You can watch an HD version of the video by clicking on the YouTube icon and then changing the number to the right of the closed captioning sign to 720pHD.

Read more about the workout at Flotrack.org.

This workout is simple. Get a kettlebell, do the exercises in the video. That’s it.

The one exercise I left out of the video is the Turkish get up. Great general strength exercise. Five reps of the Turkish get up on each side is a nice amount of work for the novice.

You buy a Kettlebell for $30-$40. A worthwhile tool when you only have a handful of minutes after your run for general strength.

Simple question: If you were to design a routine that strengthened the hip girdle area and lasted five minutes or less, what exercises would you use, how many reps and in what order?

Couple of things to consider:

•  This comment and this comment correctly highlight that lateral leg raises are targeting the lower back and gluteal muscles.
• Maybe something that looks like one thing is actually another.  I never thought of the leg swings as an ankle mobility exercise.  Please take the time to read number three on Mike Boyle’s list of Eight Mobility Drills Everyone Should Do. (Note: Gary Gray is person who came up with the Lunge Matrix.)

So here we go – let’s see what we come up with. There are thoughtful people reading this blog and the collective knowledge of the group is many multiples of my individual experience.

I suggest you link to YouTube videos in your comments as our comment service (Disqus) will show a thumbnail of each video you reference.

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

There’s something in Daniel’s article that I think is important for coaches and athletes to understand. Coach Mark Wetmore said of the women’s team:

“Honestly, this year, we gambled a little bit and focused on the conference championship more than usual,” Wetmore said. “It was the first year in the Pac-12 and CU wanted to have an impact. In the case of our younger women, they already had raced hard at our conference meet and were a little over the hump.”

Here’s a coach who knows when the athletes are going to run their best; it’s calculated and to a large extent, it’s controlled. Sounds simple, but it’s actually very difficult. Many teams and many runners train hard all the time, running a nice race here and there, yet they can’t “call their shot” and run their best on a specific date. But this is the point of training – to be able to run your best on a specific date (and at a specific distance) – and I think it’s important for coaches and athletes to go back and analyze their training to see if they’re running their best when when they want to. Again, simple concept – run your best on the day you’ve chosen as “the big day” – but much easier said than done.

The other thing that I though I should share is this question that Daniel sent me via twitter.

@coachjayjohnson: Reader asked me why women run 6K and men run 10K in #NCAAXC. Do you know why the divide still exists?

I responded with:

@danielpetty politics that havent changed. Favors schools with strong middle distance as you can see with the top four. Sexist? Maybe.

It is a bit odd, isn’t it, that there is such a big difference in the length of the race? And while my wife, who was an All-American in cross country at Georgetown, is very happy with yesterday’s outcome (Georgetown – ranked number one at the start of the season, yet never won a meet until yesterday – won it’s first NCAA title), there is little doubt in my mind 6k cross country is a completely different beast than 10k cross country. Both challenging, both aerobic, but 10k training is much different than 6k training, the same way 5k training is different than 10k training.

If you have 15-20 minutes check out these two workouts (from 2006 and 2009 respectively) and you’ll see what I mean.

University of Colorado

University of Washington

I love both workouts. Gold Hill is a wonderful place to get a great aerobic stimulus. Conversely, I love Coach Metcalf’s replication of the race – get out hard, maintain, finish strong. And to be sure, Colorado does workouts similar to the Washington workout and Washington no doubt does long runs. But the point I’m trying to make is that it’s interesting that women only run 6k at the NCAA level while men run 67% longer…which is a big difference, a difference that would likely force female athletes at their coaches to re-evaluate their training. And in a day and age of blogging and tweeting I’m surprised more adult female runners don’t ask the same question that was posed to Daniel – “Why do the women run so much shorter than the men at the NCAA Championships?”

Just a question and you may or may not be interested in discussing it. If you are, comment below and I’ll add my thoughts. Again, congratulations to the CU men – a well deserved trophy to a group of men that having been training extremely hard.

To following along, simply watch the videos below and then click here for the description of sets and reps you do during each phase of the eight week progression.

This warm-up is based on Physical Therapist Gary Gray‘s Lunge Matrix. Personally, I do this before every run, i.e. I get out of a car or walk outside our house to the alley and I do the lunge matrix. No doubt there are other ways to warm-up, but this is the first thing – and often the only thing – I do before a run.

Music is Rodrigo y Gabriela covering Led Zeppelin.

Two quick thoughts. First, while I normally add audio commentary to these videos I’ve decided that I will simply add thoughts and comments below; this obviously shortens the editing time, but I also think it cleans up the video, allowing you to take from it what you will. Second, my plan for 2010 is to use the “Video Number” title format as I have a feeling that will help a WordPress coder/ninja help me change the site sometime this year, allowing us to put together a video library. If you know a WordPress ninja who may be able to help me, please let me know – coachjayjohnson@gmail.com

Enjoy!

While I like this video, these exercises are not as important as this series of exercises or this warm-up routine. But I do like the efficacy of these exercises compared to this swissball “activity” or this swissball video, even though there is a thread of viability in the first and a lot of viability to the second.