Thor turns volleyball into a feat of strength

A new version of beach volleyball?

January 17th, 2020

If you're like just about everyone else in the world, you probably entered the year vowing to hit the gym with a bit more regularity than in years past. If you've already failed to realize that goal, don't worry: Everyone else around you is in the same boat.

You know who is very much not in that boat? Noah Syndergaard, that's who. Earlier this week, we saw him in the gym with Reds pitcher Mike Lorenzen doing a workout that, for some reason or another, required the use of some very heavy-looking chains. Syndergaard is a man who has been known to work out with gigantic snakes. Yet, against all odds, he's taken his training to a new level of intensity this offseason.

His workout partner may have left for workouts of his own, but Thor wasn't done with weird January workouts. This time, he took the effort outside to toss a giant medicine ball around on the beach. But, it wasn't just a typical toss back and forth between buddies. No. This was basically a game of beach volleyball, played with a medicine ball the size of a boulder.

I'm not a physiologist, so I can't tell you what exactly this exercise is doing to make him more fearsome on the mound from any kind of scientific perspective. But, I have eyes and, therefore, I can say with confidence that, simply by virtue of doing this workout shirtless on the sand with the sun beating down on him, batters should be shaking in their cleats come the 2020 season. What's even scarier is that his workouts may just be getting started.