The Patch -- `Farm-Boy Fitness' Brings Everyday Movements Back Home

A STRING OF THOUGHTS, starting with when I heard Husky strength and conditioning coach Rick Huegli talk about plans for an obstacle course at the University of Washington: "Sounds interesting. Let me know when it's set up."

Then last month, when they began doing what Huegli calls "farm-boy training" on a setup known as The Patch: "Can I come watch?"

After seeing Husky football players crawling, walking, running, hopping and jumping over, under and around telephone-pole-size logs for 45 minutes: "When can I try it?"

One week later, about a minute into Huegli's abbreviated workout: "Uh-oh."

Ten minutes after that, when we'd just finished a warmup: "If I'm this sore now, what will I feel like tomorrow?"

Fifteen minutes later, during one of my increasingly frequent breaks to, um, discuss details of each exercise: "I think I get the idea. We don't have to finish every one."

Back at work that morning: "That was fun, but really hard."

The next day: "Yikes."

Most people probably would call The Patch an obstacle course, but Harland Svare calls it an "anatomical developmental course."

A Poulsbo native, All-Pro linebacker for the New York Giants in the late 1950s and coach for several NFL teams, Svare lives in San Diego, where he found inspiration for The Patch by accident. He was taking some high-school athletes on a run through a tomato patch when they came upon an equestrian center. They started climbing, vaulting and jumping over the obstacles. "Inside of a minute they were in complete cardiovascular debt." And they told Svare how good it felt.

"The modern-day kid, and it doesn't matter what sport they do, because of the culture - television, automobile, computer - they don't go through normal development," Svare says. Specific exercises, he came to believe, could help straighten body alignment, build stamina, quickness and agility, and bring out athleticism. "The Patch puts your body through every kind of rotation around an axis that you don't get in normal movements today."

The first was installed in a 105-by-78-foot space at Torrey Pines, a San Diego high school known for its academics. Principal at the time was Simeon Greenstein, outgoing director of secondary education for the Issaquah School District. "Not coincidentally, I think," he says, "simultaneous to The Patch becoming part of our strength and conditioning program we became kind of a dominant force across the board in athletics."

Svare helped Huegli design the UW's Patch, which wraps outside one corner of the Nordstrom Tennis Center (and, alas, is available only to Husky athletes). Logs are set 24 inches deep, anchored in concrete. Two thigh-high (for me, anyway, at 5-foot-6) parallel logs are a base for "bear crawls" lengthwise, as well as crosswise hops up onto and over. Knee-high large squares with a log splitting the middle are crawled under and vaulted over and around quickly, as if on a pogo stick. Log hurdles of descending heights are squatted through, crawled under and vaulted over. Thirteen stumps act as steps for hops and pylons for lateral drills. Three ascending logs are hopped up and down, and up and over. Many exercises finish with a "donkey kick," a handstand off a log with hips thrust up and a landing like a gymnastics round-off.

"We want our athletes to be functional," says Huegli. "We want to enhance their athleticism." He says many football players, linemen especially, lack core (torso) strength, and working out on The Patch can help. "If you can be strong in your midsection and fluid in your hips, that's athleticism," Huegli said.

The Patch workout can be modified for just about anyone, says Svare, 68, who does it himself (as does his wife) once a week and hopes to get The Patch into schools across the country. He says the $10,000 to $15,000 price tag is less than many playground systems. (For information, call 619-481-2840.) One drawback: The logs are slippery and best not used when wet.

I could feel the limits of my own tight hips throughout my Patch experience. I liked the feel of keeping my chest up and back arched instead of slumped. Bear-crawls face down and then face up (like sideways triceps dips) reminded me of the posture component in all that shoulder physical therapy I went through last fall.

Three days later, when I could lift my arms over my shoulders again, one thought kept popping up:

"When can I try it again?"

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine.