10: Strengthening

Strengthening

Noticing the sun starting to rise, Jun woke up. Making sure not to wake Aito, he silently tidied up his bed and headed outside.0

Even with all the bandages covering his body, he still felt somewhat cold. Sighing, he felt disappointed at his physique's frailty. After performing a few stretches in front of the lake, he got to work.

With his decades of experience, he knew exactly what muscle-groups to develop first. Aimlessly training would limit his speed, and he couldn't afford to take things slow. This was a world ruled by the strong, and no one knew that better than himself.

The body had countless muscles, some more important than others. Much of the physical aspects of fighting, such as balance, power, and movement come from the lower body. The more technical aspects, such as accuracy, defense, and landing hits would typically come from the upper body.

Thinking this far, Jun set up a training regime in his head. From what he had gathered, the academy's graduation exam would take place in a week. In these seven days, he would focus on improving his physical abilities, gaining muscle memory along the way.

After all, he still wasn't completely used to this body of his, The fact that he let himself get hit by a mere genin only served to highlight this issue.

As for the academy, he decided to skip it until the final day. There was nothing he could learn over there, and he'd much rather use all the time he had available.

"Alright, let's begin."

Feeling great from the earlier stretching, Jun started working on his legs, paying special attention to his calf muscles.

Since the legs were connected to the ground, they were the most responsible for pushing off it, generating power and speed throughout the body. They also happened to be the biggest muscles in the human body.

After an hour of that, he moved on to his core.

The hips held the lower body and legs together. They also generated a huge amount of power by pivoting the whole body when needed. Another important function was that the hips had to do with balance.

Since he was riddled with injuries, Jun made sure to train this part very carefully, not wanting to worsen them any further.

Feeling sore after finishing everything, he took a small break. This body wasn't yet used to such intensive training and was taking its sweet time to acclimate.

After a short rest, Jun continued with his abs, back, and upper body. Always targeting the most important muscles for a fighter.

Once he was done, he felt like his muscles were in flames, threatening to come crawling out of his skin. Thanks to all the stretching he did beforehand, coupled with his expertise, he managed not to pull a single one of them.

Like a madman, Jun relished in the pain his training caused him... He hadn't felt this alive in a long time.

After a while, he let out a huge breath and carefully took off his bandages, before walking right into the ice-cold lake.

Because of his intense exercise, Jun felt the microscopic tears inside his muscle fibers. These would cause him soreness in the morning if he didn't do anything about them.

Therefore, he decided to take a cold bath. This was to constrict blood vessels and flush waste products, like lactic acid, out of the affected muscles. It also served to decrease metabolic activity and slow down physiological processes, reducing swelling and tissue breakdown in the process.

"Ah, nothing like a cold bath after exercise."

Fiding the long-lost sensation of an intense training session, Jun felt like he had gone back in time, to when he was just a kid... It felt great.

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