First Session Back
First outdoor group session back after a long break. Threatening weather, three clients, 45 minutes of real work. One dropped out. Nobody who showed up regretted it.
The Session
This was the first outdoor group session back after a significant break. The weather was threatening all morning — heavy cloud, wind, and the very real possibility of rain — but the session went ahead as planned. One client pulled out beforehand. Two showed up. That ratio will be familiar to anyone who has run outdoor training sessions for any length of time.
The session was built around upper body resistance work using the EZ bar and resistance bands, combined with fitness drills. The EZ bar is a excellent tool for outdoor upper body work — it allows for a range of movements, is straightforward to transport, and generally easy to use. Resistance bands add variety and allow for movements that a barbell alone cannot replicate in an outdoor setting.
Exercises
Each client chose 4 exercises from the options below. Each exercise was followed immediately by a 10 metre sprint — run to the cone and back — before moving to the next exercise. Press ups were always kept as the final exercise to test upper body strength after the earlier work and the running.
How It Felt
First session back after a short break. The body took a beating with pain everywhere from the legs to shoulders to the back and that is exactly what the returning to the gym article talks about. The first two weeks are always the hardest. You show up anyway.
The clients who came performed well. The weather held off for the duration — heavy rain arrived shortly after we finished, which felt like good timing. The session had good energy throughout. Nobody complained. A couple of them said afterwards it was exactly what they needed.
As a coach, the first session back with a group is always interesting. You can see immediately where people are — how their movement patterns have held up, what has tightened, what has weakened. The fitness drills made that clear very quickly. It is useful information and it goes straight into the plan for the next session.
Coaching Note
The clients who showed up in threatening weather are the clients who will make progress. It is not about talent or genetics. It is about turning up when it would be easier not to. That quality — showing up on the hard days — is the single most reliable predictor of long-term results I have observed across 30 years of coaching.
Everybody did really well including myself and we all felt great afterwards.
Watch all 5 Session 1 videos in order on YouTube.
Note: The standard T-Test protocol requires backpedalling from cone B back to the finish. In this session we adapted and ran forwards — a sensible modification for a first session back after a significant break. It reduces Achilles and hamstring strain while still testing lateral movement and change of direction. The correct protocol is shown on the Fitness Testing page.
Note: The Illinois Agility Test in this session was performed with 3 centre cones rather than 4. First session back after a significant break — we missed one cone. The correct protocol uses 4 slalom cones as shown on the Fitness Testing page. Mistakes happen. That is what the first session back looks like.
