Dan Potts is a trainer with a distinct style. He's plainspoken,

can spot an excuse with little effort and favors the old-fashioned

work ethic. Yet, he employs forward-thinking methods, insisting they

are not new at all.

Take core training. He does a lot of it, and says he's been doing

so for the past 25 years as he worked with athletes. But he won't

use the term because, in his mind, "It's become this trendy

thing."

His gym, called Advance Athlete Strength Training, is not trendy.

It's in the abandoned gymnasium of a dormant Lake City Way elementary

school, north of Seattle. It holds rows of weight machines, treadmills

and bikes, but he spends almost all his time on one end of the room,

away from the equipment. In fact, he never has one of his pupils perform

a bench press.

A former bodybuilder and University of Washington baseball player,

Potts mainly works with high-school and college baseball players, but

also helps some professionals, including a fast-rising pitcher in the

Anaheim Angels farm system last winter.

"We work on diagonal rotational movement," Potts says. "Each

thing we work on has to translate to the field."

Swinging a bat is a violent torque that requires balance, strength

and body parts working in sync and supporting one another. Many athletes,

especially weekend warriors, aren't balanced. This applies to

swinging a golf club, throwing a softball, and serving a tennis ball.

All these movements start and drive from the core.

Potts has worked with football players, too, and when I visited him,

an FBI recruit he had been working with was preparing for an agency

fitness test. Potts spoke while sitting on a large inflatable balancing

ball. Behind him, the would-be agent maintained push-up form while

balancing his feet and each hand on balls of various sizes. After a

certain time, he'd switch the combinations. The drill is a way

to force the body to gain strength while learning balance.

To help them build core strength through balance, Potts has his athletes

stand on one foot while balancing balls of differing weights in each

hand. He runs many drills on large inflatable stability balls. He also

spends considerable time working on the non-dominant sides.

Many of his drills confound young players at first; they look longingly

at the weights, he says. But they are challenged: "They come in

with attitude, but they don't walk out with it."

Some of his drills are tough and geared for the ambitious athlete,

but Potts insists that even a weekend golfer or rec-league softball

player should consider the moves. As always, check with your physician

or trainer if you have any concerns about getting hurt, but here are

a couple of things he demonstrated:

- Kneel and balance on a stability ball. This can be hard to

do, and may require practice. But once you master it, you're working

stabilization muscles and challenging the abductors of the inner thighs.

Then, see if you can play catch with a Nerf ball while in that position.

This, says Potts, further works your core muscles and functional balance.

- Grab both sides of a volleyball or other light ball with outstretched

arms. Stand with your feet pointed parallel to a wall (or a friend).

Rotate your body away from the wall, then rotate