I spend a lot of time shouting that Conditioning Is Overrated. Making a lot of claims that athletes are doing it wrong. Suggesting that most athletes are wasting their efforts.

That’s unfair to athletes. It’s also incomplete. Conditioning is still overrated, yet it’s also essential to performance. So let’s find a common definition for conditioning, then determine how and when to do it. 

Part of my objection to conditioning is that no athlete in 12 years has ever come to me with a clear statement of what it is. An athlete playing semi-professionally is just as likely as an athlete playing rec league to tell me they need to “get in shape”. It’s impossible that they have the same needs!

The semi-pro player could show up to a league game in jeans with a mild flu and still outperform the field. The rec player could show up with world class aerobic endurance and force production capability yet never successfully touch the ball. 

Conditioning represents this full range of possibilities, but it boils down to this statement: have the qualities necessary to perform technically in the worst probable conditions at your desired level of competition. In short, be fit for your level.

What are the qualities necessary?

Ironically, while I believe a developing athlete needs the most diverse set of qualities possible and should spend the entire year building them, I believe competitive athletes only need those diverse qualities in the off-season. In-season, at the high-intermediate levels and above, you need to be completely specialized. So, if you accept as a given that fitness is your ability to do a specific task, then you must define conditioning by the task you’re out to execute.

Defining the task starts with your sport and its fixed elements.

• How long is a game, match, or event?
• How long are the periods and breaks between matches or events?
• How large is the playing area?

Then defining the task moves to your team strategy and individual role.

• What do you have to do on the field?
• Within a period and within a match, how many times do you need to do each of those specific things?
• How much rest do you get between each job or series of jobs?
• Are your jobs more dependent on cognitive ability like decision-making or precision shots…
  or on physical ability like impeding a competitor on defense or getting open in space or charging a line? 

Then defining the task ends with how much absolute capacity your jobs require. A 100m sprinter or weightlifter has no upper limit for their capacity; they will run out of years to train or out of recoveries from major injury well before they reach “too much” for speed, power, or absolute strength. A marathoner needs the aerobic capacity to be in motion for several hours, but if they aspire to be elite, they need speed and efficiency far, far more. A field sport athlete needs a little bit of everything, but at varying levels of “maximum”.

Now, consider how complex and nuanced and variable the answers to these questions might be for any sport. It’s mind-boggling, frankly. But, where a feature is staggeringly complex, often the context is simple: the best way to condition for your sport is to play your sport.

That’s it. Drop all the extra crap and play your sport more. Play against competitors at or slightly above your current level. Play as often as physically possible – accounting for your personal recovery needs and life commitments. 

You can’t major in minors. People who spend more hours each week on training than they do on quality practice or on smart scrimmaging are missing the point. They are why I say conditioning is overrated!

The reason for this emphasis on playing your sport is the back half of the statement: have the qualities necessary to perform technically in the worst probable conditions at your desired level of competition. 

What do you mean by performance?

A middle school athlete I’m coaching insisted that I race them over 2 hurdles. We were having fun that day, so I took them up on it. I gave them a meter head start and ran in my coaching clothes with no warmup. Now, I’m proud of my hurdle technique, but the reality is that I could have approached the first hurdle at half speed and taken a high clearance without presenting any risk of a loss. 

The point is not that I can win a race against a pre-teen, obviously. The point is that the level at which you (want to) play determines the degree of technical excellence you need to pursue.

Consider this: age 25, returning to track & field after 7 years off, I ran in an open 110m hurdle race at a University of Houston invitational meet. By the time I touched down after the first hurdle, my college and professional competitors were clearing the second hurdle! I distinctly remember seeing them clear that hurdle in slow-motion – they were tight to the hurdle, with a deep body lean, and a crisp arm action. Meanwhile, I was high over the hurdle, shoulders back, with a wild lead arm compensating for how twisted my body was in the air.

I ran 16-flat over 42” hurdles that day. By any “normal person” standard, that’s exceptional. But by advanced hurdling standards – 2nd-to-last place went 14.9 – I was a sloppy amateur in it way over my head. (All true.)

So to perform technically in that environment and at that level of competition, I needed about 500 hours of additional technique work and far more basic speed. Versus a middle schooler, I have all the qualities I need to take it easy and win a race. Versus a D1 collegian, I basically don’t know how to play the sport and don’t have the absolute qualities to learn.

THAT is what I mean by performance. If you are playing pickup basketball games on Thursday afternoons at the rec, you need to enjoy the game and be able to make a few wide-open shots. If you are playing street ball in the Bronx, you need to be able to move against tight defense on a rough court. If you are running drills against a KU center, you need to be ready to take serious contact from a defender who can anticipate what you’ll do next with the ball, then you have to be capable of placing the ball just so to have any chance of scoring.

Evaluate your technical expertise against the level of your competitors.

• Rec level: know the basic rules of the game
• Intermediate level: know the technical cues of every movement in the game
• Advanced level: execute technically while predicting opponents’ behavior
• Elite level: execute perfectly against aggressive, expert opponents regardless of conditions

The only way you advance up these levels is studying your sport, playing your sport, and expanding your absolute qualities so they don’t limit your execution.

How To Do Conditioning Right?

If you can’t play your sport in 80% of your available training time each week, you still have to do something. You won’t advance without first refining your readiness to play then stress-proofing your technique. So once you’ve evaluated your technical level against your level of play, all you do now is build work that resembles your sport.

It can resemble your sport physiologically: work-to-rest ratios, work intensity, and impact profile (sprint, jump, cut, back pedal, side shuffle, jog, tumble, etc).

It can resemble your sport psychologically: starting commands for sprinters, lifting on a timer for weightlifters, approaching the free throw line under observation, specific scenarios that create pressure for any sport.

It can resemble your sport physically: same playing area, realistic conditions like throwing into the wind or lifting on a platform, using all your game equipment.

When you get the environment set up right, now you sort out the work. Focus on one element of readiness – is it your fatigue-resistance or a technical skill in a difficult situation? Are you working on the skill of a cut or bit of defensive footwork? Or are you trying to react to a live defender?

Organize your conditioning elements by complexity: start with the most broken-down form of a relevant drill, over a manageable time domain, up to three times a week, then plan little steps up in complexity and incorporate them week on week.

Here’s a simplified example from hurdling:

• marching walkovers over 6 hurdles on grass in flats, 3 yards apart, at 33” height; 7-8 reps
• popovers over 6 hurdles, 4 yards apart on grass in flats, at 36” height; 7-8 reps
• cycling over 8 hurdles, 6 yards apart on grass in flats, at 36” height; 5-6 reps
• short-approach over 8 hurdles, 8 yards apart on track in flats, at 39” height; 4-5 reps
• full-approach from 3pt start over 8 hurdles on track in flats, 9 yards apart, at 42” height; 2-4 reps
• block starts over 3-5 hurdles, 9 yards 2 feet apart on track in spikes, at 42” height; 1-3 reps

This isn’t technique practice. This is a progression from simple to complex, reduced to relevant. This sequence skips a few steps, but you could assume a hurdler moves through these drills over 3 months before the season, taking conditioning twice a week.

The drills advance across environment from grass to the track.
They advance across difficulty with hurdle spacing and hurdle height.
They advance in perceived intensity with starting position and footwear.
They advance in actual intensity with rest time (not specified) and training volume per session.

This sequence misses out on race-like conditions – commands from a starter, timed reps, and against competition. But it’s close enough for building a resilient, prepared hurdler when there’s no other option. Everything here can be done with just the athlete at a track.

Conditioning Is More Than Sweaty Work

You have to think through every one of these elements to build effective programs for conditioning. You have to scope, arrange, execute, and evaluate the work against your level of play. And you have to trust that less is more when approximating the sport in training.

Conditioning isn’t running 200 meter repeats unless that is directly relevant to your sport. Middle distance runners take those repeats at 26 – 30 seconds, do 5-8 reps per session, and have 1-2 sessions per week…but field sport athletes don’t need to run medium-pace for 45 seconds 10 times in a game.

Conditioning isn’t doing metcons unless your sport is CrossFit. There is no transfer from high-rep pullups and deadlifts to a 45-second volley.

Conditioning isn’t jogging 5 miles every day unless you’re building an aerobic base for distance running.

Conditioning is having the qualities necessary to perform technically in the worst probable conditions at your desired level of competition. Conditioning is being fit for your sport’s demands.

If you’re coaching yourself, take time to think this through. Design 4 training sessions that build real conditioning. Scale those 4 sessions down to the most basic drills and up to game-like requirements, which might represent 16-20 total options for conditioning. Spread them throughout your pre-season and early-season training schedule. Then focus on executing. That should be easier to do since you’re cutting out all the sweaty work that does nothing for your performance.

Or…you can accept that conditioning is overrated, then go play your sport more.

If you have to “get in shape” to succeed at your target level of play and there just aren’t enough playing opportunities to get you there, that’s when I suggest you work with a strength & conditioning coach. This is what we think about all. day. long. Delegate the analysis and planning to someone else, so you can pour energy into refining your technique and doing the work.

Conditioning is still overrated. But do it right and you won’t just be “in shape” — instead, you’ll be perfectly fit for your level of play.