Winter Conditioning

Over the winter, when the Sporting girls only have one practice a week and one (short) game on the weekend, their coach again asked me to do weekly conditioning work with the team.  As I did work almost every weekend last winter with some of the girls, it wasn't really a stretch for me to add the rest of the team.  And frankly, it was usually the same 6 girls that showed up every week, with a few add ons here and there. Emily's coach did his best to suggest (and then flat out state) that it was mandatory practice, but several girls stayed home each week. For those that did come, the workouts were sometimes fun but always hard, and as they got closer to being back outside for games, they got considerably harder.  What's impressive to me is how much effort these girls give - parents would text me afterwards and tell me that their daughter was having a hard time walking down stairs, had sore legs 24 hours later, etc.  Yet they would show up again the following week.  For the 6-10 girls that ran, week in and week out especially in late February and early March, all the extra work really showed during their winter friendlies and first game of the season - they were clearly in much better shape than the opposing teams.  I'm hoping that these girls keep up the hard work during these strange and unusual times so that if and when the season starts up again, they will be ready to go.

Pre-Christmas workout in Christmas socks.

Stairs.  Lots and lots of stairs. 

Slap tag on a beautiful January afternoon.

One minute they were on the verge of throwing up, but by the end of their cool down, they were all smiles.

Hardest workout of the winter and unbeknownst to us, one of the dads was timing them. They got faster and faster on every step of the ladder workout, such that their final 100 was the fastest of the day.  Crazy. 

All smiles after a crushing workout.

Stairs on a frigid Leap Day afternoon.

30s, 60s, 90s