I hope that you all had a Happy New Year! For New Year’s Eve, me and my roommate, Ryan Patterson, whom I have played baseball with since I was 8 years old, made a road trip to Houston, Texas. We met up with a bunch of our buddies including Tommy Manzella from the Astros. Tommy came all the way from New Orleans to celebrate with us. We also had friends come from Austin and Mississippi. On New Years Eve, we had a small get together and broke the News Year in right!

On the baseball front, the newest from me is that the Astros just signed Darin Erstad. I am really excited about him joining our team because we brought in another guy who plays the game with the right mentality. Having watched Darin play, he seems like a hard nosed ball player who will do anything to win. The Astros have brought in a lot of guys with this attitude, which makes this an exciting off season! I keep looking more and more forward to Spring Training. As far as I am concerned, we have made a lot of adjustments in the bullpen as well. I feel like our starters from last year are going to do a lot better because the defense that we have added to the team with guys like Matsui, Bourn and Tejada. Everyone knows that defense is a pitcher’s best friend. All and all, it looks like we are solid with the pitching and have added a lot to our bullpen.

As far as my training, I am still working out six days a week. We have added hitting, throwing and defense to my daily routine. Basically I have the typical “January Swing”. My strength is back, I feel really strong, but I have a little work to do as far as my timing is concerned. So my goals for January are to get my timing and rhythm back.

Okay, do you have time for a quick training story…

During one of my running days, I was running with Sean Danielson (AA Red Sox player). We were running 40 yard dashes at the end of our workout (after running for 45 minutes). After three 40’s we kept tying each other’s marks so our trainer, Steve, finally put us against one another to see who the fastest runner was. And sure enough, we tied again with a 4.47. We were both really proud of our time and are very happy with how far we have come with our workouts because a month ago, we were not able to do this. It’s nice because we are feeling our improvements. We owe a lot to our trainer and REPS. What’s even more exciting right now is that we still have a month to go with our training!

So stay tuned until next week.

–Hunter

Post from: EveryJoe

New Year’s Greetings, New Astros & More

Hi Everyone,

Well with the busy holiday season upon me, I am hoping that after New Year’s everything will calm down for me. Up until this point, my off season has been pretty hectic. During the month of November alone, I have managed to be in three weddings for some of my closest friends. My brother was one of those weddings, he was married in California. All of these weddings and other commitments made it difficult for me to get my workouts in during November. While I was visiting California for my brother’s wedding, I actually paid a guy working in a vitamin shop five dollars to let me use the few weights that he had in the shop so that I could get a workout in. I guess that it is fair to say that I had to try and find any opportunity I could to work out with my hectic schedule.

I guess that is okay because I used that time to let my body recover from the season. However on December 1st, my training madness began. I have a trainer that I trust, Steve Seney, who owns a company known as “REPS” that I work out with. During the first two weeks of December I was sick, sore and didn’t get much sleep due to the strenuous training. We started off doing four days of weight training a week. We called those first two weeks “hell week” because my body was adapting and I was pushing my body past its limit.

In this training, I have found that your body can handle much more than most people could imagine. During those first two weeks I was sick from the training. But during the third week, I started working out with Steve six days a week and instead of exclusively doing strength and power workouts, we started doing conditioning for three days and strength and power for three days. The only day of the week that I have a break from training now is Sunday. I have been working with REPS and Steve over the past two years and I feel that working with them has given me a major advantage on the baseball field. During some of my upcoming blogs, I am sure that I will talk more about my workouts with Steve and REPS, but right now I want to share some more important things that you probably want to hear about — TRADES!!

It looks like a lot of my old buddies are off to play elsewhere, and we are going to have some new teammates with the Astros. The emotions are strange because on the one hand I’m really sad that all my friends are gone because I have shared so many games and experiences with them. On the other hand, I’m also happy for them because they are going to have new opportunities, and I am excited about the great players that we received for them.

The chance to play with someone like Tejada is really exciting for me because I love to be around people who seem to enjoy the game like I do. You can see it in the way he plays the game. He is not only is a great player, but he loves to get after it. And the more of those guys you have on your team, the better your chances are to win. Not to mention the middle of our lineup is going to be one of the toughest for any pitcher to face.

After this past season, I still have a really bitter taste in my mouth with how we finished up the season. Each day I try to remember the feelings that I felt towards the end of the year watching other teams celebrate as they clinched the playoffs. I use that feeling to motivate me as I’m going through my workouts. All and all, it’s good to see the moves that we’ve made and I know it’s going to bring a lot of confidence to the locker room when we arrive for Spring Training. For now I’m going to keep getting after my speed and power, and on January 1st, I will begin throwing, hitting and my defense work. So for now, that is what is going on with me and my program.

Thanks for listening.

-Hunter

Post from: EveryJoe

Hello from Hunter