No matter how invincible you feel today, your athletic skills and strength will diminish with age. Fortunately, the right training can help you slow that decline and maintain good fitness for a lifetime. The key is to choose exercises that challenge balance, strengthen the core, and mimic complex movements performed in day-to-day life. Focus on these areas, and you can decrease your risk of injury andÌęexercise pain-freeÌęwell into your golden years.

We tapped Jeff Horowitz, certified running, cycling, and triathlon coach in Washington, D.C., and author of , to develop the following six-move workout for aging athletes. Though these exercises are intended for most folks, it’s always wise to check with a professional before starting a new training plan if you have a history of injury, pain, or an existing health condition.

As you do this workout, stay mindful of how your body feels throughout. Back off if any unusual pain or discomfort crops up. “It’s a matter of learning how to work in partnership with your body,” Horowitz explains. That means knowing when to push yourself—and when to press pause.

Do each exercise for the designated number of reps, then move on to the next exercise in the sequence without resting. After you’ve done all six exercises, rest if needed. Then repeat the entire sequence one more time. Do this workout two to three times a week. You’ll need a set of light dumbbells.

The Moves

Push-Up

What it does: Targets the core and strengthens the chest, shoulders, glutes, hips, and legs.

How to do it: Start in a high plank position with your hands and feet slightly wider than shoulder-distance apart. Your hands should be rotated slightly in and elbows rotated slightly out. Squeeze your glutes, brace your core, and look straight down to the floor so your body forms one long line from your heels to the top of your head. From here, bend your elbows to slowly lower your body until you are almost able to touch your nose to the ground. Pause at the bottom, then slowly straighten your elbows to reverse the movement. Don’t lock your arms at the top. This is one rep. Make it easier by dropping to your knees. Make it harder by placing your hands several inches in front of your shoulders.

Volume: Do reps to the point of temporary muscle failure, meaning you cannot perform another rep with correct form.

Squat

What it does: Targets the glutes, quads, and spine through complex functional movement involving the hip, knee, and ankle joints and challenges your balance.

How to do it: Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Clasp your hands in front of your chest, on your hips, or let them hang straight at your sides—whatever feels most comfortable. Bend your knees andÌępush your butt back to sink into a squat, keeping the weight in your heels. As you squat, allow your back to naturally arch, keep your chest up, and gaze facing forward. Pause when your legs form 90-degree angles. Make it harder by holding a dumbbell in front of your chest with both hands. Squat with your eyes closed to increase the balance challenge.

Volume: 8 to 12 reps.

Discus Throw

What it does: Engages your glutes, quads, hips, and core; strengthens your rotator cuff through external rotation of the arm; and challenges your balance.

How to do it: Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, with your right foot forward andÌęleft foot back. Bend both knees to lower into a lunge. Rotate your torso to the right and place your left hand on the outside of your right knee. Your right arm should be positioned slightly behind your body, elbow slightly bent and pointed up and fingers pointing down. From here, stand up. AsÌęyou stand, rotate your torso to the left, swing your right arm in front of you to about shoulder height and your left armÌębehind you. Your left hand should be pointed up and slightly to the left of your head, elbow slightly bent. Pause, then reverse the movement. This is one rep. Make it harder by holding a light dumbbell in your left hand.

Volume: Do 8 to 12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.

Deadlift to Front Raise

What it does: Strengthens your glutes, back, and shoulders with a functional movement that teaches correct form for many day-to-day activities, like lifting a heavy box or picking up a child.

How to do it: Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, and arms at your sides. This is the starting position. Hinge forward at your hips and lower your torso until it’s nearly parallel to the floor, keeping your back straight or slightly arched. Let your arms hang down straight, hands clasped. Squeeze your glutes and, in one explosive movement, shove your hips forward to stand up, throwing your arms straight up as you do so. Pause at the top, then lower your arms back to your sides to return to the starting position. This is one rep. Make it harder by holding a dumbbell in each hand.

Volume: 8 to 12 reps.

Diagonal Swing

What it does: Targets your core and engages your hips, shoulders, arms, and back.

How to do it: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Clasp your hands together and position them at your right hip. Bend your knees to lower into a half squat. From here, stand up and swing your arms up and across your bodyÌęuntil they are above your head and slightly to the left side of your body. Let your eyes follow your hands. Pause for a moment, then reverse the movement. This is one rep. Make it harder by holding a dumbbell between your hands.

Volume: Do 8 to 12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.

Bent-Over Twisting Row

What it does: Builds strength in your upper back, arms, and shoulders and engages the core.

How to do it: Hold a dumbbell in your right hand and stand with your feet about two to three feet apart. Step your left foot forward and right foot back. Bend your knees slightly and engage your abs to tip your torso forward until it’s nearly parallel to the ground. YourÌępelvis should be tilted, back slightly arched, and eyes looking forward. Let your right hand hang straight down. Bend your left arm so your left elbow is pointed straight up, left fingers pointed straight down. Pull the dumbbell toward your ribs as you straighten your left arm down toward the ground. Pause, then reverse the movement. This is one rep.

Volume: Do 8 to 12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.

Ageless Strength is published by VeloPress, which is part of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc., the same company that owns șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine and șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online. If you join the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ membership program, you’ll gain unlimited access to all of our stories and two VeloPress books a year. Learn more about șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ .

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Stability balls—also known as exercise, fitness, or Swiss balls—are aÌęhome-gym staple. ButÌęmore often than not, theyÌęend up sitting useless in the cornerÌęof spare rooms, deflated in closets, or becoming repurposedÌęasÌędesk chairs. As gyms remain closed or open at reduced capacity,Ìęnow is the perfect time to finally put this toolÌęto use.

We asked Kathleen Stabler, a fully certifiedÌę instructor and the owner of in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to create a core-centric, full-body stability ball workout for outdoor and endurance athletes. Do this routine two to three times per week,ÌęcompletingÌęthe exercises in order. “Really pay attention to form to make the most out of these moves,” Stabler says. “As with all of my workouts, this one is a lot harder than it looks.”

StabilityÌęballs typically come in five diameters of ten-centimeter increments, ranging from 45 centimetersÌę(18 inches) to 85 centimetersÌę(34 inches). As a general rule, when you sit on the ball, with your feet on the floor, you want your knees to be bent to 90 degrees. “It’s important to have the right-size ball,” Stabler notes, “but since we’re in the middle of a pandemic, this workout can be done with whatever you have handy.”

The Warm-Up

Complete five rounds of this mini circuit, with no rest between exercises or sets. Gradually increase your speed and intensity each time through, and try to improve your efficiency and agility in the up-and-down transitions betweenÌęmovements.

• Bear crawl: 50 feet forward, then 50 feet backward.

• Run: 50 feet forward, then 50 feet backward. (You may need to go outside for this one.)

The Moves

Squat Circles

What theyÌędo: WarmÌęup the big leg muscles (quads, glutes, and hamstrings) that will be used throughout the workout, activateÌęthe core, and increaseÌęmobility in the torso and pelvis.

How to do them: Stand in front of the exercise ball, facing away from it, with your feet shoulder-width apart. Engage your core, then squat (see:Ìęhow to squat properly) until your hips touch the edge of the ball. Partially weight the ball, but keep your feet grounded, your core strong, and your glutes engaged. Then work your hips in clockwise circles,ÌęcompletingÌęa full range of motion as wide as you can go with good form.ÌęAlternateÌębetween clockwise and counterclockwise directions each rep.

Volume: TwoÌęto threeÌęsets of tenÌęrepetitionsÌęinÌęeach direction.

Shoulder Fly and Snow Angels

What they do: StrengthenÌęthe chest, shoulders, upper back, core, and glutesÌęand improveÌęmobility in the shoulders.

How to do them: This exercise pairs two arm movements, one on a vertical plane and the other on a horizontal plane. Lie on your back, with your head and shoulders supported by the ball, your knees bent, and your feet flat on the floor. Engage your core and glutes to hold up your hips, withÌęyour thighs and torsoÌęforming a straight lineÌęparallel to the floor. Start with your arms extended above you, with a slight bend in the elbows and yourÌępalms togetherÌęand centered over your chest. LowerÌęyour arms out to the sides until they’re parallel to the floor. Then pivot your arms overhead, parallel to the floor, like you’re doing a snow angel or you’re Da Vinci’sÌę.ÌęGo as far as your shoulder mobility allows, which might be different between sides, says Stabler. Reverse each movement back to the starting position for one repetition. Hold water bottles or free weights to make it harder.

Volume: ThreeÌęsets of sevenÌęreps forÌęeach movement.

Single-Leg Straight-Leg Deadlift

What it does: Strengthens the hamstrings, glutes, andÌęcore while training balance.

How to do it: Hold the ball overhead, and squeeze it between the palms of your hands to engage your shoulders and upper back. If the ball is too big for you, hold it in front of your chest. Stand on one leg, with a slight bend in your knee. Square your hips, engage your core, then slowly hinge forward at the hips, lifting your free leg behind you until your torso and leg are parallel to the floor (or go as far as you can with good form). Reverse the movement for one repetition. Keep your hips level,Ìęyour raised foot pointed toward the floor,Ìęand your back straight throughout the movement. Focus on leg control and balance.

Volume: FourÌęsets of sixÌęrepsÌęon each leg.ÌęComplete all reps on one side, then switch to the other. Since you’re resting one leg while you’re using the other, there’s no need to rest between sets.

Eccentric Squats

What they do: StrengthenÌęthe quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and core by emphasizing the eccentric phase of the movement (lowering). They also engageÌęthe shoulders and upper-back muscles.

How to do them: Hold the ball four to six inches in front of your chest, squeezingÌęit between your palms. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart or slightly wider. Hold your chest and head high, pull your shoulders back and down, and keep your spine stacked in a neutral position. Then bend your knees and hinge forward at the hips to lower into a squat forÌęthree seconds. Stop when your thighs are roughly parallel to the floor (or as low as you can go with good form), and hold this low position for another three seconds. Then engage your glutes, and push through your heels to stand. Keep the ball steady throughout the movement.

Volume: FourÌęsets of twelveÌęreps.

Crunches

What they do: StrengthenÌęthe abs.

How to do them: Lie on your back on the ball, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floorÌęshoulder-width apart. Place your hands behind your head to support your neck, with your elbows out wide. Adjust your position so that your hips are on the edge of the ball, with your lower back supported. Then engage your core, and sit up partway. Slowly reverse the movement to the starting position for one repetition.

Volume: FourÌęsets of twelveÌęreps.

Russian Twists

What they do: StrengthenÌęthe core muscles, with an emphasis on the obliques.

How to do them: Begin from the same starting position as the crunches above, but clasp your hands together or hold a weight (such as a kettlebell orÌęa gallon jug of water) above your chest. Then twist your torso and arms to one side. Rotate your shoulders to follow your hands, and resist any movement in your hips and legs. Reverse the movement back to center, then twist to the other side. Continue rotating side to side, moving slowly and in control. For an extra challenge, lift the opposite foot for each rep: for example, if you twist to the right, lift the left foot.

Volume: FourÌęsets of sixÌęrepsÌęper side.

Knee Tuck plus Push-Up Ladder

What it does: Strengthens the core, chest, triceps, shoulders, and back muscles.

How to do it: This exercise combines two movements. Start in a standard push-up position, with your arms straight, your hands below your shoulders, and your feet together on top of the exercise ball (or place your shins on the ballÌęto make it easier). Hold your body in a rigid plank from your heels to your head. Then tuck your knees into your chest as you roll the ball forward. Reverse the movement back to the starting position. Then complete a full push-up. Begin with one knee tuckÌęfollowed by one push-up, then do two knee tucks and two push-ups, three knee tucks and three push-ups,Ìęall the way up to tenÌęreps in a row for each movement. Keep your core and back engaged throughout.

Volume: OneÌęto tenÌęrep ladders ofÌęeach movement. If this is too difficult, break it up into twoÌęsets of oneÌęto fiveÌęladders, with oneÌęto twoÌęminutes of rest between sets.

Get-Up Sit-Up

How to do it: Lie on your back on the floor, with your knees bent and your feet flat. Hold the ball with straight arms over your chest in a bench-press position. Then sit up, simultaneously lifting the ball overheadÌęin one fluid motion. Slowly reverse the movement back to the starting position for one repetition.

Volume: 30 reps (or break it into threeÌęsets of tenÌęreps, with one minute of rest between sets). Do moreÌęif you’re psyched.

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Gymnasts have a coveted combination of strength and flexibility. And thanks to a wave of top coaches who have developed accessible gymnastics-inspired routines, athletes of all kinds can benefit from their training methods. These programs are designed to increase mobility, build resilience, and help you avoid chronic injury. , co-owner of Awaken Gym, a gymnastics-focused training center in Denver, teaches exercises like these in all her classes. Here she shares her top five moves.

Banded Shoulder Dislocates

Why: To improve overhead agility and shoulder strength—especially crucial for climbers and yogis—and promote better posture.

How: Start by gripping a resistance band or towel with your palms facing your body. Slowly bring your arms up with straight elbows. When the band is overhead, shrug your shoulders to lower your arms behind you and finish the movement by bringing your hands past the back of your legs while still gripping the band. Bring your arms back up and over your head to complete the repetition. Do two sets of 15. To make the move more challenging, bring your hands closer together.

Straddle Overhead Side-to-Side

Why: To build strong obliques—especially important for runners, bikers, and climbers.

How: Start in a seated straddle. Holding a small weight with both hands, lift your arms overhead. Keeping your chest facing front, lengthen your right side, bringing your arms to the inside of your left leg or ankle. Use the strength of your obliques to lift your torso back up to center, and repeat on the other side. Continue for two sets of 15. For a greater challenge, add weight and twist your body as you bring your armpit all the way down to the inside of your thigh. To make it easier, use no weight and bend the opposite leg, sitting in a half straddle.

Dumbbell Bench Squats

Why: “These squats build glute strength while helping to mobilize tight Achilles from running and biking,” Hatch says.

How: Place a bench or chair about a foot behind you. With your feet parallel and hip-width apart, bring two five-to-ten-pound dumbbells near your chest and squat back, tapping the bench or chair with your rear end as lightly as you can. Keep your chest up and your core tight during the entire movement. Do 10 to 15 reps.

Kneeling Wrist Stretch

Why: To combat the negative effects on wrists from typing, texting, and driving. Wrist stretches help prepare athletes for intensive upper-body exercise that involves the hands (like climbing) and help restore motion and mobility in the joints.

How: Start on your knees with your hands under the shoulders. Lean forward while keeping your elbows straight and stretch your wrists. Rotate your hands to 90 degrees and then 180 degrees, so your fingers are pointing toward you. Hold each position for at least 30 seconds. To intensify the stretch, move your knees farther away from your hands.

Tuck-Ups

Why: Core strength is vital for most outdoor activities. Tuck-ups help strengthen torso muscles that attach the spine to the pelvis. “By building a solid core,” Hatch says, “you’ll also alleviate back pain.”

How: Lie on the ground with your arms by your ears and your legs straight. Raise your back from the ground and bring your arms down to your sides while tucking your knees to your chest so that you’re balancing on your tailbone. Release back to a hollow body position with just your lower back touching the floor. Aim for two sets of 15.

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Farlow Gap is one of the most notoriously difficult mountain-bike trails in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. Riddled with boulder-heavy creek crossings, big drops, steep switchbacks, and the occasional 34 percent grade, it’s a boogeyman that gives mountain bikers nightmares. But not Jeff Lenosky. The 48-year-old pro mountain biker like a beginner flow trail at a county park, picking apart the technical bits with a smooth combo of track stands and bunny hops that make him look weightless.

Ìę

But then, that’s what Jeff Lenosky does. With a start as aÌętrials rider,ÌębikingÌęover picnic tables and pickup trucks, he has put together a 23-year career that includes three national championships and a Guinness World Record for highest bunny hop on a mountain bike (45.5 inches, or roughly the height of an average four-year-old). Now, instead of competing, Lenosky travels around the country, knocking out mountain biking’s toughest trails for a popular YouTube series calledÌę. With each ride and video, he brings his physical, trials-style riding to technical singletrack that takes him deep into the backcountry.

“I always liked trying to ride my bike over stuff, and when I first started, trials was the only place I could really do that,” Lenosky says from his home in New Jersey. That desire to “ride over stuff” has translated well to the technical riding he’s now known for. It’s a gracefulÌębut physical style that demands incredible balance and strength. “I’ve always loved challenging myself on a technical line. Now I can do it tenÌęmiles into the woods instead of just in the parking lot,” heÌęsays.

Lenosky started mountain biking duringÌęhis senior year of high school. He grew up skateboarding in New Jersey, trying to skate obstacles like stairs, rails, and trash cans, which helped hone his street-skate sensibility to biking. “I wasn’t really interested in a 15-mile cross-country ride back then,” Lenosky says. When he was younger, Lenosky only trained while riding his bike, spending day after day sessioning, ridingÌęthe same obstacles repeatedly. ButÌęas he’s gotten older, he’s gravitated toward more gym-centric exercises. “I realized years ago that the trail can’t be the hardest thing you do,” Lenosky says. “It can’t be your hardest effort.ÌęSo I’m in the gym lifting weights to build the strength I need on the trail.”

While most cyclists focus their energy on building endurance, training their legs and lungs, Lenosky says the key to riding technical terrain is building strength in the hips. “So many movements on the bike engage your core and require a hip pop. You have to keep your lower back and hips strong,” he says.Ìę

Watch Lenosky demonstrate or the punch,Ìęan alternative to the bunny hop that allows mountain bikers to climb stairs or boulders, and you’ll see how important these areas are while you’re navigating technical terrain. Both moves require the hip pop, in whichÌęthe body compresses and provides power that hinges from the hips. To re-create this necessary movement, Lenosky focuses on exercises in the gym that build full-body strength, like the rowing machine—Lenosky says rowing for 15 minutes is essentially like doing 50,000 bunny hops in a row. He also focuses on kettlebell swings and deadlifts, which help developÌęstrength from the knees to the shoulders, as well asÌęthe box jump, a key plyometric drill that re-creates the compression and explosion needed when mountain biking, whether you’re climbing over roots, hitting kickers, or launching drops.

As for bike drills that help improve technical skills, Lenosky takes it back to the basics. “Track stands,” heÌęsays, referring to the move where a rider is balanced on the bike without moving. “That’s the foundation of technical riding. And once you get track stands down, try small wheel pivots, where you lift and move your back wheel to the leftÌęand then to the right,Ìęwhile holding the track stand. Then work on moving the front tire.”

If you have that balance, Lenosky says, you can come to a standstill on the trail, and if you lose momentum and start to wobble, you’ll have the skills to give you a few more seconds to regroup and keep moving. Being able to hold that track stand, and move from it, alsoÌęcomes down to having strong hips and a strong lower back.

But training in the gym and practicing bike drills will only get you so far. If you truly want to master technical terrain,ÌęLenoskyÌęsays, you have to spend more time riding technical terrain, over and over and over. “When riders suck at riding technical stuff, it’s because they don’t take the time to session things,” heÌęsays. “They don’t take the time to practice something on the trail in a group ride. You have to play and have fun. Go out one time a week and just play on your bike, hop some curbs, find a tabletop, ride a skinny. Don’t worry about your heart rate or calories. Forget about Strava. Just go play.”

Lenosky will spend the rest of 2019 hitting the biggest mountain-bike festivals in the country with ,Ìęleading group rides on local trails. The idea is to stop and session different tech zones with the locals toÌęhelpÌęthem conquer their own boogeyman trails. “You can never master everything,” Lenosky says. “That’s what keeps mountain biking interesting after 23 years. I travel around enough to know that there’s always new sections of trail that people say are unrideable. I love finding these spots and trying to figure them out.”

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If you’ve ever hung around college quads, climbing crags, or even public parks, you’ve probably seen someone walk barefoot, arms flailing for balance, across a one-inch-wide line of taut nylon webbing strung between two trees. Slacklining may look like a questionable use of daylight, but according to Yosemite big-wall climber , it’s “like walking meditation.” Sauter, who holds all-female team speed records on three El Capitan routes, took up the sport in 2007 and noticed that it’s helped on ascents. “It narrows your focus; everything falls away.”

Recent studies suggest that it may also improve core balance, help prevent knee injuries, and aid in strengthening and rehabbing your legs. Here’s why you should consider adding slacklining to your regular fitness regimen.

Better Balance

Balance and stability are foundational to many adventure sports. If you’re looking to gain side-to-side mobility, a 2012 from researchers at the University of Fribourg, the University of Salzburg, and the Christian Doppler Laboratory may hold your answer.

The researchers found that slackline training improved their subjects’ postural control, which, broadly speaking, refers to your ability to stay when something shifts underneath your feet. “The study shows that [the balance improvements] seem to carry over to similar tasks that require side-to-side stability,” says , clinical director at Therapeutic Associates Physical Therapy in Corvallis, Oregon. Zhao suspects that slackline training could boost devotees’ balance in “trail running, hiking, skiing, and stand-up paddleboarding.”

Injury Prevention

Beyond boosting your equilibrium, slacklining may also help prevent some common leg injuries. “Studies using traditional balance training have indicated that stability exercises could prevent some lower leg injuries,” says , an associate professor of kinesiology at the College of William and Mary. “Knee injuries, ankle sprains—that sort of thing.”

In 2015, Ìęagain from the University of SalzburgÌęconcluded that slacklining improved knee joint stability. (The university does not, we can confirm, have a school dedicated to slacklining.)ÌęThe results implied an “injury preventative effect,” says , the study’s lead researcher. “Standing on a slackline is a much greater challenge compared to other unstable training devices,” he says. “It may be useful for athletes to increase sports performance in general, but also for advanced therapy after ACL ruptures or ankle sprains.”

Rehab and Recovery

In 2014, Trey Robinson, a weekend-warrior marathoner living in Austin, Texas, read an article that claimed slacklining could heal knee injuries and decided to test his bum ACL against that theory. Robinson added the activity to his workout and spent ten minutes each day practicing in his backyard. After seven months, Robinson since his ACL surgery.

In fact, a by the University of Louisville and the University of the Sunshine Coast, published in 2013, claims that slackline exercises helped restore muscle activation in the study volunteers’ quadriceps at “significantly lower level of perceived exertion” than the four other activation exercises the scientists had them complete. That may sound underwhelming if you don’t have a kinesiology degree, but muscle activation is a big deal. That term simply means “the ability to use a muscle when you need it,” says Zhao. If you damage one of your muscles, other muscles must compensate for it. If you don’t rehab properly and restore muscle activation, long-term compensation can alter a joint’s alignment and .

Michael Pang, a doctor at the Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix who is known as the “,” has watched plenty of his friends slackline. “I think it has definite benefits in the rehab therapy arena,” says Pang, who climbs outside almost every other day. “It helps strengthen the lower limb muscles and improves core and balance.”

It’s Social and Portable

Science aside, the top benefit of slacklining may be that it’s just good fun. “It’s simple and portable,” says Harris. “Tying a line between two trees with your friends may be more appealing than standing on a balance board in your room. If you can make exercise enjoyable, people are more likely to do it.”

Sauter, who has slacklined on every continent except Antarctica, agrees with Harris. “I’ve brought lines on treks through Ethiopia, on work trips to Ukraine, and participated in festivals all over Europe,” she says. “It creates a whole different connection to the environment—setting up a line in a local park is a surefire way to meet new people.”

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My brief, blissful life as a pro begins at age 49, on a September morning at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. I arrive looking like a grayer, gimpier version of the other athletes, many of them members of the LA Galaxy soccer team. Flashing my ID badge at the security guard, I head to a subterranean complex, where a company called Exos will oversee my workouts for the next two weeks.

is a high-performance fitness operation that provides systematized training for anybody from corporate worker bees to special-ops soldiers to world-champion athletes. Clients have included Wayne Gretzky, “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell, U.S. Soccer stars Landon Donovan and Alex Morgan, the entire World Cup–winning German national soccer team, and companies like Adidas, Intel, Porsche, and Tesla Motors. Founded in 1999 by Mark Verstegen, a 47-year-old coach and trainer from Washington State, the company operated under the name Athletes’ Performance and a subsidiary, Core Performance, until 2014, when it went through a wholesale rebranding. The new name, Verstegen says, is short for “exosphere, the highest level of the earth’s atmosphere. That’s what we do, help people reach the highest level.”

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I participate in a lot of sports, including skiing, cycling, climbing, and soccer, and I can say with confidence that I’ve never reached the highest level at any of them. Undaunted, I resolve to strive for my highest level, which includes unleashing some domination at a fast-approaching over-forty soccer tournament. I’m hoping to be in peak shape for it, but I’ve been sidelined with several injuries for weeks, watching my fitness fade.

All my activities come with challenges, but soccer is my oldest passion—or obsession, to be more accurate. I’ve played since grade school and still do, in local city leagues and tournaments, lately with and against the full-grown sons of former teammates. The upcoming tournament is a highlight of my year, a two-day war of attrition against teams like Man Chest Hair United and the Town Drunks, their rosters made up of dudes like me who can’t quite let the dream die.Ìę

As a center forward, I’m subject to all kinds of abuse. Off the field, my opponents may appear to be well-adjusted, mortgage-paying dads, but they morph into neon-cleated sociopaths when the whistle blows. I’m routinely shoved, kicked, punched, tripped, kneed, elbowed, head-butted, shirt-tugged, and smack-talked by these scraggly old goats, without remorse or apology. Real fitness, soccer has taught me, isn’t just about strong lungs and buff pecs. It’s about durability, artfully intertwined with strength, power, endurance, and mobility.Ìę

I’ve known about Exos for years, but until recently I hadn’t fully understood what it’s all about. Exos offers various types of training with various price tags, but two weeks of what I experienced—which included personalized coaching, massages, lunch, and dietary consultation—costs between $3,500 and $4,800. In the sports world, the company is probably best known for prepping collegiate athletes for the NFL combine, the annual four-day scouting expo where aspiring draft picks perform physical and mental tests in front of NFL coaches and managers. The stakes are immense. According to Exos, a defensive end at the combine who can run the 40-yard dash in 4.7 seconds will make about $1.2 million more, on average, than one who does it in 4.8. Since 2005, Exos has trained more first-round draft picks than any other company.

To the casual observer, Exos may seem slightly veiled, because it doesn’t do much paid advertising. The company is headquartered in Phoenix but operates facilities in more than a dozen locations around the country, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Minneapolis, Virginia Beach, and Dallas. It has services and programs available for non-elites, but it largely functions as a private contractor for individuals and organizations serious about maximizing performance. “When people are ready, they find us,” Verstegen tells me.

I turn to Exos because I live in Santa Fe, where my options are slim: join an injury factory like CrossFit, drag myself to a dreary treadmill gym, or cram into a community-center weight room full of bros doing preacher curls. The more I learn about Exos, the more it seems like the ticket: a broad, holistic program scalable to almost anyone’s needs. Beyond the PR-speak about “upgrading lives” and “creating game plans” (Verstegen’s most recent book is called ) are legit tools that have helped thousands of athletes in endurance and field sports alike. I arrive with a mix of excitement and skepticism. It’s one thing to shave tenths of a second from the sprint of a top NFL prospect. It’s another deal entirely to take a middle-aged wannabe and transform him into a next-level baller with enough wattage to flash past malicious opponents. I have 14 days.

Build Your Own Training Camp

Two weeks of full-time, one-on-one instruction at Exos can set you back $4,800. Here’s how to get many of the same performance benefits without taking out a second mortgage.

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You mightÌędescribe the Exos method as follows: eliminate pain, cultivate movement, eat to win, recover better, and internalize motivation. In my quest to discover the secrets of the pros, I don’t unearth any one thing that makes a huge difference, but I find a lot of little things that do. The winning alchemy is how it all blends together.

On Monday, day one, I meet the people who will help me: my trainers Brent Callaway and Katsuhiko Abe, nutritionist Denise Alvey, physical therapist Janet Jin, a masseuse, and two interns—Julius Charles, a former college football player from Chicago’s South Side, and Hiro Kawamura, a whippet-size guy from Japan who never stops smiling. The support here is unlike anything I’ve encountered before, and it’s a big part of Exos’s success.

Many of the Galaxy soccer players are in the gym as things get under way, and I nearly trip over two megastars: Steven Gerrard, the former captain of Liverpool FC, and Robbie Keane, former captain of the Irish national team and its all-time leading scorer. They’re lying side by side on the floor doing hip raises, and I nod at them coolly as I walk past. Later I try to sneak photos with my phone, but their trainer glares at me and wags a finger. “No pictures,” he mouths.

My first task is to go through the functional movement screen. The FMS was developed by Gray Cook, a physical therapist and trainer who believes that most injuries result from muscular imbalance rather than a lack of raw strength or a random accident. The screening evaluates seven primary movements—squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder rotation, straight-leg lift, push-up, and trunk rotation. You’re rated on your range of motion and stability for each test. Difficulty with any of the tests can be an early-warning sign for injury. At Exos, these functional exercises make up the training bedrock.

The FMS drills get progressively harder. For the last one, I start on my hands and knees and extend my right arm and right leg. I pull in my arm and leg, touch elbow to knee, then extend them again. But while attempting the move, I fall over on my side. This is noted on a clipboard.

“Don’t worry, Nick,” Julius whispers as he helps me up. “Everybody has trouble with that one.”

After the FMS, I visit with Janet, the physical therapist. PT is a missing link in most fitness programs. At Exos, it’s integrated into everything an athlete does.

Recent months of competitive league play have left me with a strained calf, damaged knee cartilage, and a stabbing pain in my abdomen that may or may not be a pulled psoas. There are some questions about whether I can even train, let alone play in a tournament in two weeks. After an hour of diagnostics and hushed conversations among my team, I’m cleared, provisionally, to proceed. “We’re gonna keep a close eye on these problems,” Callaway, who grew up in Odessa, Texas, says with a twang. “But let’s give it a try.”

We walk up a long ramp that exits the building and emerge into the warm SoCal sunshine. Soon we arrive at Exos’s outdoor training pavilion. There’s a 60-yard turf field marked with five-yard lines, a four-lane rubber track, and a weight area set up under a large tent. A table is loaded with towels, water jugs, and electrolyte beverages. Hip-hop thumps from a stadium-grade outdoor stereo. Callaway introduces the regimen, which progresses from foam rolling to dynamic stretching to sprints to resistance exercises to high-intensity cardio. Exos has a vernacular all its own. I don’t warm up; I do “movement prep.” I don’t train my core; I train my “pillar.” Cardio isn’t cardio, it’s “energy system development,” or ESD.

A couple of football guys are training hard at the pavilion, including David Carter, a.k.a. the , a former NFL player who hopes to get back in the league. The intensity level is high; athletes of this caliber don’t get that way by just going through the motions. I’m braced for a painful drubbing, but the first hour consists mostly of drills designed to increase blood flow and activate the nervous system, helping my muscles fire properly.

“When we sit all day, we signal the glutes to shut down,” Callaway explains as he directs me through some mini-band stretches. “We set up different neural pathways. If we don’t turn these muscles back on, the body compensates by overloading other muscles, typically the quads.”

Our last hour involves running biomechanics, a weight-lifting circuit, and 20 minutes of ESD on a machine I will come to dread: the Curve, a motorless treadmill that allows you to rev into a full sprint and back without adjusting any controls. By the end of my first morning session, I’m tired but not crushed. My injuries lurk but don’t nag me.Ìę

Quality fitness programs turn on their ability to measure effort against reward, and there’s no wasted effort at Exos, no suffering for suffering’s sake. Almost all training roads lead to strengthening the pillar—the kinetic web from shoulders to pelvis, grounded in the glutes, that forms the root of movement, the platform of all athletic endeavors.

The routines are similar to other core-type training I’ve done, but with more twisting to link shoulders, back, abdominals, and hips. Exercises are followed immediately by a counter-stretch, which helps elongate muscles and keep them supple after they’ve been forced into contraction.
As I wobble through a few drills, Callaway describes any attempt to perform ballistic movement without a stable pillar as like “trying to fire a cannon out of a canoe.”

That afternoon, stuck in Los Angeles carmaggedon, I think: I am a canoe.

During the next few days, I slide into a heavenly routine—work out, eat, go to the beach, eat more, sleep, repeat. Basically, I’m a Kardashian. The closest I get to a soccer ball is standing outside the chain-link fence at the StubHub Center, watching the Galaxy players practice.Ìę

The physical workouts are only a fraction of the Exos program. Its emphasis on movement, nutrition, recovery, and mindset hints at the larger picture but doesn’t reveal the extent of it. The quest for peak performance entails optimizing each of those four channels. The more advanced the competition, the more specific and individualized the details become. The good news for amateurs like me is that even basic attention to all of them tends to make a big impact.

When I arrived, my nutritionist, Denise Alvey, assessed my body composition with a handheld scanner. I clocked in to Exos at six-foot-one and 193 pounds, with 14 percent body fat. This put my body mass index, or BMI, at 25, and thus made me “overweight.”Ìę

“I’d like to see you drop a little bit of fat and add some lean muscle,” Alvey said, echoing the sentiments of everyone ever.

All the components of the Exos system are vital, but nutrition may play the largest role. Food provides the source of molecular remodeling that alters body composition and mass. Emerging research points to important connections among performance, food, and our microbiome—the ecosystem of healthful bacteria in our guts that can help reduce (or promote) inflammation and aid (or inhibit) recovery. A popular phrase at Exos is “You can’t out-train a bad diet.”Ìę

Exos advocates “food first,” meaning that most of my calories come from real food, not energy bars, drinks, or meal-replacement products. The real-food foundation is enhanced with supplements, including, in my case, twice-daily multivitamins (in six chunky pills that are hard to choke down), fish oil, a post-workout recovery shake, and creatine shooters that include beta alanine, an amino acid that helps dietary protein rebuild broken-down muscle.Ìę

Alvey tells me how much water I should be consuming daily: one half to one ounce per pound of body weight, or, in my case, 96 to 193 ounces. That second number is equivalent to roughly 1.5 gallons. In daily life I’ve never consumed anywhere close to that much, and on some days my total liquid intake consists exclusively of coffee and margaritas. I ask Alvey about booze. She stares at me. “Alcohol is not part of a performance diet,” she says.

I don’t have any experience with creatine, which helps provide energy for muscle contraction during high-intensity activity. I’d often associated this substance with college kids trying to get swole, but it’s currently in wide use by a range of athletes, including people in endurance sports. Though controversial in the nineties, creatine is legal and considered safe and effective for hard training and competition. I’m prescribed five grams per day, in two doses of sweet, orange liquid, one shot before my morning workout and one after.Ìę

The fish oil, intended to help reduce inflammation, and ingredients in the multivitamins (like A, D, and so on), intended to “help support my training,” are familiar, with one exception. After my first week, I remark to an Exos staffer that I seem to be sleeping remarkably well. “Oh, that’s the Relora,” they say. “It’s like the wonder supp.”Ìę

Relora is a pill form of natural substances found in the bark of Chinese magnolia and Amur cork trees. It’s purported to reduce cortisol levels and promote weight loss, and has been touted by Dr. Oz.

Relora is an herb and isn’t regulated by the FDA. Research supporting its claims is limited and funded by Next Pharmaceuticals, the company that sells it, so I’m dubious. One study from 2001 involved injecting Relora into chicks and then measuring their “distress vocalizations.” The less frequently the baby birds cheeped, the less stressed they were, the study said.

Sleep is another heavily emphasized aspect of the Exos recovery strategy. I can’t tell you with certainty that the Relora aided mine, but I have no other explanation for my heavy slumber. There’s a prize awaiting those who attain extended periods of deep sleep: a cascade of human growth hormone, which helps repair and rebuild muscles. “If you’re not sleeping properly, you’re not recovering properly,” one Exos trainee told me, “which means you’re pretty much just wasting your workout.” A lot of big-time athletes—LeBron James, Usain Bolt, Tim Howard—advocate ten hours of sleep per night. Sure, they’re pros, so what else do they have to do? But it all comes as good news to me. Sleep I am good at. Sleep I can do.

On Wednesday, my regular workout gets swapped for a regeneration (or “regen”) day. This includes an hour of foam rolling, dynamic stretching, and trigger-point work with a small ball, followed by an hour with my massage therapist, Susan. It sounds great—spa day!—but then it starts. My hip flexors are so tender from the first days of training that I grimace and groan at the pressure from the devilish ball. The massage isn’t any better. Susan digs into my mysterious psoas injury so aggressively that I squeal. Still, by the next morning, I’m feeling good again.

Regen and physical therapy are often deployed in tandem to resolve injury and pain. Every Exos facility includes staff therapists who work closely with athletes and trainers. They assign numerical ratings to clients to help provide trainers with guidance for working with them. Remaining as active as possible is the key to progress.

“When the typical athlete gets hurt, whether weekend warrior or not, they tend to stop whatever they’re doing,” says Graeme Lauriston, Exos’s director of physical therapy. “They think, I just need to shut it down, let my body heal, whether that be a week or months. So then they put on weight, get out of shape, and when their injury isn’t painful anymore, they go back and play in their game, or do that 5K or their weekend tournament or whatever, and wind up with chronic problems.”

Like everyone else who comes to Exos, pro or schmo, my initial functional movement screen serves as the baseline for both training and treatment. Despite my collection of injuries, none of them are deemed serious enough to warrant daily visits with a physical therapist. By the second week, problems have dissipated enough that I barely notice them. Consistent workouts, good nutrition, and sound sleep blend together like a tonic.

My workouts ramp up to include some higher-intensity sprint drills and weight-lifting circuits. Callaway and I develop a jokey banter: he says I look like Huey Lewis’s younger brother; I ask if he came from central casting for Friday Night Lights.

“I’m probably doing 80 perent with you of what I’d do with any of the pro guys,” Callaway tells me. I feel a flush of pride—I’m 80 percent pro!—but I don’t beam for long.

During a tough round of push-ups, with my hands planted on a vibrating platform called a Power Plate, Callaway crouches close, loudly counting down the reps, a descending ladder from ten to one. “Seven
 six
” My arms shake and buckle. “Five…” I try to channel Lil Wayne, now playing, and grunt out four more. Sweat pools and dances on the Power Plate. There’s no way I can make it to one, I think, and may in fact express that sentiment out loud.

“Do. Not. Dis. A. Point. Me!” Callaway barks. I make it to one and collapse. “Nick’s gettin’ good, everybody!” shouts the coach, even though the only people in the pavilion are me and the interns, who are wiping down equipment with rags.Ìę

The morning before I leave for my soccer tournament, Julius puts “Gotta Go,” a down-tempo hit by Trey Songz, on the stereo. “It’s tradition for someone’s last day,” he says, and we all have a moment while I foam-roll.Ìę

On my way out, Denise Alvey does another body-composition assessment. I’ve gained a pound on the scale but have dropped a percentage point of fat and added some muscle. I’m also more hydrated, which she’s happy about.

My tournament begins the next morning, a Saturday. Seventy teams from around the country file into a field complex in Casa Grande, Arizona. The players warm up, jogging in circles and folding into static stretches. The fools. I do all my Exos mini-band and movement-prep drills, feeling smug.Ìę

We kick off against a tough team from Portland, Oregon. At the 20-minute mark, I leap above a defender and score an acrobatic goal by heading in a corner kick. Thuggish fullbacks seem to glance off me. I tally five goals over the long weekend, one of which is a powerful blast from 25 yards that arcs over the keeper’s outstretched fingertips. It easily ranks in my lifetime top five. We end up playing six games in three days, ascending to the championship match in our division, losing in overtime on penalty kicks. I feel better than I have in years, maybe decades.

I’ve either just experienced the greatest placebo effect in the history of fitness, or something profound happened at Exos.

A few weeksÌęlater, I meet up with Verstegen in Phoenix, at Exos HQ. He’s six-one and a fit 200 pounds. He looks like he wears shoulder pads, but those are his actual shoulders. Although he works with athletes of many stripes, his current sport of choice is mountain biking. He owns a small fleet of high-end rigs, including a new Borealis Echo fat bike. When he’s not at the Exos offices or logging his yearly average of 100,000 air miles, he’s often at his vacation home in Sedona, shredding singletrack.

Back in the late 1980s, Verstegen attended Washington State University, where he played football. In his first game, while wedge busting during a kickoff return, he was nailed in the arm by an onrushing opponent, severing a nerve.Ìę

The nerve regenerated, but slowly, forcing him into a protracted recovery. One of his mentors, Jan-Olov Johansson, a Swedish javelin thrower, introduced him to a holistic approach to rehab that transcended the standard American physical-therapy protocols. Since he couldn’t play or train, he buried himself in sports-science courses while also working full-time as WSU’s assistant strength and conditioning coach under Jay Omer. It all coalesced into what would eventually become the Exos system.

The injury “was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Verstegen says. “I was never going to be a great collegiate player. I definitely wasn’t going pro. This pushed me into the space I was already passionate about: How was I going to help my teammates? How am I going to help the team win?

“It used to be this black-and-white thing—you were either hurt or good to go,” he adds. “All of a sudden, you’re healthy and back in the game. But there’s no way you’re ready. You don’t have the speed, the reaction time.” The Exos continuum of care was developed to aid this process.

The company’s early days were modest. A summer camp for athletes was retrofitted into the grounds of IMG, a tennis academy. The original facilities weren’t much: 1,200 square feet of indoor space and sidewalk runs. “Recovery took place in a Mickey Mouse kiddie pool that cost 19 bucks at Walmart,” Verstegen recalls. “It was critical that it was Mickey Mouse. You could only get one guy in a normal pool. But the Mickey Mouse version had these two big ears, so you could plop a big butt in one ear and another big butt in the other ear.”

In 1999, Verstegen launched Athlete’s Performance on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. In 2009, the company relocated to its current facility, two hulking glass and cinder-block buildings. Now there’s a state-of-the-art gym and training center, a rehab facility with full-time staff, a cafĂ©, hot and cold plunge pools, a conference center, a lounge, and corporate offices. As of summer 2016, Exos employed more than 3,000 people, with programs running in 33 countries on six continents.Ìę

Verstegen invites me along for a weekend of mountain biking in Sedona with a handful of Exos staff, including Craig Friedman, 43, vice president of Exos’s performanceÌęinnovation team. Friedman tells me that despite all its hands-on training, Exos considers itself an education and technology company more than anything else. By 2015, rehabbing and conditioning elite athletes had become the smallest part of the overall business, outpaced by development work for the military, corporations, and medical institutions.

Back in Phoenix, Friedman walks me through one of his latest projects, a software program called Journey, which provides clients a soup-to-nuts wellness system—from self-evaluations, similar to the FMS I’d gone through in Los Angeles, to dietary information and other performance metrics. Once a client’s profile is set up, the program will construct a customized fitness and wellness program, whether you’re a high-end athlete chasing PRs or an office-bound “non-mover.” This, Friedman tells me, is just the beginning.

“Take wearables,” he says, referring to the Apple Watch, Fitbits, and other activity trackers. “These things are just renting space on people’s arms. They wear them for six weeks and then put them in a drawer. Why? Because there’s no context.Ìę

“Let’s say you wear a device that gives you a pretty accurate reading of how you slept,” he continues. “What does that mean? What do you do with the numbers? But what if you could combine that data with other information, like load monitoring and performance data? What if you could look at all the data and interpret it, and use it to make personal recommendations? Maybe you slept badly because you did too much activity yesterday. Maybe the ambient temperature in your room is too high and you need to set it lower.”

“The technology needs to play a meaningful role in people’s lives,” Friedman says, “and that’s where we come in. Training facilities are not our end play.”

I spend a finalÌęweek in Scottsdale, working out with an “executive” group at 6 A.M. (sharp!) and devoting afternoons to a led by two Exos vets, Tristan Rice and Brett Bartholomew. Mindset is the fourth point on the Exos compass, the guys explain, but it’s also the principle that underlies the others. We start by talking about self-determination theory and “autonomous coaching,” but mostly the course boils down to adjusting motivation from external factors to internal ones. There are no shortcuts, we’re told; high performance is a 24/7 commitment.

At the break, I chat with Thomas Kempinger, an engineer from Germany who helps manage a soccer team there. When Verstegen was hired in 2004 to work with the national team, he was treated with skepticism, since Germans have little regard for Americans’ soccer knowledge. Now he’s regarded as a national hero.

“In Germany, we have always been about players who can put the ball in the net and not so much about athletics,” Kempinger tells me. “Now everyone wants to train like Exos.”

Back home in New Mexico, I do my best to re-create my Exos training in California and Arizona. The exercises themselves aren’t especially complicated and can be replicated in most gyms, since they rely on common fitness tools like stretch bands, medicine balls, and free weights. I blend recovery shakes, down my supps, sleep in an extra-dark room, and perform my daily contortions on the foam roller.

It’s not the same. I miss the sunny pavilion, Callaway’s spirited guidance, the interns always ready with water, Fetty Wap thumping over the stereo.

I keep it going for a week before I’m undone by old habits: a pint of Ben and Jerry’s here, a third beer in a row there, inertia and Netflix pulling me under. It takes an enormous amount of energy to plan and program workouts, meals, and other “behavior upgrades,” not to mention a sophisticated understanding of how each step, each exercise, works.

I flail through the winter months on my own, doing my Exos-cises at the community center, fist-bumping with the bros. I play in another tournament in January with sad results: no wins, no goals, an aching back, a heavy heart. I’m reminded of something an Exos trainer told me about tech-company employees. “They’re all at the top of their field, and supersmart, but they come in to the gym and they don’t want to know about the sports science,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Just tell me what to do.’ They want to get it done and get back to work.”

I can’t provide a concise explanation for what happened to me during my short time at Exos. I followed the plan; I crushed at soccer. Several factors may have been involved in this, including improved neurological activity, reduced inflammation and pain, improved range of motion, enhanced power from the creatine, and more confidence from two weeks of training surrounded by some of the best athletes on earth.

I didn’t love everything I did at Exos. (I don’t miss all the pills.) But I emerged a better athlete in a surprisingly short amount of time, and I won’t look at human performance again without viewing it through the lens of movement, recovery, nutrition, and mindset. If you aren’t addressing each of these, you are effectively wasting all of them. This is the life of a pro. When people are ready, they’ll find it.

Nick Heil () is an șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű contributing editor.

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Professional big-mountain skierÌę makes ripping down Ìęlook easy. And while he has plenty of geneticÌętalent to thank for those feats, he wouldn’t be one of the world’s best skiers if he didn’t train like a maniac in the off-season. The numberÌęone skill he focuses on? Balance. WhetherÌęyou’re pizza-ing down greens or sending 20-footers, improving your balance will make you a better skier, so we asked the 35-year-old pro for his top five balance-training techniques—no fancy tools required.Ìę

Get on a SkateboardÌę

JustÌęrolling around town on a skateboardÌęrequires good balance, and it’s one of the best ways to train your legs for ski season. Cattabriga-AlosaÌęsays skating down city streets and avoiding rocks andÌęjumping curbs also helpÌęteach him to look ahead and scout for clear routes—key when skiing fast on big lines. Plus, it’s fun and cheapÌęif you go forÌęa used board or one from a big-box retailer.Ìę

Train Your Core

“We often focus on leg balance, but your core is a major balance point for your body,” saysÌęCattabriga-Alosa. He regularly sits on an exercise ball,Ìęlike the $30 ,ÌęliftingÌęhis legs off the floor to activate his core and test his balance.Ìę

Stand on a Balance DiscÌę

Cattabriga-Alosa spends a few minutes every day standing on a balance discÌęlike this . Standing builds leg strength but also works the muscles in your feet, which is key when you’re driving big planks down a steep face. To up the ante, he also uses the discÌęfor one- and two-leg squats.Ìę

Make Your Own Balance Board

Sure, you could buy a balance board, but Cattabriga-Alosa prefers to make his own from an old skate deck and a two-liter plastic soda bottle filled with water. This saves money, but the homemade tool isÌęalso more agile and better for practicing spins because of the bottle’sÌęslick surface. TheÌęsetup is also plenty durable. “It sounds super sketchy, but you can fully air onto the thing without it breaking,” Cattabriga-Alosa says.Ìę

Slackline orÌęWalk a Fence Line

Slacklining improves your balance, and if you have the proper setup, it makes for ideal balance training.ÌęIf you don’t have a slackline, find a fenceÌęwith a solid beam on top.

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Up your two-wheeled fat-tire game with these tips from eight of the sport’s very best.

Darren Berrecloth on How to Ride in the Ready Position

This is the position every rider should be in when descending technical trail. It starts with your elbows—they should be bent as if you were in the middle of a push-up. Next, bend at the waist so your eyes are directly over the bars and your elbows point up. Finally, stand up on your pedals so your legs are slightly bent and your knees point out, away from the bike. Your lower back should be straight. Keep your eyes on the trail and you’re ready to go do something rad.

Ryan Leech on How to Wheelie

Learning to pop a wheelie makes getting over big obstacles much easier. Plus, it looks awesome. You’ll want to start with flat pedals and a gentle, grassy hill. Roll down the hill at a walking pace, keeping all your weight in the saddle. With your bike in an easy gear, put your feet in the one-and-seven-o’clock position. Next, bend your arms and shift your body weight over the handlebars, then push down on the bars to pop the wheel up while simultaneously shifting your weight back, straightening your arms and pulling back on the bars. As you do this, push your foot from the one o’clock position straight down. When your front wheel is up, your arms should be straight. Keep pedaling smoothly. Turn your bars and stick your knees out to maintain side balance. Grab your rear brake if you feel like you’re falling over backwards. To nail it, take Leech’s .

Sarah Leishman on How to Corner

First, get your braking done before you enter the corner. Next, look through the exit of the corner (read: where you want to go). Finally, point your belly button through the exit of the turn. I think of it as keeping my head on a swivel—my eyes look through the exit and my body follows.

Eric Porter on How to Bunny Hop

Bunny hopping involves lifting your front and then back wheels over an obstacle, without the help of clipless pedals. First, get into the “ready” position. (See slide 2 for reference.) Just before you hit the log, compress your fork by leaning down on it, and then as it rebounds, shift your weight back and lift your front wheel off the ground so that it just meets the top of the log. Then, in one motion, push your front wheel off the top of the log while shifting your weight forward. Practice on a curb or sidewalk.

Danny MacAskill on How to Do a Nose Wheelie

Advanced riders, this one’s for you. Build up speed, keeping your weight centered over the saddle seat, then gently pull the front brake. When you start to feel your rear wheel lift off the ground, lean forward to elevate the tire even more. The key to success: the right combination of shifting your weight and pulling the brake. Too much brake and you fly over your bars. Too little and the rear wheel won’t come off the ground.

Katie Holden on How to Brake

Braking properly is the key to riding safer with more control. First tip: only use one finger. Disc brakes have plenty of power and you only need one finger to engage them. Second tip: the notch at the edge of your brake lever is meant for your index finger—use it. Tip number three: brakes work when the wheels are moving. If you lock the brakes and go into a skid, you have neither control nor traction. Think about braking like you think about dimming a light switch. You don’t want to turn the light all the way off.

Leigh Donovan on How to Ride Skinnies

First, relax and make sure you have your fingers over both your front and rear brake levers. Next, enter the skinny, making sure you’re centered over both your wheels. Once you’re on the skinny, look ahead to where you want to go—the exit. If you find yourself off balance, shift your body to compensate while staying low and centered on the bike.

Aaron Chase on How to Do a Whip

A whip is where you get your bike sideways in the air. First, find a jump you feel comfortable with. Second, think about the approach. You’ll want to be almost at the apex of your turn when you reach the lip of the jump in order to get sideways in the air. Finally, once you’re airborne, toss your bike and hips sideways, keep your head pointing straight down the ramp.

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It’s no secret that the world’s fittest road warriors never leave home without a jump rope. This ultraportable gear offers impressive physical and mental benefits, including increased bone density, cardiovascular health, and overall body fitness, while improving memory and mental alertness. Best of all, a jump rope easily jams into a suitcase.

just upped the ante with its new all-surface interchangeable jump-rope systemÌęby providing an easy-to-use, calorie-burning, endorphin-releasing duo of indoor-outdoor ropes. Appropriately called ,Ìęthe system includes one set of eight-ounce handles and two ropes. The black four-ounceÌę, made from PVC-coated steel, is three to four times the weight of a standard speed rope, which makes it ideal for long, slow cardiovascular workouts. The flaming-orangeÌęone-pound , also made from PVC-coated steel, is ideal for explosive strength workouts and upper-body conditioning.Ìę

Download Crossrope’s brand-new that provides preset interval workouts specifically designed for the Burn SetÌęand you’ve got an instant, use-anywhere travel gym that weighs less than three pounds. If the habit turns obsessive, Crossrope offers five more weighted ropes ranging in weight from two ounces to three pounds.Ìę

$65,

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