Thoughts.

Continuing to increase strength and adding muscle remain goals for me over the next couple months, along with getting ready to play this season. What am I doing to these ends?

Note: The following is intended primarily as an example of how I’ve implemented my learnings as an athlete to my own training – please do NOT just appropriate these wily-nilly for your own use!  Several of these components are particular to myself and my needs – you’re far better off planning for yourself, especially if you’re new to training!  I suggest Starting Strength (a similar template can be found for free online here) until you’ve begun to level off in your gains, adding some additional single-leg or other work to improve carryover to ultimate.

I highly encourage you, however, to take cues from this structure in planning your own training.  On to the details.

Lower Body

I’ve got 2 lower body lift days. Day 1 is more of the big & heavy day, with day 2 more focused on supplemental work.

Lower Body Day 1

• Power Snatch 5×3, paried with mobility work
• Sumo Deadlifts 2-4×3 paired with
• Depth Box Jumps 2-4×5
• Circuit “Glute Destroyer”
  • Single Leg Hip Thrust x15/side
  • Side Plank Dips – foot and arm raised x10/side
  • Bulgarian Split Squats, 10RM weight x8/side
  • 3-4 repeats, 1min-0 rest between circuits (no rest between exercises)

Lower Body Day 2

• Speed Box Squats, 8-10×2 @ 50-60%1RM, 1min rest between sets
• DB (Both Arm) Single-Leg Straight-Legged Deadlift 3-5×5/s, paried with mobility work
• Lateral Squats 3-4×8/s, paired with mobility work

Again, I’ve tried to divvy things up so most of the challenging heavy work is on day 1 – the SL SLDLs are challenging, but more from a balance than a strength perspective (similarly for the rest of day 2). I’ve also loaded the early days with more explosive work, as you can see – there’s also a lot more agility/plyo work with these that I’ll touch upon in the next post.

For the speed box squats, the method is known as Dynamic Effort training (of Westside Barbell fame) and provides a way to develop strength-speed/speed-strength and other qualities that contribute to the expression of strength including reinforcing proper technique – it’s something of a bridge between the heavy slower lifts and the full-speed but unloaded motion of plyos, similar to the Olympic lifts but a bit heavier on the spectrum. Ideally I’d be able to add some bands to really facilitate acceleration through the full range of motion, but my gym is fairly poorly equipped for that particular kind of work.

I’m really happy with the circuit I have on day 1 (I only nicknamed it after doing it once) – the SL hip thrusts really get the glutes working, the side bridge dips really stress the glute medius (which is one area I know I need to work on), and the bulgarian split squats put it all in the single-leg standing context and using the glutes in the more integrated context of the whole leg extending. I wouldn’t recommend jumping in with those particular exercises (a better alternative for starters or team use would be a cook hip lift or single leg supine bridge, side bridge dips without arm/leg raise (or just static holds), and split squats or reverse lunges), but given how common glute imbalances are I encourage you to try and work something similar in to your training.

Upper Body

Similar deal as with lower body – 2 sessions, with one focused more on moving big weight and the other more supplemental. There are a few differences, though…

Upper Body Day 1

• Bench Press 2-4×3, 1-2×5 paired with
• Plyo Push-Up (Clapping or Alternating Box) 2-4×3-5
• Pull-up 2-4×3, 1-2×5, paired with mobility work
• Shoulder/Core Circuit:
  • Rear Delt Fly x15
  • DB Bent-over Row x10
  • Knees to Elbows x10
  • 3-4 repeats, 1min-0 rest between circuits

Upper Body Day 2

• OH Press 3-5×5, paired with mobility work
• Circuit:
  • Cable Pulldowns x 15
  • Face Pulls w/ External Rotation x 15
  • Push-Up with Feet Elevated x 10
  • ½ Kneeling Cable Lift x 10
  • 3-4 circuits, 1min-0 rest between circuits

While my lower body work had a clear heavy day and speed lift on the other, with the upper body work (where I consider myself less advanced) I’m still focused more on developing the pure strength qualities. For benching and pull-ups, where I’ve established a decent strength base over the past months, I’m trying to get reps at the heavier end of the spectrum but still accumulate sufficient volume to add muscle, hence following the sets of 3 with a couple 5′s – doing the heavier sets first facilitating the use of slightly heavier weight for the sets of 5.

The plyo push-ups are more of an experiment; whereas with lower body the pairing with box jumps really facilitates translating strength into explosive use, which has obvious carryover to ultimate, the push-ups serve less of a functional purpose (and as I’ve said above, I don’t think I need a ton of work at the speed end of the continuum at this point). The alternating box component should hopefully add more of a core stability component there, at least.

General bases I’ve covered include balancing pushing with pulling (I wind up doing a lot more volume on pulls than pushes given the circuits) and incorporating some external rotation work for the rotator cuff (though I’m admittedly a little light there – I may look to work the no money drill with bands in as mobility work on day 1).

What’s missing is grip work, especially ultimate-specific grip work; Tim has a great video up with some training ideas there, and I’ve begun doing some grip mini-workouts at home with some dumbbell plates I own.

I should add that a couple exercises are less about function and are more selfishly-oriented; my posterior deltoids are underdeveloped thanks to all the benching, hence the rear delt flyes; likewise the pulldowns (and doing pull-ups instead of chin-ups) are an effort to work my lats more and develop those.  Both may have some athletic carryover (the lats in particular are integral to posture and core stability), but I confess to an ulterior motive there.

Results so far

I’m about halfway through the 4 weeks I’ve planned for this phase and really liking how things have been working – adding a lot of single-leg emphasis as well as agility work (to be covered in the next post) already has me feeling much better in terms of being ready for game motion than a few weeks ago, and while I’m perhaps not progressing in strength or putting on muscle as much as in previous months, I am still making progress – right on track.

How about You?

I hope this is instructive for those of you out there trying to plan your own workouts – what are you doing for training?  Let me know or hit me with questions in the comments!

Related posts:

1. Pre-Season Training – Agility, Plyometrics, Movement Training
2. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations
3. Planning My Next Training Phases – General Goals
4. Planning My Training – Gathering Tools
5. Spring Training