Yankees Will Scale 'Mt. Krause' During Spring Training As Bombers Look To Improve Conditioning

TAMPA, Fla. (CBSNewYork) -- There has been a major change to the Yankees spring training routine in 2016.

Some players admitted they were feeling gassed down the stretch, but as CBS2's Otis Livingston reported, they don't want that to happen this year.

Every team in sports is looking for an edge, a legal way to outperform the competition while avoiding in jury.

They Yankees believe they have taken a huge step in that direction, but they aren't using anything high tech. As Manager Joe Girardi said, they just threw some dirt out and put some grass on it.

Spring training for the Bombers consists of stretching, fundamentals, light jogging, and runs up a humongous mound in the outfield.

"It's cool. We have hills in the DR, not a big deal," Ivan Nova said.

The idea belongs to strength and conditioning coach Matt Krause. The hill has 6 increments of 10 yards and it gets as high as 10-ft at the top.

"It's something I've used throughout my whole career. I've used it when I was a college strength coach, I had it with prior teams and it's something that I think is effective in all aspects of the conditioning program to help us with our agility, form running, speed development, we do some base running stuff with it. It forces the guys to have to work hard constantly," he said.

"It's different, but I don't think they're doing things that are dangerous. It's not like we're skiing down it. Now, I've suggested we put snow on it one day and go sledding, but I don't think I'm gonna win that," Girardi said.

As for a name, Krause wasn't too concerned about what the hill is called, but some are calling it Mt. Krause.

"I don't name anything, it's gone from the stump, it's gone from a bunker. At the end of the day it's just a hill and I'm really happy that we're getting the support from ownership to the front office to our staff to the players, and I know guys just want to work," Krause said.

Position players will have their chance to conquer Mt. Krause when they report on Wednesday. Girardi indicated that he would take a crack at the hill as well.