Virtual workouts can still be literal hell.
Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com explains that the Ravens’ virtual offseason workouts included the team’s notoriously challenging conditioning test.
“It is pure death,” former Ravens running back Justin Forsett told Hensley. “It is the hardest conditioning test I had throughout my time in the NFL,” added Forsett, who played for seven teams.
The test consists of players running 900 yards in six sets, with multiple changes of direction. Each set consists of 150 yards, with players running out and back three times. The time limit ranges from 32 seconds to 27 seconds, with 64 seconds of rest between each set.
As Hensley explains, things start getting dicey in the fourth of six sets.
“My legs were gone by then,” former Ravens cornerback Fabian Washington told Hensley. “You can’t pick them up. It feels like you’re running in mud. It was definitely a shock. . . . It’s literally the hardest crap ever.”
And it’s something that the team did this year by having players place their phones on tripod so the coaches could see them do it, and to time them. In an offseason with no opportunities to work directly with players, the conditioning test at least helps ensure that, when they show up for training camp, they’ll be in shape.
