Spring Training
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!)
Loading ...It’s been a good long while since I’ve written about training, but here’s a peek at the sort of stuff I’m doing for training this month and have been doing, albeit more sparsely, over the previous couple months. I have a tourney to look forward to again (end of the month)!, and the prospect of playing competitively! at a few more thereafter too, so it’s high time I got my ass back in gear!
Conditioning: Tabata hill sprints. Started off with more generous intervals (10 seconds on/20 seconds off) earlier in the winter, finally got to the actual 20/10 interval today for only 4 reps, which was a struggle (it was–brace for it–an uphill battle). Lots of room for progress to be made there still; I might downgrade to flat running to shoot for a full set, but I like the extra intensity the hill offers.
General Physical Preparedness (conditioning pt. 2): Burpees. Simple and damn effective, bang ‘em out and then bang ‘em out some more.
Strength: Circuits, using my weight set at home (no convenient gym in rural Japan). Don’t have a ton of weight to load, so this usually means deadlift to bent-over rows to hang power clean to front squat to push press/OH press (to back squat) circuits until I get a burn (usually 8-10 reps, depending on how much weight I’m using), and usually a bit more focus on the squats/deadlifts to work the legs a bit more. I’m in poor shape strength-wise so it doesn’t take much right now.
Power: One-arm DB snatches and/or swings (when I want to work a bit more conditioning). My de facto workout of choice, as I keep the DBs in my bedroom–easy to grab and bang out a set or two in the mornings or evenings before/after work.
Speed: Hill sprints–both going up (there’s a less-steep stretch on the nearby mountain–I go for about 8-10 seconds hard, rest for a couple minutes, repeat) and down (occasionally overspeed work going downhill on the same stretch, with similar rest interval).
Flexibility: Goblet squats, Samson stretch, and recently more dedicated stretching and yoga (just your typical sun salutation, plus a warrior pose or two).
Game-readiness: Don’t get much in terms of disc practice (occasional tossing with a buddy in town and occasional pickup in nearby prefectures for something like two days a month), but I do visualization with the disc in my hand and fakes to go with, play around with flat objects in my idle time/in front of students while I tell them to “repeat after me.” Generally, I’ve practiced enough in my college crucible that my disc skills (outside of flick hucks) haven’t gotten too rusty to jump back in and handle (at least, not at the level of ultimate I’ve seen around me so far). Having spent a lot of time debugging my throws and developing a checklist to sort them out helps a lot too.
I’ve also been practicing what I preach–been paying a lot of attention to my footwork going down stairs at school, and especially running down the mountain (not as hardcore as it sounds–it’s a paved road); lots of hard turns that I accelerate, chop-step into and explode out of. (A thought on footwork: Always aim for 2 steps to turn [facing and moving in your new direction] on <90 degree turns, and 3 steps for >90 degrees–you might need to chop step more to slow down, but one step to stop your momentum [or at least control it] and one inside step to redirect for short turns or one inside turn with an outside plant for big turns is ideal. Focus on limiting the step number and your body will likely sort out the rest).
Lacking: Pullups (you might recall, one of my favorite exercises). Not doing a whole lot for my back lately, but I’m not doing too much pushing (I’m not, for instance, benching) so it’s an acceptable imbalance for now.
Plyos. I’m a pretty explosive guy already; my ups will be fine with sufficient strength/power work and all the hill running. I’m not at a level of fitness currently where I can or need to do dedicated plyos. Injury risk and all that.
Also, foam rolling (Self-Myofascial Release)–don’t have a roller here. I think I might order one though, amazon.co.jp is ludicrously quick (case in point: ordered two books night before last–they came in this morning. That’s standard shipping in something like 36 hours; I love this country!). The utility of foam rolling increases as your training frequency and volume does–recovery becomes even more important.
Schedule: I don’t have a regimented one right now–things like running hinge on the weather. Generally speaking, I’m of the opinion for now that as long as I’m getting a good, hard workout in at least 1-2 times a week, I’m at the very least maintaining my fitness. I’ll be ramping up my workout intensity and frequency over the coming months, but I value recovery a ton and am happy to back off when my body requests such from me.
Note that after a few years of more or less planning and regimenting my own training (including lots of reading), I’m pretty comfortable doing my programming on the fly, including scheduling (granted, if I had more serious training goals, I’d have a more serious approach to programming). If you don’t have a ton of experience with the matter and are interested in going into it with more gusto, check out the guide to program creation I wrote a while back.
So much for “peek.” Hopefully this gives a nice snapshot of where I’m at in terms of my own understanding of fitness and training–I went through and linked some stuff I’ve already written and stuff others have written (along with some videos for exercises).
Re: SMR check out this free e-book:
http://tinyurl.com/smr-book
I started using a lacrosse ball and knobble to complement my foam roller work.
I think it’s also worth working on fundamentals–how do we walk, how do we run? Are you glidewalking, putting weight on your heels? Do you run the same barefoot on grass as you do with shoes?
Poor walking/running form can lead to ankle injuries in the women’s game, where anterior/posterior chain asymmetries (quad dominance, gluteal and sometimes hamm/calf amnesia too) can really add up on the ankle joints.
Me, I started free running this week on campus, Nike Frees on top of Patagonia endurance socks and having some fun while working on efficient/effective form!
Yeah, the foam roller is pretty close to a must. 1 session in the morning and 1 at night and I feel that I could train hard every day of the week.
One thing that I realize now, that comes through in your writing, is the unmatched pleasure of being in control of one’s training. It seems normal to you and me and others who’ve been at it for a while, but there are a lot of players who don’t/can’t break down fitness/athleticism like you do in this post and who are generally at a loss for what they should do to train. Sure its good to follow a team workout plan but I bet one gets a lot more out of a program of exercise he is in control of.
One that note, thanks for that collection of links in your “Interested in Training huh?” entry.
What team are you playing with currently? What is the club scene like in Japan (if you are indeed playing club)? And finally, when do you get back to the states – im real interested to here about your perspectives on coaching your old team.
Re: footwork, another option might be to consider jump rope training (see Buddy Lee), as this is both efficient, effective, cheap, and space miniimal–a must in Japan?
Boxers and Bruce Lee, MMA fighters and Olympic athletes cross-train with rope to develop conditioning and agility, for only minutes a day. If you think about it, landing + jumping on both feet reduces impact relative to running/sprinting, and if it hurts, it’s a sign of poor form or some orthopedic imbalance that should be addressed!
One thing to think about is, can you do fewer things better? Can you get most of the results with 20% of the exercises you mention?
175g goblet squats, 175g one-handed swings / one-legged DLs or pistols, intervals running, jump rope and the 175g TGU will get you hella far I’d say, and fit nicely into a women’s ultimate program.
Another thought I get from Gray Cook. Are you designing “a program” or “a system”? A system is robust, a program is just a program, without a guiding philosophy, architecture, or evolved design.
Power to you mmackey!
L2
@ L.Wu (resrie),
Absolutely agreed on the fundamentals. A teammate once told me that I always looked like I was walking with a purpose when I was heading around campus–I was almost always, in fact, focusing on my glute activation/foot strike/etc, debugging my posture for all those hours I wan’t at practice. Same for running form in track workouts.
Big fan of Nike frees; I stopped having ankle trouble when I started wearing them full-time.
Re: jump rope, I’m a fan of using it for warming up–I’d usually include a minute of jump roping in my warm-up circuit (based off of the crossfit warm-up). It’s a good idea for here too…we’ll see.
As for “program” vs. “system,” absolutely a program right now. A “system” is what a coach or a trainer does for his athletes or clients. As this is just for myself, I’m largely going off of fuzzy stuff like “feel.”
@Stephen,
I love having control over what I do. I think you, like me, got the first rush when you got into crossfit–to know that hard work with the right methods can yield quick, good results is extremely empowering. (I’m getting pumped up just writing about it). Glad the links were helpful!
As far as teams out here, I’ll probably have a better idea after I’ve played in the Awaji Open at month’s end. I did play in a beach tourney in the fall, which had a bunch of Japanese college club teams and a couple more legit-looking ones, but I didn’t get a good look at them.
For now I’m picking up with a ragtag collection of expats from the larger area around southern Japan (though a handful seem to actually have some experience, which is a step above the pickup level I’ve known so far)…the legit club teams like the Tokyo Buzz Bullets or Osaka Natto are tough to crack as they’re largely, if not fully, native–my Japanese is good enough that I could probably get by (sport tends to need little translation), but that doesn’t mean they’d want to have me. And they’re much too far away from me. I had a contact and a potential in to check out Buzz Bullets practice before I got to Japan last year, but their season and my schedule didn’t mesh. Perhaps I’ll be able to catch them come summer.
Due back in the States late July/early August. DMS orientation starts August 10, which doesn’t give me a lot of down time before I’m back into it. As far as coaching, I’m still up in the air as to how much/which team and all that, but if I don’t go too in-depth talking about strategy I will at least be offering impressions here, life busyness permitting.