Outdoor Conditioning

• March first: knee to hip height, opposite arm forward, tall through the chest.
• Then add a small skip. Quick off the ground, stay light on the feet.

Common mistake: Leaning back as the knee comes up.

• Step into a long lunge, back knee off the floor, both hands inside the front foot.
• Drop the inside elbow toward the front ankle, then rotate and reach that arm to the ceiling.
• Finish by pushing the hips back and straightening the front leg, then switch sides.

Common mistake: Rushing through it. Hold each position for a full breath.

• Build up over about five seconds, hold fast and relaxed, then ease down.
• Not a sprint. Around eight out of ten, with the face and shoulders loose.
• Walk back as your rest so every one is fresh.

Common mistake: Straining. Strides are about running fast smoothly, not about effort.

• Two cones, about 10 and 20 yards out. Sprint out, touch down at the cone, sprint back.
• The stops and starts are the point — that is what a shift actually is.
• Drop the hips to stop. Do not stop with a stiff leg out in front.

Common mistake: Rounding the turns to save the legs. Touch down and change direction properly.

• Forty-five seconds hard, ninety easy. That is roughly a shift and a spell on the bench.
• Hard means you cannot hold a conversation, not that you are emptying the tank in round one.
• If round eight is much slower than round one, you started too fast.

Common mistake: Treating it as a race. Every round should look about the same.

• Find a moderate hill — steep enough to be hard, not so steep you are scrambling.
• Drive the knees and pump the arms. Fifteen seconds hard, then walk all the way down.
• A hill is kinder to hamstrings than flat sprinting, which is why it comes first.

Common mistake: Jogging back down. The walk down is the rest, and the rest is what keeps the sprints fast.

• Walk until your breathing settles before you stop moving.
• Then the stretches: quads, hip flexors, calves and hamstrings.

Common mistake: Sitting straight down in the car. Walk it out first.

• Back knee against a wall or couch, shin up the wall, front foot flat in a lunge.
• Squeeze the glute on the back-leg side and bring your chest upright until the front of the hip stretches.
• Too intense? Let the front knee sit lower and your hands rest on the front knee.

Common mistake: Arching the lower back instead of squeezing the glute.