Citius, Altius, Fortius. ForTheRestOfUs.

I was on the cross country running team in college, and let me tell you, I was terrible. Although I diligently put in my miles every week, I refused to put any effort into strength training.

Partly it was because the weight room was a grimy little space that smelled like football players. And partly it was because after a 20-minute introduction to the weight room by our coaches each fall, we were pretty much left to our own devices. Usually, I restricted my strength training efforts to futile attempts to do pull ups. You’d be surprised by how little this improves your running speed.

Actually, you might not be surprised at all.

Now that I’m a decade older, I wish I had tried harder to learn the exercises. Because when I walk into the gym these days and there are a hundred machines that I don’t know how to use, it would be great to have a routine to fall back on. Oh, and if I don’t do strength training, I’ll probably get osteoporosis and become an insomniac. No pressure.

I suppose I could pay $75 an hour to have a trainer help me. I’m sure they’re worth every penny, but I’m cheap—and Yuri Elkaim's Fat Free Fitness has turned out to be a pretty good substitute.

The short video podcasts go through a short set of exercises all based around a single concept—exercises on a stability ball, eight ways to develop killer abs, or variations of pushups. He’s encouraging and energetic without getting all Tony Little on you.

The other thing that’s great about these podcasts is that if you’ve got a video iPod or iPhone, you can bring the podcasts with you to the gym and watch an exercise right before you try it yourself. Since they’re usually less than five minutes each, you can stack a couple of them together to create a new workout every time you’re at the gym.

With this kind of help, one of these days I might even be able to do a pull up.