Terrain Fitness - Closed

Stay tuned for more Terrain Fitness workouts on the horizon in January.

The Bleacher Workout

Our last Terrain Fitness workout is done!  We met at Bertram field in Salem for an excellent bleacher workout.  Bertram field is the home of the Salem Witches.  The field has a 12 Monkeys, remote, abandoned feel to it somewhat.  A great place to let your Bleacher Frog Jump fly!

We spent most of our time on the bleachers and even though the thermometer was in the 20s, cold was not an issue.

The workout:
I. Warm Up with football; catch among friends

II. Low impact bleacher strength work - 5 drills for 90" each: Lunge Walk, Crab Walk, Frog Jump, Duck Walk (lateral) and Bear Crawl.  The video below illustrates these 5 exercises.  The Frog Jump is excellent.

III. S u p e r  S e t s (bleachers up / easy jog down) - 1' each drill in rapid succession

A. Hop both feet each step
A. Hop scotch (up stairs)
A. Hop two steps up one step down

1' recover

B. Side step up feet touch every step
B. Same as above other side
B. Cross over side step up

1' recover

C. Speed run up both feet touch every step
C. Speed run stairs (one foot - one step)
C. Stride out - every other stair

1' recover

Strength Stations (1' each and rotate through all):
Pushup
Dips
Military press with band
High plank with leg lift (alternate)
Crunch or fingers touch toes (from crunch position)

Repeat all of the above 3x

IV. Cool down; easy pass and play

The Box

We met at Dead Horse Beach today for a great workout.  After our warm up we maxed out on a simple set that we tried last week.  Using a beach rock we alternated 10 reps of Granny Toss, Squat Jumps, Press Throw (with rocks), PushUps, and Dead Lift.  We rotated through 10 reps each for 12 minutes.

Then we paired off for agility using a square drawn in the sand.  Within each 'box' one athlete would try to run from one corner to the other without being touched (game of tag).  Lots of zigging and zagging.  Lots of quick bursts of speed and power.  We did two sets of the box 10' and 8'.  In between box sets we did a 4' set of pushups to plank and another 4' set of lunge walk to squat jump.

Lastly, we finished up the workout with a little scrimmage game of football.  Good stuff.

The Sisyphus Workout

Our third Terrain Fitness workout is done!  The day started off cool down at the Willows but warmed as we worked through the session. Since the myth has Sisyphus pushing a boulder size stone up a hill only to have it roll back down, we incorporated heavy stones and hills into this workout. We started with a brief warm up and then moved to the beach to get things started.
I. Warm Up
II. On the beach and working with heavy stone (beach rock) we rotated through 10 reps of Granny Toss (squat to jump while throwing), Squat Jump (from high plank), Stone Press Throw, PushUps, and Deadlift with heavy stone.  12 minutes continuous.
III.  We moved from the beach to the walkway for 10 sprints with crabwalk return.
IV.  We moved up the hill with our stone to an 'AB Pit' at the top of the hill.  We rolled our stone down the hill to benches for squat jumps or lunges (alternating) then carried our rock up the hill for more Ab work (crunch or plank) alternating.
V. Lastly we maxed out Tricep (dips), Arms and Chest (pushups incline), and Abs with leglifts, all utilizing the bench

We incorporated meditation into this workout.  After the workout and from our vantage point atop our hill we did a concentration meditation focusing on our stone.  This was the highlight of our workout for me.

Overall this was a great FULL BODY workout leaving me feeling some soreness all over.

Looking forward to the next one: two left!

The Grid

Our second Terrain Fitness workout is in the book.  We had nine athletes turn out for a great workout this morning at Beverly's Lynch Park.

The meat of the workout was working a 5 lane by 5 lane grid lay out (with cones) on a grassy slope.  Each lane was about 10feet wide.  We started with sprints running uphill, one sprint per lane, starting at lane one and running each lane (5 sprints).  After the last sprint, lane 5, athletes worked back down the hill working within each horizontal lane and performing a different drill: lunge walk, squat walk, squat hop, crab walk and side step duck.  After reaching the bottom of the field, athletes would repeat the pattern by running sprints working through each vertical lane.  There were lots of folks on the 'field' at once and I encouraged some 'friction' as folks worked both the vertical and horizontal lanes.

Second, we ran each lane horizontal with a different ab workout at the end of each lane: crunch, bicycle, leg lifts, toe touch with finger tips, high plank with knees to elbows.  After each 25 rep set, athletes would sprint to the next ab set.

Lastly, we ran the grid diagonals from cone to cone.  We shuffled around each cone in the field (agility) and sprinted to each cone along the diagonal line.  Each set lasted about 12'

We ended the workout with another round of bump to bump...with nine folks on the field it provided a lot of laughs and a good steady amount of work.

Overall, a fun morning.  The work didn't flow or build on itself (as much as it could) like last week so I'll refocus on this a little more for the next one.  Also, the sprints were week, whereby our lane sprints became more recovery than max efforts.  Last week we isolated the sprints which proved more challenging (10x100).

Child's Play

Our first terrain fitness workout is in the books and it was a blast.  The theme of the workout was 'child's play.'  We met at the Peabody park in Salem along the canal.

The small park offers a perfect area for strength and agility training. The workout was divided into 5 parts and we worked for a little more than 90 minutes.

I. Warm up included catch with a football with increased intensity building to running route patterns as a group.  By the end of this 20' we were pulling off layers.  Note: Emily and Karen launched their football into the canal.

II. The base strength portion of the workout included two rounds of core exercises on 1' intervals (first round) and 30" intervals (second round).  The 15 different exercises included strength and core (ab) conditioning.

III. 10 x 100meter sprints; consecutive max power with recovery run return

IV Obstacle course using playground equipment (approx 4'):
1. low wall work squat jump 2x5
2. 25 reps of inverted hand crank
3. climb over or crawl through stretching wheel
4. high plank hand walk over low stools (3 times)
5. traverse climbing wall (front and back)
6. run through the park criss-cross pathway with return atop low wall to finish line

V. "Bump to bump"
We created a small play 'field' with two end zones.  In this game of tag, one person tries to touch tag another as the group runs from end zone to end zone.  The focus was on agility and power.  Additional cones were added to the field to create obstacles to navigate as athletes run from one end zone to the other.

Terrain Fitness - Open

Getting excited about some Terrain Fitness training
Five dates on the calendar for Terrain Fitness