Training & Performance
ArchiveWe ask the pros what drives them
Get ready to maximize the endurance, strength, flexibility, speed, and power you never knew you had.
Matt Dixon of Purplepatch Fitness shares one of the best exercises for building strength in your glutes. For more triathlon fitness videos and interactive training plans, check out The Outside Challenge.
Matt Dixon of Purplepatch Fitness demonstrates one of the best exercises for building strength in your hamstrings and glutes. For more triathlon fitness videos and interactive training plans, check out The Outside Challenge.
Get a solid endurance base through heart-rate training.
Fine-tune your fitness with balance and agility exercises. Here's how.
To keep a workout program fresh, you need to make it your own, and some days you need to break the rules—within reason.
Heart-rate training is the key to gauging your aerobic intensity and building endurance. Here's how to get started.
The ultimate guide to weightlifting for endurance athletes
Have trail and gym work turned you into a stiff? You need some flex time with Ashtanga yoga.
Your foundation is built. It's time to tweak the beast.
We asked four top fitness coaches for their tape-it-to-the-fridge-door advice. Here's what they told us. (Bonus: We kick your excuses to the curb.)
I’ve never done a triathlon. I don’t swim. I don’t run. And I bike mainly when our copy chief goads me into it. Yes, this is pathetic, especially since I edit Outside’s fitness coverage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still active: I ski all winter, hike a 12,000-foot peak at…
In our obsession with minimizing exercise damage, we may have lost sight of the reason we exercise in the first place: to force our bodies to adapt and get stronger
Matt Dixon of Purplepatch Fitness demonstrates how to build swimming strength on days you don’t have time to visit the pool. For triathlon fitness videos and interactive training plans, check out The Outside Challenge.
Matt Dixon of Purple Patch Fitness demonstrates the proper technique for a lunge. For more triathlon fitness videos and interactive training plans check out The Outside Challenge.
A glossary of extreme-sports calamities
Everything you need to run a personal best, including a 12-week training plan, a race-day nutrition plan, and advice from U.S. record holder Ryan Hall
Sporting events on the prison circuit
California’s San Quentin State Prison is home to a ball field where you can take your cuts against convicted felons. This I had to try.
Training with a monitor can be daunting to master, but it’s the best way to make the most of your workouts.
A recent New York Times Magazine story titled "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body" caused a stir last week, claiming that certain aspects of yoga were too risky for the general population. So should you avoid the fitness routine if you're not a serious athlete?
Triathlons aren’t just trendy. Multisport training develops balanced fitness and prevents injuries. Here’s why you should dump your ordinary routine and make the switch, too.
You’ve got questions? Your new triathlon-training coach, Matt Dixon, has the answers. Throughout the course of the next few months, as you prepare for your triathlon through The Outside Challenge, Dixon will answer a wide range…
Get ready for a sprint-distance triathlon with one of three custom plans created by coach Matt Dixon.
How fit do you really need to be to scale the highest peak in the world? An expert weighs in.
The science around strength training has changed in the last decade. You’re older, stronger, and hopefully, smarter now. Don’t make the same mistakes you made in your high school weight room.
Triathlon is booming, with hundreds of events being added to the calendar each year and thousands of goggle-eyed newbies lining up to swim, bike, and run for the first time. But only one race still really matters. Greetings from the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, ground zero of America's multisport madness
Welcome to the frozen, on fire, wet, barb-wired world of Tough Mudder—where adventure racing starts to look a lot more like hazing
The masochistic sport of obstacle racing has exploded in popularity. Nick Heil tries to understand why so many are signing up for the misery.
Build strength for ski season with this CrossFit-inspired workout
An easy, dramatic performance boost based on an old science is catching on. It's about time.
With temperatures below zero, more than 4,500 feet of climbing, and 9,400 competitors, Wisconsin’s American Birkebeiner is the largest and one of the toughest cross-country ski races in the United States. Crossing the finish line is nothing short of a lifetime achievement. Here's our plan to get you there, even if the closest you've come to snow is the frost in
Injuries are a fact of life. Here's how to recover faster.
Six exercises to help you strengthen your body's weakest links
How professional skier and Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety recovered from a debilitating knee injury.
Want to make this year memorable? Start training now and destroy your office mates in a 10K.
Gluten is the protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, but it’s also found in foods like ice cream and ketchup. Gluten-free diets are typically followed by people suffering from a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, a condition that causes a negative reaction to gluten and results in damage to…
When 34-year-old Hobie Call lost the Death Race this past August, he also lost his chance to win $100,000 for sweeping the Spartan Races. So why does he keep competing?
Big-city marathons, triathlons, and adventure races have never been more popular. Here's why it's time for you to line up for the starting gun, too.
It seems like most people I see in the gym use the same exercises. Which exercises work and which moves are overrated?
Mikael Hanson, 43, New York City
Created in 2007 by Christopher Harrison, AntiGravity Yoga takes place a few feet above the ground inside a silk hammock.
(Photo by Stewart Dawson/Wikimedia) On Monday, the New York Times ran an article on elite track athletes who have had kids mid career. Anecdotally, the Times story presented a mixed picture: Kara…
The correct form, step-by-step, for six key stretches.
The Human Performance Center's Kele McDaniel demonstrates an oblique crunch as part of a series of conditioning exercises for runners and cyclists.
Carolyn Parker shows you how to warm up correctly.
Behind the scenes of Outside's January 2011 cover shoot with soccer star, Landon Donovan.
Nick Heil shows you how to do the dumbbell bent over row. For more info check out our 10-Minute Fitness package.
Nick Heil and Chauncey Billups work out on the Power Plate.
Go behind the scenes with the Men's National Team and photographer Susanna Howe on an Outside shoot. Video courtesy of U.S. Soccer…
Nick Heil shows you how to do the hindu push up. For more info, check out our 10-Minute Fitness package.
Nick Heil and Chauncey Billups work out on the TRX Suspension Trainer.