The stuff sits benignly on the grass. A rope ladder. A bungee cord. An orange power belt. A few cones. This is supposed to be a state-of-the-art workout, not a refuge for orphans from some fitness nut's yard sale. "Just you wait," says the thickly muscled man who unpacked all of it from a bag. He is grinning the grin of someone who knows a secret and is eager to reveal it. But it's easy for him to smile; he isn't about to embark on two nasty sessions from exercise hell, covering almost 2 hours. That task falls to his companion on this mildly hot June day in San Diego--and all you see on the face of LaDainian Tomlinson is serious anticipation.

It is eight weeks before ...