost certain to know where her inspiration came from. "Uh, l... let's tone up those legs?"

[deezcastforms]

Unfortunately, Fuuka wasn't able to celebrate her victory in the warm up race against Chiaki and Shiori. On account of it being unclear whether she actually managed to edge out Shiori, as well as both of Fuuka's competitors wiping out at the last moment. But on the bright side, both women were okay, and Shiori was readily accepting of the "punishment" that Chiaki had given her for causing the accident.

As opposed to Shiori who had dug for a mat she liked, Chiaki and Fuuka each grabbed the first clean mats they got their hands on. Though because the universe just works that way, Chiaki pulled a pink mat, and Fuuka pulled a light teal blue. But then their heads turned as Shiori cried out before entering deep thought. "Is it the show those Carl Wheezer memes are from?" asked Chiaki.

"Yeah," said Fuuka. "I think it's called Jimmy Neutron." Once both women had proven the already known fact that they frequently surfed the Internet, they laid out their mats and readied for the yoga session to start. "Hey Chiaki," said Fuuka, even before Shiori had gotten started. "Have you ever played Wii Fit, or any of those types of games?"

Chiaki smirked as she saw Shiori's faced after getting "found out" by Fuuka. "Plenty," she answered. "Even before I started wrestling, I'd do Wii Fit, or some other exercise video game like it first thing every day after waking up. I never cared to stream it though. It would've made me even more massive on Twitch than I already am for... obvious reasons, but it really would've been more trouble than anything, I think." Once they began, the two students quickly outpaced their teacher. Chiaki on account of being experienced with these exercises from video games, and Fuuka on account of her having naturally good balance.

[FreestylePoet]

This was not one of Shiori's finest workouts. It wasn't long until Chiaki and Fuuka semi-called her out on the source of her knowledge, and barely any more time passed before both students were running figurative circles around the clumsy fangirl. "W-Well... the pervy fan train has probably sailed by now, knowing LAW," she mumbled, trying to keep her balance.

Soon enough, she moved them onto other yoga poses, running through a mental checklist of Wii Fit Trainer's moveset. Thankfully, none were as involved as the one they'd just done. The Warrior pose came easier to Shiori, as that was basically a fancier lunge. The shorter planks present in yoga were similarly easy, but the arm-and-leg-lift added some strain and complexity. That was forward-smash, crouch, and down-smash; it wasn't long until Shiori ran out of moves.

By then, though Shiori deemed them sufficiently warmed up. "Alright!" she sighed, taking a moment to whirl out her arms. "I think we're pretty limber. So, I guess I should be asking you two what you want to work on? Spars or calisthenics can happen whenever, but if you wanted to do any weight training, we should probably do that before any spars. Being tired while lifting is suuuuper dangerous!" It wasn't like Shiori had ever really lifted herself, but hey. Wikipedia rabbit holes were useful sometimes, right?

[deezcastforms]

The three girls continued on with their yoga warm up, keeping roughly the same dynamic as they had for the first pose. With Chiaki and Fuuka keeping balance a decent bit better than Shiori. But the fangirl was able to keep up a bit better as they went on. Chiaki started to notice something as they went through the poses, but was only able to realize that she was in fact onto something once Shiori called it for the stretching.

"Shiori, have you actually played Wii Fit?" asked Chiaki. "Those were exclusively poses from her Smash Bros. moveset." Not one to miss that in the slightest, Chiaki saw that Shiori hadn't actually done any Wii Fit moves that weren't from her fighting game arsenal. "I mean, it's not a problem or anything. I'm just a little surprised the idea came to you if you're only Wii Fit experience is from Smash." It also occurred to Chiaki that Shiori probably wouldn't be so uncoordinated if she actually had played the game, but kept that thought to herself. Instead saying, "I can loan you my copies of the games if you'd like."

Once Chiaki was done, Fuuka then spoke up, "Yeah, lifting before sparring is common sense. And we were wanting to get some lifting in."
A bit of an embarrassed blush came over Fuuka's face before she kept talking. "To be honest, I've been really trying to push hard with weights since I started seriously training, so I can actually do some damage in the ring. But, I haven't really had much progress yet. I can't even squat 100 pounds yet, that's less than I weigh!"

[FreestylePoet]

The problem with being a geeky trivia nut came when people around Shiori were just as knowledgeable. It didn't take much fun out of it per se, but it did occasionally lead to some call-outs that were certainly pout-worthy. Case in point: the Keyboard Warriors.

One hand snapped into a finger gun pointed at Chiaki. "Don't ask questions that you don't want the answer to!" she chirped. The other hand mirrored the motion, this time aiming to Fuuka. "And don't worry: 'thick thighs save lives' is my middle name! We'll have you squatting a buncha plates in no time!" Granted, she knew neither how much a plate weighed nor how to get an athlete to squat one, but motivation was the first step to success!

The rest would be harder, though. She didn't know much about weight training, but she did know it was dangerous when done incorrectly. Shiori tucked her chin into the crook of her index finger and thumb, sweatdropping at the thought of a gruesome training injury. Supervision would be key, and a basic range of motion would be safer without hurting the workout. She looked across the gym for options.

"Why don't we start with bench presses?" Shiori offered, pointing at a pair of nearby benches. Without listening for a response, she started to scamper towards them. "Since I'll have to spot you both, we'll have to take turns. I don't wanna have to wipe it down between sets, though, so how about you each take a bench?"

[deezcastforms]

Once more Chiaki and Fuuka watched as Shiori projected confidence and control to them before immediately going back to showing that she was winging this hard as she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do. Normally the Keyboard Warriors would be frustrated at something like this, but the knew to give Shiori some slack do the earlier miscommunication. Plus, aside from the early tumble, it wasn't as if Shiori was crashing and burning or anything. The workout was enjoyable.

"Bench press sounds fine, Shiori Thick Thighs Save Lives Takeda," said Fuuka. Chiaki had no hope of holding back her snort of shocked laughter, caught completely off guard by her partner's comment.

"Okay, okay," said Chiaki, calming herself. "New condition for borrowing my Wii Fit games; you have to name your files TTSL." Now both of the Keyboard Warriors were snickering. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Let's get to lifting, shall we?" said the gamer.

Chiaki and Fuuka took there spots on their benches. They'd be doing 10 rep sets. Fuuka's bench max was 75 pounds, and although it was naturally a lighter lift than squats, where her max was 90 pounds, the fact that it was even further from triple digits disheartened the bluenette. This was made even worse by Fuuka's rep weight, which sat at 55 pounds. And with standard bar weight at gyms being 45 pounds, Fuuka was really self conscious that she could barely rep more than that.

Chiaki wasn't as worried about her strength as Fuuka, so she wasn't as bothered by her low lifting ability as her partner was. The pinkette was also a bit stronger, maxing out bench press at 85 pounds, and repping at 70. Chiaki thought it'd be possible for her to bump those numbers up right now if she tried, but she was not going to make Fuuka feel even worse about her strength by starting to bench max Fuuka's squat max, or bench rep Fuuka's bench max, or anything else to that effect.

[FreestylePoet]

"TTSL!?" Shiori slapped her reddening cheeks as Chiaki's joke landed. It might've looked like she was embarrassed at the moniker -- and she kinda was -- but it was actually really cool! Now she could cross "get a neat wrestling nickname" off her bucket list... But that would require that people actually call her TTSL throughout her career. Maybe she'd just continue lobbying Dr. Morgenstern to change her nickname to "Superfan" after all.

"Anyway, let's get started!" She'd not only participated in but also supervised workouts with Team Stanza before. Neither of the Keyboard Warriors seemed to be pumping iron on the level of Julie or Louise, let alone Leonie, so this wasn't too much pressure. Shiori watched as her two charges set up their bars, each one carefully sliding on plates. If she had to guess, Shiori would put her own rep weight somewhere in between those of Chiaki and Fuuka. Once they were all set up, she marched over to Chiaki. "Alrighty then, Miss Gamer Girl, let's see what you got!"

Shiori spotted the pinkette as she did her reps. Chiaki didn't look like she was operating at her max capacity, but given that they were sparring soon, the intern didn't mind. After a set of ten, Shiori helped her friend rack the bar back up before moving to Fuuka. "Great! Chiaki, just lay there for a sec while I run Fuuka through her first ten."

[deezcastforms]

Chiaki did her set of reps first, not having too much trouble with it. She probably could've lifted the bar back up onto the rack on her own after the tenth rep, but it was still a good thing that Shiori was actually doing her job, and making sure things went smoothly. Chiaki sat up to watch Fuuka, hoping she'd be able to perform similarly with her set of bench reps.

Fuuka got through her set, but with more difficulty than Chiaki had gotten through hers. The reps were slower, more effort from the bluenette's body was going into each lift, and Fuuka started to feel her arms tremble a bit as she went up for the tenth rep. She'd hoped she'd at least be able to get through set one without her arms starting to weaken, but, guess not.

They each did a couple more sets, Shiori going back and forth between them. The lifts went at a predictable trajectory. Chiaki got through her second set cleanly, if not with a bit more puffing and grunting than the first. Fuuka got through her second set too, but it was rough. She started to tilt the bar a bit by the end, but kept it straight enough for Shiori to not need to interfere.

By the third set, Chiaki was starting to have it rough herself. She got through, but her arms and chest started to tire a little. Chiaki laid down on the bench, I usually don't get to rest like this between set," thought Chiaki. Usually I'd be spotting Fuuka right... now... finding the bench rather comfortable. The sleepy gamer girl began to nod off.

Meanwhile, Fuuka's upper body was fighting for its life as she tried to push through her last set. When Shiori was ready to call the set early and went to grab the bar, the normally quiet, respectful Fuuka ended up snapping at Shiori, telling her off so she could complete the set. This happened on rep nine, and when Fuuka went back down for 10, Shiori was probably expecting the bar to end up stuck on the bluenette's chest. But Fuuka started pushing, her feet and back arching as she drove upwards with every single part of her body. The bar came off of her chest, and rose up through the air. Until Fuuka got her arms straight up. She'd done the rep.

"YEAH!" The moment the bar was out of Fuuka's hands and back on the rack, she went off. Jumping off of the bench and cheering like she'd just won the match of her life... right into Chiaki's ear.

"GUH!" Chiaki gave something between a shriek and a snort as she turned and smacked into the frame on either side of the bench. "Ugh..." she groaned, rubbing her collarbone. "I guess I really can fall asleep anywhere, eh Fuuka? But these benches are kinda comfy."

[FreestylePoet]

They fell into an easy rhythm, each wrestler doing ten reps at a time before Shiori skipped over to their partner. Over time, though, she noticed Fuuka beginning to flag, even as Chiaki powered through with relative ease.

By the third set, Shiori was starting to get nervous. Fuuka was clearly at her limits, to the point where Shiori thought she might have to step in. To make matters worse, when she looked over to Chiaki for support, she found that the Gamer Girl was already fast asleep! She took a half-step towards Chiaki, then pressed her lips into a thin line and stepped back, continuing that dance for a moment before finally resolving to help Fuuka first.

She reached over to the weight. "Here, why don't I- EEK!" She was interrupted by Fuuka telling her off, rather aggressively at that! Now thoroughly frazzled, Shiori helped Fuuka finish the set, at which point the intern's other problem was solved thanks to a triumphant yell from the bluenette.

"Phew." Shiori loosened her stance out of relief. Still, now she had another problem to solve: She didn't know her clients all that well yet, despite having wrestled one and interviewed another. Was Chiaki the type to fall asleep even when she wasn't tired? Or was she just always tired? The answer would affect how she went about continuing this training session.

Eventually she decided that the best option was to compromise. "I was thinking of running through some modified sit-ups. You can join us if you want, b-but... feel free to take a power nap if you need one, Chiaki!" She felt like a bad manager, encouraging her wrestler to sleep during training. But it wouldn't do anyone any good if her batteries ran out! "I wouldn't want you to be tired during later sets, or worse, during our spar! Aaand if I'm guessing right, Fuuka might be motivated to do a bit of extra strength training, anyway."