Thoughts. » lifting http://www.ultimatethoughts.com Ultimate Ramblings Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:36:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Strength Training Without Weights – General Concepts http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2012/01/strength-training-without-weights-general-concepts.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2012/01/strength-training-without-weights-general-concepts.html#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:00:11 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=869 My Situation

I’m presently doing rotations in San Francisco for a couple months (working at California-Pacific Medical Center‘s Pacific Campus); as such, I am a long ways away from Dartmouth’s free-for-student gym access and the resources it offers. Unfortunately, my current finances and location are such that I have no close, cheap gym options to get my iron fix on. At this point, it’s a bona fide jonesing to lift heavy; there is something deeply satisfying to me about a heavy pull or nailing that last squat in a set  that is hard to recreate elsewhere, but necessity is the mother of invention, and here I am needing to gear up for another season without my old, comfortable training allies.

So, what’s the alternative? There are a range of options for the aspiring trainee without a power rack:

KB Swing

  • Acquiring a decently-weighted kettlebell enables a lot of strength and power work without a lot of expense or equipment
  • Likewise, a TRX setup allows for several motions (I’m thinking of inverted rows and other pulling movements, but also unstable pushups, ab “rollouts” and bulgarian squats with an unstable rear foot) that broaden the palate of strength training options.
  • Finally, the best implement to master is the one that you carry with you every day – your own bodyweight. Many challenging movements exist that push not only your strength, but your balance and aid in the development of athleticism.

In the interest of not paying excessive baggage fees, I opted against bringing my kettlebells out here – I have put together a homemade TRX setup for under $30 that I highly recommend (though they just came out with some elastically-rigged “Rip Trainer” that I’m dying to emulate as well). I’ve been using it mostly for inverted rows but there are many, many options to incorporate this into one’s training.TRX Inverted Row

General Concepts in Strength Training

But enough about that – the meat of this post is about bodyweight strength training. A general review of the notions of how to improve strength includes a few options:

  1. Moving a heavy load. This engages the nervous and (depending on how heavy and how long) muscular system to both improve the capability to express the strength you have, as well as stimulate muscle growth with enough volume.
  2. Moving a less-heavy load, at high speed. This method focuses more on engaging the nervous system – with an intent to move at full speed, you recruit more muscle units and therefore train more of your muscle mass on a movement. This is generally the case when doing olympic lifts or dynamic effort work on the basic lifts.
  3. Moving a less-heavy or light load to the point of fatigue or failure. This method, often used by bodybuilders, is intended both to maximize time under tension for a given muscle group (believed to be a prime variable for stimulating muscle growth); additionally it’s thought that the last few reps of each set occur at a point where the smaller, weaker muscle units are so fatigued that you cannot help but recruit the larger, more powerful units, allowing you to stimulate a large percentage of the muscle to adapt, grow and improve overall strength capacity.

My personal bias has always been more for methods 1 and 2 – with method 3 you lose some of the nervous system training component (typically one ends up “training slow” doing bodybuilding work and not developing athletic qualities such as speed and explosiveness; there’s also the notion that this encourages adding less-functional muscle mass.  If you’re training for speed, every pound of excess weight, be it fat or muscle, that isn’t making you faster is slowing you down; I’m also not fond of training to failure on a regular basis, as it tends to promote more lasting fatigue and injury risk). With bodyweight work one ends up necessarily trending more toward the low-load, high-rep end of the spectrum, but there are ways to keep efforts challenging enough to develop real strength.

Increasing the Degree of Difficulty

This is something I plan to focus on – if our sweet spot is somewhere less than 15 reps/set to maintain at least some strength development, it’s important to progress in the type of movement being done to keep it challenging. Examples of this are progressing from a split squat to a Bulgarian (rear foot-elevated) split squat, or adding range to reverse lunges by doing them off of a step, or elevating one’s feet while doing pushups. One does not need weight to make such progressions.

Another way to go about this is to regularly change the exercises done. If after a few weeks pushups are feeling too easy or taking too long to get the effect you want, experiment with handstand pushups against a wall. Return to pushups again later, try a different progression, and see if allowing your body to “forget” the movement doesn’t allow it to become useful again.

High-speed Work

An additional way to go about this is to add a high-velocity component to the exercise. Again, time under tension and doing slower movements can be good for stimulating growth, but it fails to develop explosive athleticism; rather than (or ideally, in addition to) doing slow, controlled reps of your split squats, try an explosive variant like split squat jumps or scissor kicks (or work the absorptive rather than generative side of explosivity with some jumps to lunge position landings). One could even combine methods and start with an explosive variant and transition to a more controlled version once fatigue makes the explosive version too hard to sustain.

Diminishing Rest Intervals

Finally, if there’s anything I’ve learned from Crossfit it’s the magic of incorporating a time element. Sure, you might be able to do 50 pushups at one go, but how long does it take? What if every 10 pushups you alternate with some lunges or air squats? What if these pushups are at the bottom position of a burpee? If you’ll pardon this coming from a scientist, there’s something magical about what happens when you take routine exercises and integrate them into a larger circuit, when you track time and incentivize doing more work with less rest – this probably also relates to the time under tension concept, where it’s not only the overall volume, but the density, that stimulates the hormonal responses that encourage growth.

More to Come

Those are the general considerations. I’ve decided to follow more of a set program for my bodyweight training rather than wing it entirely (based off of the Vertical Jump Development Bible‘s bodyweight strength program – incidentally, the whole thing is a great read for some grounding in basic concepts of athletic training), but I’m hoping to actually lay it out more specifically along with the rest of my training plan in a future post.

Related posts:

  1. Summer Workouts: Bodyweight Strength Training
  2. Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations
  3. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2012/01/strength-training-without-weights-general-concepts.html/feed 3 Pre-Season Training – The Lifts http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/04/pre-season-strength-training-%e2%80%93-the-lifts.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/04/pre-season-strength-training-%e2%80%93-the-lifts.html#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:22:33 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=839 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

Lower Body Day 2

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

Upper Body Day 2

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

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/04/pre-season-strength-training-%e2%80%93-the-lifts.html/feed 4 Mobility And Injury Prevention http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/mobility-and-injury-prevention.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/mobility-and-injury-prevention.html#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:10:33 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=829 With some broad background explanation given in the past three posts, these next posts will really drill in on specifics I’ll be using for my training. First up: mobility work.

Gray Cook, noted rehab expert (check out Athletic Body in Balance, or his newest book on the functional movement screen), inspires a lot of my thinking here, with a strong tip of the hat to Eric Cressey‘s methods for incorporating mobility work into the warm-up and workout.

My Imbalances – What I Need to Work On

Here’s a list of various imbalances or mobility issues I’ve noticed over the past several months – I’ve already begun working on some of them, but I’d like to formally prioritize them going forward.

This list is of needs large, but not complete (for instance, I’m thinking part of the gluteal imbalance is also psoas tightness/strength imbalances). The list is phrased in terms of what I need to do (e.g., my left glute fires less readily than my right, so I need to work on activating it more):

  • L>R Gluteal activation
  • L>R Ankle mobility
  • L>R Scapular mobility (R>L Scapular stability)
  • R>L Internal rotation at the shoulder joint
  • L>R Latissimus dorsi flexibility/mobility
  • R>L Hip adductor mobility (may be strength more than mobility)
  • Thoracic Spine Mobility
  • Scapular Retraction/Pectoralis Major/Minor Mobility

The Means to Improvement – What I Plan to Do

There are a few components of the plan to even out these imbalances, and a few more components on top of that for general injury prevention I’m also adding to the mix.

For mobility work, step 1 is identifying appropriate drills or exercises to work all of these needs. Pardon my preponderance of lists:

  • Glute activation: The Cook Hip Lift is a great initial step, with progression to a foot-elevated version from there (both non-and working-leg, starting with the non) – I’m also planning to add Hip Thrusts to my lifting routine itself to come at it from a strength as well as mobility/activation angle. Drills for hip abduction also work the glutes, such as the quadriped hip abduction and X-band walk.
  • Ankle Mobility: Rocking ankle mobilization or the wall ankle mobility drill are good means here, as well as an emphasis on foam rolling the calves/ball rolling the feet.
  • Scapular Mobility: The scapula moves in a couple planes, so there are a variety of ways to mobilize it – I’m thinking primarily of scapular push-ups to work on scapular retraction in the transverse plane, and scap wall slides to work the same in the coronal. Reach, roll, and lift is another drill that does a good job of mobilizing the scapula by activating the lower trapezius, an oft-overlooked muscle group.
  • Shoulder Internal Rotation: This is one I really haven’t focused on in the past. The sleeper stretch is a good start (likely just for my right arm – the left has fine ROM in internal rotation)…otherwise I think I just need to focus on getting my R scapula working more consistently in retraction (which is perhaps a strength imbalance more than a mobility issue).
  • L. Dorsi Mobility: This is one where I need to pay more attention to stretching – not only in the gym, but in the day-to-day as well, as basic flexibility is definitely an issue. I’m also looking at doing  side-lying extension-rotations, as well as adding an overhead reach component to drills like the squat-to-stand or spiderman, to reinforce the use of that range of motion.
  • Hip Adductor Mobility: Another area I haven’t been focusing enough attention on. This will probably be as simple as adding rocking adductor mobilizations to the warm-up, doing more lateral squats/lunges, etc.
  • T-Spine Mobility: I’ve already been adding t-spine mobilization to my foam rolling routine, but I’m looking to expand and work things from the cervical spine (neck) side as well to really minimize the presence of the ubiquitous hunched/forward head posture we all have from sitting in front of a computer as you are right now; quadriped chin tucks are a means to restore some range of motion there, as are various neck stretches.
  • Scapular Retraction: This gets hit already in some of the above drills for scapular mobilitiy.
  • Pec Major/Minor Mobility: Tightness in these muscles (particularly the pec minor, which inserts on the coracoid process of the scapula) is another factor contributing to scapular/shoulder dysfunction and the aforementioned forward head posture. Rolling and stretching are both means to loosen up the muscles; I’ve also become fond of the broomstick pec mobilization drill to work on mobility there.

Putting it Into Practice

So how do I put this all together into something coherent and useable? Given I have some time demands in my life and can’t spend 20-30 minutes on mobility at every workout, I’ll be breaking things up in to two warm-up routines and alternating/mixing and matching as I see fit – on recovery days when I’m motivated to hit the gym, I’ll take the time to do more of an extended routine.

The other way I’ll work these in is to pair them with lifting sets – instead of idling for a few minutes between deadlift sets, I’ll pull, then stretch the pecs (which has the added bonus of facilitating scapular retraction and better posture for the pull). I’ll pair bench presses with ankle mobility. Etc.

The key with all of this is to favor the side that’s lacking mobility in cases where I have L-R imbalances; Cook suggests a 3 or 4:1 ratio until the imbalance is corrected for his corrective work, and that’s a pretty good rule of thumb here: so, for my ankles, I’ll wind up doing 20 wall ankle mobilizations for the left side, but only 5 on the right.

The Routine

This is of course subject to re-edits as I go, but the plan for now is:

Warm-Up A

  • Foam Roll
  • Warrior Lunge Stretch
  • Cook Hip Lift/FE Hip Lift (Focus on L)
  • Figure 4 Stretch
  • Rocking Adductor Mobilization (Focus on R)
  • Quadriped Hip Abduction (L)
  • Rocking Ankle Mobilization (L)
  • Sleeper Stretch (R)
  • Reach, Roll & Lift (L)
  • Scap Push-Ups (L)
  • Squat-to-stand w/ OH reach
  • OH reaching lunge walk

Warm-up B

I realize I didn’t mention all of these drills in my self-assessment above. I’ve previously been focusing a lot on hip mobility and it continues to be of primary importance in my warm-up; almost every drill not mentioned falls into that category you can follow the relevant link for video.

In terms of structure, I have a few guidelines:

  • Foam Roll First
  • Stretch before mobilizing (if stretching)
  • Start with the hips/lower body
  • Then progress to the torso/upper body
  • End with more dynamic/integrative hip mobility

Do it Yourself!

I’ll touch more on some of the other injury-prevention work I’m doing – incorporating TGUs and single-leg work – in a later post. For now, take a look at the above and PLEASE consider adapting a similar mobility routine for your warm-up in lieu of jogging for 5 minutes or, heaven forbid, nothing.

A great place to start would be to take a couple days and just run through a bunch of mobility work.  Really take the time and foam roll, do the drills properly, learn the movements, and then look to incorporate more into your routine, especially in areas you’re lacking (hip mobility is a great place to start!).

Not only do these exercises do great things for injury prevention, they also prepare your body to perform more efficiently and effectively for a given workout. Don’t you want to optimize your gains?

Related posts:

  1. Why Mobility is King for Fitness
  2. Starting to Put it Together: Structuring the Week/Day
  3. Treating Chronic Knee Issues: An E-Mail Case Study (Part 2)

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/mobility-and-injury-prevention.html/feed 0 Starting to Put it Together: Structuring the Week/Day http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/starting-to-put-it-together-structuring-the-week-day.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/starting-to-put-it-together-structuring-the-week-day.html#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:18:35 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=818 Before I can start arranging all the pieces of the plan, it helps to have an idea of what I want my training week to look like. (I find organizing with a weekly cycle to be the most convenient for me, but you may find a shorter 2 to 4-day cycle makes more sense, especially for beginners when less variety is needed).

I’ve been training on a 4 day/week, 2 upper/2 lower split for my training, and for my initial phase this structure makes sense. In later phases, as my focus shifts away from the weights in the gym (and away from upper-body work) to more sport-specific work, intervals, sprinting, etc, I’ll be cutting back on my gym days to reflect that.

Doing What, When? – Aligning Priorities and Time

What you decide upon will depend on your availability and resources, but keep in mind that the time you spend really is a reflection of your priorities – rather than letting the time dictate your priorities, think about planning around the priorities from the start and basing your schedule on that.

I should add that while the upper/lower split is there for lifting, I’ll be incorporating lower-body plyo/agility work on upper body days – only 2 days of lower body work isn’t enough for my needs (and would be too much to pile on all together at once), and given my priorities this organization makes sense.

Generally I’ve been following a program of M W F Sa lifts, with M/F and W/Sa being lower and upper days, respectively – the actual days may shift, but the order and spacing tends to stay the same. This is important to account for, as lifts that follow a day off (MWF) are likely to have me in a different performance mindset – likewise lifts later in the “week” generally need to be less demanding to accommodate fatigue from earlier workouts that may be carrying over. In practical terms, this means that I’ll be focusing the heavy lifting on the early-week lifts, and working the rest around that.

Filling in the Framework of the Day

Weekly structure is one component – the organization of a given workout takes it down another level of detail. Again, your structure here should reflect your priorities, though there are some caveats that should inform them:

  • Plyo work is most efficacious when done fresh
  • Heavier low-rep sets tend to handle more weight when done before higher-rep sets
  • You need to warm up before you do anything too intense (this one should be common sense, but bears repeating)

There are exceptions to each situation – again, depends on your priorities, but you’d best have a good reason for violating the above.

For me, my typical workout “structure” is as follows:

  1. Foam Roll/Mobility (Warm-Up)
  2. Explosive Work (if any)
  3. Main Lifts
  4. Assistance Work (if any)
  5. Conditioning (if any)

Sometimes I’ll combine steps; my main lift might be snatches, which are explosive, or I might incorporate some jump rope or other plyo-type work into the warm-up, or my assistance work might be a conditioning circuit of several exercises. Sometimes steps are omitted for time or other reasons, and on some days some components will receive more focus than others (again, time spent reflects my changing priorities), but this is my approach to training.

Moving On

From here I’ll start to elucidate each of the above components in terms of actual exercises and what I’m actually planning to do…in the meantime, I’d love to hear your comments on your training priorities and how you structure your week/day!

Related posts:

  1. Pre-Season Training – Agility, Plyometrics, Movement Training
  2. Structuring Your Own Training Program, Part 2
  3. Planning My Training – Gathering Tools

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/starting-to-put-it-together-structuring-the-week-day.html/feed 1 Planning My Training – Gathering Tools http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-training-gathering-tools.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-training-gathering-tools.html#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:40:06 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=812 In part 1 of this series, I touched upon my general goals; choosing a site to build, or framing the canvas, if you will. Step 2 from that is to assemble the appropriate tools to construct something befitting the site; after that, I’ll begin putting the pieces together into something coherent and useful.

From each general goal I’ll lay out some specifics in how I’ll go about applying that to my training:

  • Strength – Two things are of import here: movements and rep ranges while lifting (bodyweight training or other modalities are certainly an option, and I’ll do some of that, but the need to continually progress makes weighted lifts a simpler, more realistic option for me).For movements, I’ll continue to focus on the “big lifts” – Squat, Deadlift, and Bench, in order to get the most “bang for my buck,” and for rep ranges I’ll look to work in the 3-5 rep range, in order to keep strength as the primary focus.*
  • Size – There is some overlap with strength development here, as I want any muscle gain to be functional (myofibrillar, rather than sarcoplasmic hypertrophy – check the footnote for some detail there).Particularly for the upper body, where I believe I still have more growth potential, I’ll be adding some higher-rep work to the big lifts using complex sets of 7 following heavier sets of 5 – this will enable more training volume while still working in a rep range low enough to ensure progress in strength development.For other areas, this means generally limiting my rep ranges on assistance work – single leg work, etc, to <15 reps; primarily I’m looking to work in the 8-10 range to keep gains functional.
  • Speed – There are a couple considerations for starting to incorporate speed/plyo/explosive work – given the high amount of force involved in some of these movements, it’s important to start with relatively lower-impact movements and then progress from there to more intense activity, all the while keeping volume low – fatigue breeds poor form and poor learning, which only increases injury risk – save high-volume plyos for late-season conditioning (or better yet, avoid the high-impact high-volume combination and get your conditioning from exercises that have fewer consequences with fatigue).**For me, I’m naturally pretty explosive and as such am starting my plyo exercises a little farther along than I’d recommend for most, with depth jumps and some single-leg bounding progression; I’m also planning to start incorporating the olympic lifts to develop more strength-speed/speed-strength as a translational base to my explosive work. Finally, I’ll be pairing some of my plyo exercises with the raw strength work to take advantage of the brief facilitation of explosive activity that lifting heavy potentiates.
  • Sport-Specific Prep – Kind of a broad umbrella – relatively broad good-for-sports measures like single-leg training fall under it, as do things as specific as throwing an IO forehand. For me right now, I’m looking more at the broader spectrum – I’ll get the tossing in when I can, but it’s not yet a focus with my relatively poor weather conditions in New Hampshire (we’re entering the oh-so-delightful “Mud Season” between Winter and Spring) and only occasional access to throwing partners.The big ones are running and change of direction – to that end, I’m going to start working 5-10′s (pro agility drill) in for change of direction/lateral work with shuffling (I run a few variations on the straight version), and get used to acceleration and running at high speed with acceleration runs and some short sprints. The jumping component will be met more by plyo work for now; as I progress I’ll start working more bona fide vertical jumping in (a full-speed jump off of one foot is quite high-impact and something I’m not ready to do regularly yet).
  • Injury Prevention/Mobility – Best for last in this list, but this will go first in my workouts – in addition to general foam rolling and mobility (which should be at the start of everyone’s workouts – seriously, it’s one of the easiest and simplest ways to protect your body and minimize the impact of nagging aches and pains), I’ve recently become more keen on several imbalances between sides I have. The list is somewhat extensive and is well worth covering in its own post (along what what the plan is to rectify), so keep an eye out for that – suffice to say for now that I’m looking tailor my work to my personal needs and I’m excited to see the results it will yield!

Hopefully this is another step along the path to helping you figure out some of your own workout needs. Check the footnotes below for a couple book recommendations that can give you some great guidance, feel free to comment with questions or suggestions (especially if you have some concise online resources with exercise descriptions – double bonus points if organized by type [e.g., upper body horizontal push]), and get ready for even more detail on how I take all these pieces and start to put them together in something resembling a coherent plan, coming soon!

*General rule of thumb: 5 (challenging) reps/set is balanced between strength vs. size for most trainees, with fewer reps trending more strength over size, and more reps favoring size (with greater than 15 reps/set trending more to bodybuilding/less-functional hypertrophy) – I’d strongly recommend reading Rippetoe/Kilgore’s Practical Programming for Strength Training for further explanation, along with some great templates and basic science of lifting programs  - I strongly recommend starting in the 5-8 rep range (with perhaps a brief period in the 10-15 to get used to movement) and adding weight there before moving into lower ranges.

**A lot of my thinking on plyometric training is informed by Boyle’s Functional Training for Sports, which I highly recommend – he has a good, no-nonsense approach to injury-free preparation for sport.

Related posts:

  1. Planning My Next Training Phases – General Goals
  2. Pre-Season Training – The Lifts
  3. Pre-Season Training – Agility, Plyometrics, Movement Training

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-training-gathering-tools.html/feed 1 Planning My Next Training Phases – General Goals http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-next-training-phases-general-goals.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-next-training-phases-general-goals.html#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:35:43 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=805 Step 1 in my planning process is always to think about my goals for training.

Some of these goals are more implicit, such as “Become a better ultimate player.” As I’ve alluded to before, these sorts of non-specific goals don’t really do a lot to inform my planning, so it needs to be broken down further.

These are my current general goals:

  • Continue to improve strength. I’m not yet at a point where I’m looking to prioritize skills,conditioning, etc to the complete detriment of strength, so I still want to be making progress in this foundational quality.
  • Continue to provide stimulus for muscle growth/weight gain. It won’t be as explicitly a focus as it was previously (and granted, my numbers haven’t gone up tremendously over the past months), but while I’m happy at 140 there’s always more room for growth. Once I’m properly in-season this goal will fall by the wayside, but until that time I’ll take what I can get, with strength gain still the primary focus.
  • Develop qualities in the speed-strength and absolute speed end of the spectrum. As Eric Cressey describes here (for baseball, but with some obvious carryover to ultimate), there is a spectrum of capability in translating one’s strength into more sport-functional speed; I’ve made big gains in the strength end of the spectrum and should have ample room to refine that and translate it into game-impact speed.
  • Prepare my body for ultimate-specific on-field impacts – running, changing direction, jumping, throwing. This goes along with the previous goal, but takes more specific work – you can only get so used to running without, you know, actually doing it.
  • Even out imbalances in strength and mobility for injury prevention/general health. Not too much explanation needed here; an imbalanced body is an injury-prone body, and I’d hate for my work on the above goals to go to waste.

Those are the big-picture foci; this is both the easiest and the most necessary part of planning one’s training. In order to translate this into the meat and potatoes of a workout plan, we need to do more research – what are the optimal methods to achieve each? And more importantly, what methods can I personally make work with my circumstances, motivation, and time?

More on this in the next post – until then, if you haven’t already, start thinking about your big-picture training goals – do they align with what you’re currently doing? Is there a need to re-evaluate and re-work your approach? No time to re-assess like the present!

Related posts:

  1. Planning My Training – Gathering Tools
  2. Strength Training Without Weights – General Concepts
  3. Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/planning-my-next-training-phases-general-goals.html/feed 2 Merry PR-mas! http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/merry-pr-mas.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/merry-pr-mas.html#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:05:40 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=789 I’ve been following Eric Cressey‘s Maximum Strength program since my season ended; tested my maxes a few days after regionals in October and went from there following the 4-month program (wound up stretching it to 5, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a couple other minor breaks due to illness/travel to Presday, etc).

PR’s of Past and Present

Man-oh-man, does it feel good to have some hard numbers on one’s progress.

The jumps (weights in lbs):

  • Broad Jump: 96″ to 106.5″
  • Box Squat: 220 to 260
  • Bench Press: 145 to 190, with a 165 1RM at 2mo
  • Deadlift: 265 to 325
  • 3RM Chin-Up: BW+45 to BW+55
  • Bodyweight: 136 to 140 (both taken at gym)

That’s a total of 40+45+60+15lb jump in those maxes, or 160 more pounds of strength vs. a 5-pound gain in bodyweight, or a lot more power potential (see the 10″ increase in broad jump despite a near-complete lack of plyo training so far).

Hopefully this all serves as more evidence that training your basic strength qualities can and will make you a better athlete – though if you’re reading this blog I’m sure you already know you need to do more than run slow miles to get better for this sport.

Personally, I’m especially pleased with the bench gains (before last winter I’d never really benched before; I’ve been making some nice beginner gains in terms of strength and looks with the upper body [i.e., I have pecs now!] – haven’t decided which of the two I like more yet) and the deadlift jump – I was figuring that lifting 300 was just barely doable up until I pulled 295 with ease. It feels great to really crush an old PR.

What’s next?

This past week has been pretty low in actual training, with a bona fide break of several days leading up to testing instead of the usual deload, and I’ve been devoting some of that time to planning out my next couple months’ training as I transition from a pure strength focus to developing more explosive and ultimate-specific capabilities (and start doing some of that “conditioning” thing, too).

The plan is to get something finalized this weekend and do a walk-through of that process for your edification here on the blog, so stay tuned!

Related posts:

  1. Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations
  2. Some training thoughts gleaned from the summer
  3. Fitness writings, and wisdom from Vern

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/03/merry-pr-mas.html/feed 4 Guest Post on Melissa’s Blog http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/guest-post-on-melissas-blog.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/guest-post-on-melissas-blog.html#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:56:55 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=776 For those of you who don’t already read her blog, Melissa recently dropped a post I wrote on in-season peaking from both an endurance (tapering) and strength (deloading) perspective.

It’s the fullest bit of writing I’ve done in a while outside of the Huddle articles I’m working on (my first there should come with issue #32), and I’m pretty happy with the article, so check it out.

Related posts:

  1. Melissa Witmer: Priorities For Her Speed Block
  2. Bonus double post: A reaction to the Huddle’s Issue No. 6: "Footwork"
  3. Happy New Year.

]]> http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/guest-post-on-melissas-blog.html/feed 1 Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Specifics http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-specifics.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-specifics.html#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:35:07 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=754
  • Foam rolling and mobility work are pillars of athletic (and general) health.  Do them to warm-up, (and/) or include them as part of your workout itself.
  • Follow your “big lifts” with related assistance work (2-4 “extra” lifts after the big one(s)) – for lower body, this means single-leg work and/or higher-rep work; for upper body, this means an appropriate balance of pulling exercises (thin pull-ups/chin-ups and rowing), grip and single-arm work.  If you’re doing full-body days rather than upper/lower split, it’s ok to mix upper-lower assistance work.
  • Core work counts as assistance.  Focus on core stability (planks, holds) and rotation for ultimate; situps have less functional carryover.  Recognize that a lot of single-limb work emphasizes core strength/stability too – there are many ways to work “core work” into other exercises and save time and see (perhaps better) carryover.
  • Make sure you’re pulling!  This applies to lower-body lifting (deadlifts, RDLs, cable pull-throughs – all technically “pushes” through the feet) but ESPECIALLY to the upper body.  The mirror muscles may look nice, but true power and injury prevention is rooted in the posterior chain.  Balance any upper-body pushing you do with equivalent pulling, if not with extra pulling work for the majority of us who are imbalanced (those with shoulder woes, I’m looking at you).
  • Set & Rep ranges: Very much dependent on one’s goals and Training Age.  Some generalities:
    • “Big Lifts” – squat/deadlift/bench should be at relatively high loads/low rep ranges (~5 or less reps/set).  Strength first, here!
    • Novice: Focus on quality technique at relatively low set/rep ranges (3×5 for working sets, perhaps 3×8 if you’re not getting heavy).  Recovery and progress can be made on a workout-to-workout basis, so less variation in exercise selection and intensity is needed for progress – you can do the same routine over and over and still make progress.
    • Intermediate: Technique is less of a concern now, so higher-intensity and higher-volume work can be done (heavy x1,x2,x3 sets – this should be preceded by good fitness base development for any intermediates coming off of some down time).  Total reps generally need to be higher than for novices at similar % loads to generate progress – where a novice would do 3×5, an intermediate is more likely to need 5×5, at a higher % of their 1RM.  Variation in volume should occur on a weekly level (e.g., 5×5 in wk 1, 4×5 wk 2, 6×5 wk 3, and 2×5 in wk 4 to deload).  With greater training stress needed to stimulate progress, greater recovery is needed and this is enabled in part through weekly variation; broader exercise selection is usually necessary as well (even subtle shifts, e.g. from flat bench to incline bench, front to back to box squats, can stimulate new gains).
    • True advanced lifters are competitive powerlifters and the like; they’re beyond the scope of what you need for ultimate and what I’m comfortable commenting on, but adaptation occurs over even longer timeframes than weekly to volume due to the massive loads they can wield (monthly or even annually for the most elite lifters) and rather rapidly to specific exercises (necessitating rapid variation).
    • Assistance work generally operates in higher rep ranges (8-15); this is where you stimulate metabolic changes (ie, muscle growth) – the lower-rep big lifts are for cultivating strength proper.  Novices don’t need assistance work to stimulate progress as much as intermediates do.  If your goals include packing on a lot of weight, doing extra volume here (an extra set or two) can be sufficient to stimulate the extra growth – but keep in mind that most are held back not by work, but by recovery here – eat and sleep more!

    • There you have some of my current thinking on strength training for ultimate.  I think all of these points apply regardless of where you are in your season, but are easier to not compromise in your off-season.

    When in season, keep your big goals in mind – is adding weight to this lift the most important thing?  What do you need to do in order to really thrash this coming weekend?  Keep the big picture in mind – lifting is a means to an end (strength) which is in turns another means to the more relevant end (on-field success).  It is one component.  It is not the only component, and is not the most important one. Set your goals, evaluate the tools that can help you achieve your goals, and never lose sight of that forest for the iron-bound trees you travel within.

    Related posts:

    1. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations
    2. Planning My Training – Gathering Tools
    3. Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2011/01/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-specifics.html/feed 1     Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-structure-considerations.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-structure-considerations.html#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:47:24 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=750
  • Emphasize the big-money lifts; put them first in your training day.  You’re asking for trouble if you fatigue yourself before you lift heavy. (Yes, you can end with squats and the like – but if you’re going heavy, best to lead with it)
  • Work the bigger muscles first, end with smaller (squats before calf raises – though I’m not keen on calf raises at the moment).
  • Try to limit workouts to a max of 6 exercises or so – much more and you’re working too long, or not devoting enough time (sets/rep wise) to each one.
  • Time-wise, aim for less than one hour working out (longer with warm-up and cool-down is fine).  Extended stress pushes up cortisol release, which has deleterious effects on muscle growth/recovery and immune function, among other things – get in, do work, and get out.  If it’s not enough to do it within an hour, you might want to split the workout into two or pare down to the essentials.
  • Leave adequate time for recovery!  At least one full “off” day a week, ideally 48 hours between working muscle groups, work in low-intensity/change of pace recovery days, take deload weeks every 4th week or so (less often for novices).
  • Sleep, incidentally, is a form of recovery too – don’t underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep for both your energy level and muscle growth.  Sleep is when growth hormone levels spike; do yourself a favor and get more rest – your brain and body will both be grateful.
  • Nutrition goes right along with this – try to eat your best on your pre-training days and before workout on the day of.  If you’re going to indulge the sugars or leave your body short-handed on refueling calories, best to do so immediately post workout for the former and before an off day for the latter (not that I really recommend either for serious athletes).
  • 3-4 days lifting a week is both necessary and sufficient for an off-season program; this may be worth scaling back (either in days or workout length/intensity) when in-season/playing a lot depending on how well you recover between days.  For ultimate anything more than 3-4 days lifting is excessive, will hinder your recovery, and generally be an inefficient use of time (spend it throwing or reading blogs instead ;-) ).
  • Generally speaking, our sport is lower-body explosive dominant – emphasize lower body strength first (squats, deadlifts, and when you’re ready, consider learning how to do cleans properly).
  • Upper body strength of course has its use too – look at Olympic sprinters.  Throwing the disc has more to do with lower body and core strength than big biceps, but arm stability (especially at the shoulder) and grip strength are both key players too – don’t leave it out.
  • Other relatively ultimate-specific training considerations:
    • Rotational power and stability.  Cables and bands are good ways to progressively load rotation (and stabilizing against it – try Pallof Presses); medicine ball throws are an excellent option for developing power. You don’t have to do exact frisbee throws here – in fact, it’s better to leave that specific work for just the disc lest you train to throw slow.  Develop power independent of the specific motion and then learn to incorporate it into your game.
    • Lunging – doubly a consideration in that it’s useful for throwing and that we heavily favor one leg for this;  the off-season is a key chance to assess your range of motion and strength disparities between legs. Gray Cook advocates working the “deficient” side an extra 2 sets or 2-3x as much for improving mobility (ie, during your warm-up – you ARE doing mobility work to warm up, aren’t you?); strength-wise, make sure that the weak side determines maximum loading on exercises like lunges (don’t reinforce the difference by doing extra reps or weight on your strong side) – you may want to add an extra set to the weak side if you’re really deficient.
  • Generally speaking, athletes see more functional carryover to sport from unilateral loading – ie, single arm, single leg…use the bilateral big loads (squats, deads etc) to stimulate growth, but, especially as you get closer to pre-season and in-season, recognize that the unilateral work is what’s going to keep you healthy.  More on this in the next post.

    • Related posts:

    1. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Specifics
    2. Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations
    3. Structuring Your Own Training Program, Part 2

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-program-structure-considerations.html/feed 5     Strength Training For Ultimate – General Considerations http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-general-considerations.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-general-considerations.html#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:42:35 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=749 Been a while; let’s get back to it, with some of my thoughts on strength training for ultimate these days (which are always subject to change and revision as I learn and experience more).

    I’m trying to build back up to doing more extensive posts by baby steps, keeping it short here; leave a comment if you’d like me to expand on anything.

    General Considerations

    • As with all strength training, the three big lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press) are king for developing both size and strength (which, in turn, lay the foundation for developing power and speed).  Don’t talk to me about getting faster by doing plyos if you can’t do a full squat with at least bodyweight (and preferably 1.5x if not more), if you don’t know what a deadlift is.
    • Technique is of paramount importance.  Use a full range of motion, lift under control.  For the novice (and often for the not-perfect intermediate – which is to say, essentially all ultimate players), just getting “good” at doing the lift through a full range of motion is enough to still make progress and add useful strength, while cutting injury risk.
    • Use loads that you can handle, but know that staying just shy of your limits without going over will enable better recovery and progress than going overboard.  That is to say, it’s important to operate in a range of intensity that is challenging but manageable to induce an appropriate training effect.
    • PLEASE don’t train to failure – you’ll set yourself back for days, if not longer (failure really stresses out your nervous system).  Much better to stop 1 rep short or cut 5 or 10 pounds from the next set than to push it and fail…the nervous system doesn’t recover well from such insults.
    • That said, continually pushing your limits is the key to real progress so don’t be gun shy about progressing in your loading. However, it’s deleterious to do so if you can’t keep good form.  If you’re stalling in your gains, drop weight a bit and get back to the basics of lifting Perfectly.  Expand the range you can do with less weight.  Poor form compensates for weak links and holds you back; strive for excellence.

    More to come on programming in the next post.  Feel free to comment if you have questions, etc.

    Related posts:

    1. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations
    2. Strength Training Without Weights – General Concepts
    3. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Specifics

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/12/strength-training-for-ultimate-general-considerations.html/feed 3     Benchmarking: or, Charting Your Progress http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/01/benchmarking-or-charting-your-progress.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/01/benchmarking-or-charting-your-progress.html#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:00:11 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/?p=621 Vertical Jump Testing

    Vertical jump testing is a lot of fun.

    The Dartmouth men have an arrangement with the River Valley Club near Hanover; last Wednesday was our first session there.

    After a good, dynamic warm-up (which your team should be doing, if it’s still static stretching), we met the trainer we’d be working with.

    First thing he did with us? Took vertical and long jumps (best out of 3), and tested pull-ups (max reps) and push-ups (max reps in 60 seconds).

    We also learned how to do a few exercises that we’ll be performing for the next 10 weeks or so.

    What we didn’t do, in this first session of the season, was dive right in and get to work. Hard work IS important–the team has been busting their butts over winter break to come into our long winter training with a good base–but just as important as working hard is being able to track progress. What good is weeks and weeks of training, (even if you improve your lifts or what-have-you), if it doesn’t translate to increased explosiveness on the field?


    Obviously these measures are not the sole indicators of athletic progress. Put some thought into what your goals are (do you want to jump higher? Have better endurance?), and make sure you’re keeping track with appropriate tests, keeping in mind what tools you have access to (you might not be able to test vertical precisely, for instance, but do have a stopwatch to time your shuttle run).

    Re-test as you go.  You’ll likely find that as you break your body down more from training, your scores will diminish; however, with adequate recovery, you should see significant improvement when go-time comes.

    This isn’t just fitness wisdom. Part of any good goal-setting process is ensuring that your goals (or the means to reach it) are measurable. Part of what I’m attempting to do this year, in all walks of life, is to be better at keeping data on my life, from the time I spend working (and how I structure it) to how often I’m taking initiative and engaging people more, both of which are big goals for me in this new year.

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record: set goals. Keep track of your progress (set goals that you can keep track of).  A bit of time invested in planning will go a long way toward achieving your ends.

    Related posts:

    1. Goal-setting: the Key to Progress
    2. Progress
    3. 12/ 15 Lower body

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2010/01/benchmarking-or-charting-your-progress.html/feed 8     Not Feeling It Today? At Least Warm Up First. http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/06/not-feeling-it-today-at-least-warm-up-first.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/06/not-feeling-it-today-at-least-warm-up-first.html#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/06/not-feeling-it-today-at-least-warm-up-first.html Been working hard lately, with the wonderful weather 1 and the prospect of playing some good ultimate when I return to the states as motivation.

    That said, there are still days where I’m not feeling it. I get home from work and my body says, “meh!” and my mind says, “ehhhh. Just take it easy today.”

    In those situations, there are two things that keep me working:

    1. Having a plan. This is essential to keep you from dogging it repeatedly–if you have at LEAST a general idea, some goal to strive towards, you’re more likely to get there. It’s easier to say “eh, today will be an off day” when you haven’t already planned it to be a workout day. Plan against your future apathy.

    2. At least do the warm up! This is a rule I made for myself a couple years ago (I may have read about it somewhere); even if you don’t feel up for a full strength workout or conditioning set, etc, get your butt off the couch and into the gym. Do your warm-up (I’m fond of the Crossfit warm-up or similar derivation). Feel better? Do the workout. Still not feeling up for it? Take it easy.

    At the very least, you’re boosting recovery by getting the blood flowing. Ideally the physical act of getting up and out will be enough to get you over your motivation hump and get you working, even if you opt to scale things back a bit–you’re better off doing something than nothing.

    1As I type this, of course, it’s pouring–rainy season here. Soon to be unbearably hot season.

    Related posts:

    1. Strength Training for Ultimate – Program Structure Considerations

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/06/not-feeling-it-today-at-least-warm-up-first.html/feed 2     Treating Chronic Knee Issues: An E-Mail Case Study (Part 2) http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-2.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-2.html#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-2.html Continued from the last post:

    The pain has only been debilitating once: back in December on day 2 of a hat tourney. I basically couldn’t run, strong limp when walking.

    By march (Dream Cup) it was fine, basically no irritation.

    But then i kind of tweaked it training for Jeju, and it got worse over the tourney weekend. I played all the way through, but was maybe 70% in our last game. That was five weeks ago, been resting since.

    The pain has now subsided significantly. Normal activity is fine, I feel a slight twinge on stairs sometimes, and when I have to run (to catch the train, etc.) it will sometimes hurt a bit. But not debilitating.

    I’m determined to heal it properly this time. Would much rather miss a few summer tourneys than risk further damage and chronic pain.

    I’ll give the Samson stretch and the other similar one a try — pictures would be great.

    Yeah, the “reprogramming” concept makes sense. Think I’ll give it at least another week or two before starting squats/lunges, but I will definitely add that to the regiment before attempting a comeback. I do have pretty skinny and relatively weak legs, and have tended to focus on upper body lifting in the past — it’s time I gave my legs more attention.

    Nope, never heard of foam rolling — any resources you have on that would be appreciated.  I’m open to trying anything, as long as it’s not too much too early.

    Many thanks for the help.

    What about your knee history? Did you get a doc or specialist to diagnose, or did you figure it out yourself? How long did it take to recover? How does it feel now?

    I‘ll send you more info, etc when I’m at home and on my computer with its links.

    As for my knee, I had troubles that dated back to my sophomore year of high school–as a long/triple jumper I wound up doing a number on them, in terms of high-impact stuff and the like…this resulted in what I’m pretty sure was a strain of my achilles, and compensating for that left me with knee issues–dull, aching pain, generally, usually cropping up after workouts but slowly cropping up during runs too–during the cross-country season fall of my junior year (which would be fall of…’03?). Coach figured it was chondromalacia patella, I got a cho-pat strap (it’s the band that goes under your knee, maybe you’re familiar with it?) and persevered. I didn’t have troubles with it swimming that winter, but then when track season rolled around again it gave me a lot of trouble with my jumping on and off. As I recall I had a solid season, didn’t need to use the strap all that much, but had the occasional week or two where I needed it.

    Enter college (I graduated from high school a year early). Freshman year it again bugged me on and off–generally speaking, when I was careless and didn’t warm down properly, etc it would catch up to me. Playing troubles were on and off–I got in the habit of playing with the knee strap, though sometimes it didn’t seem to make much of a difference, but almost every post-tournament/practice ride that involved my knee being still for more than 20 minutes or so would result in a dull ache. I had the occasional bout of tendinitis too, with swelling underneath the kneecap…this all continued through my sophomore year as well, though by this time I had started reading up on it and trying to train to prevent it, and, as I recall, got it under control enough that by Regionals time that year I felt great and could play at 100%, no reservations (and had one of my best/most memorable games there).

    Junior year I made some real progress. Or rather, sophomore summer I made a lot of progress–I was on-campus for classes, like most of my classmates (a unique perk of the Dartmouth calendar leaves sophomores more or less in charge of the campus during the summer), but had a lax schedule and a lot of motivation, so I was hitting the gym routinely. Crossfit entered the picture, and combined with a LOT of fitness reading before and during (and after) the summer, and some good nutrition, I made some really great athletic prowess. I discovered deadlifting, started getting into squatting properly, and incorporated things like the samson stretch into my routine, as well as some other stuff specifically for my knee (and ankles, both of which I’d rolled that year, I think), including the other stretch I recommended to you and the shoulder bridges.

    Junior year (’06-’07) I had a lot less trouble with the knee–I think there were a couple brief instances where I got lazy with stretching and the like and it bugged me, but I was really proactive about icing and resting at those points. I took ibu at every tourney I played in, a habit I still maintain (though I usually don’t when training anymore, as my workouts aren’t so long as to have inflammation crop up and be an issue). As I recall (and I may be mis-recalling) my real litmus test was playing in Vegas that winter, and after three days of ultimate it was doing pretty darn well as I recall (I started wearing the strap on the third day as I was starting to feel something, but it never got so bad as to make me consider not playing)…it wasn’t 100% but it generally gave me a lot less grief. The strap was still a mainstay, though more as a precaution at that point.

    Senior year (’07-’08) I don’t think I ever had any trouble with my knee. Nothing leaps to mind, at least–I played a lot, and played well, and without injury. Really just a spectacular year.

    So I’d say a few months of dedicated, hard work got me to the point where I was playing competitively without too much worry about relapse, and another year on top of that put me in the clear. Lately though I’ve been really lazy with my fitness, and I’m starting to see some of the old symptoms crop back up–it’s mostly a flexibility issue for me, with my quads being too tight, though I think my hamstrings are also too weak/tight now too. Planning to keep foam rolling / stretching and bring back some lifting to help with all that–really need to get my ass back in gear, both for playing these last months here and hopefully for latching on with a halfway decent club team when I get back to the states in August.

    And my follow-up, later:

    Sorry for the delay getting back to you.

    You might give this blog a look for information on foam rolling. There’s a crapton of information there (and linked from it–the links can give you some good in-depth stuff): The short is to get a foam roller and start using it on your quads, hips, and hamstrings and calves, focusing on kneading out knotted-up issues and, if you’re up to the task, applying extended pressure to the tight spots until the muscles loosen up a bit.

    Regular foam rolling will do wonders for your muscle health and flexibility.

    For pictures of the Samson stretch, a quick google image search gives you a good idea there (keep in mind you don’t need to go out THAT far, especially when you’re just starting), but a better idea can be had in this PDF. I <3 Crossfit. The other stretch I mentioned to you is a little more intense; it basically involves using SOMETHING to put your foot up on–whether that’s a bench, or back against a wall, etc–to force your leg into flexion: this emphasizes a different part of your quadriceps when you stretch, and it’s one that tends to be chronically tight in most (it was and, now again, is in me). You might find this helpful for assessing the state of your hips–everything is connected. If you’re going to take the stress off the knees, it needs to be taken in somewhere else–the hips are that place.

    Lastly, you might be especially interested in this bit on bulletproof knees.

    I think that article might describe the stretch I mentioned above–I’d check it right now, but I’m still at work and the site is full of bodybuilder pics. Can’t start a rumor like THAT.

    There’s plenty to sift through there; feel free to hit me with impressions and I can try and give my experience in some more detail.

    Hope that’s all helpful! There’s a bit on the “mobility” topic in the bulletproof knees article, but I owe you a better resource than that–unfortunately, a lot of what I’ve learned about that has been in-person, or with DVD’s I’ve bought, so your luck is probably as good as mine trying to dig that info up.


    Any readers have good recommendations for resources on mobility work? I know there are bits and pieces scattered about the internets, but anybody know some nice compiled (free) resources? I’m talking mobility drills and the like, not foam rolling.

    Related posts:

    1. Treating Chronic Knee Issues: An E-Mail Case Study (Part 1)
    2. Post #150! 7/19-20: Ow My Knee, or: "Hey. Just so you know. We’re really good at ultimate."
    3. Spring Training

    ]]>     http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-2.html/feed 4     Treating Chronic Knee Issues: An E-Mail Case Study (Part 1) http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-1.html http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-1.html#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 04:00:00 +0000 Mackey http://www.ultimatethoughts.com/2009/05/treating-chronic-knee-issues-an-e-mail-case-study-part-1.html I thought I’d post up the e-mail transcript of an exchange between myself and a reader–as a former JET, we got talking about ultimate and life in Japan, and eventually about his knee troubles, a topic I’ve a done a lot of reading, experimenting, and self-diagnosis/treatment in. (UPDATE: Part 2, with links to some resources, is here).

    Hopefully it proves useful/instructive for those of you out there with knee pain or similar trouble. Without further ado:

    …It all started on a long jog back in December. Next day there was a little discomfort above the right kneecap. Tried to play through it at a hat tourney in Vietnam–bad idea. Rested for two months, pain/discomfort basically went away just in time for DC in March. Whew.

    But the pain returned a month ago at a tourney in Jeju (Korea). Same process: niggle at first, then progressively gets worse. I’ve rested since, and it’s better, but this time the pain is more diffuse: sometimes above the kneecap, sometimes medial, sometimes… everywhere.

    X-ray and MRI say no structural damage; two docs say just rest. One mumbled something about jumper’s knee, but I doubt it because the pain is mildest below the kneecap. Symptoms are soreness in the morning, and dull to acute pain when standing from a sitting position, or sometimes going up/down stairs. I also experienced sudden bouts of severe pain when sitting for long periods on a recent flight to Atlanta. Strange, and scary.

    I can accept resting for as long as it takes to heal properly. But I’m 31, and can’t help but worry that this is serious and might not just go away. I’m looking for a knee specialist around Tokyo, but no luck so far. Not really knowing is the worse part, know what I mean?

    That bites. Ultimate’s a terrible sport for that sort of thing too, with all the high impact combined with the weekend-long duration…I assume you already use it, but ibuprofen is mandatory when you play–from the sound of it, if you don’t have any structural damage you’re likely feeling the pain from inflammation and swelling. The aching when you fly has to do with the pressure differences, as well as just the lack of movement from the tight confines; I’ve gotten that sometimes too, with ankles (rolled both at one point or another) and the knee (a few years ago when it was still an issue)…though not the “sharp pain” you describe. Weird indeed. They’ve definitively ruled out meniscal tears?

    It certainly sounds like there’s some tendinitis/tendonosis, even if it’s not jumper’s knee. How are you flexibility/strength wise? I always had knee issues when my legs were so tight that it affected my footstrike and kept my hips from taking the brunt of the impact. I’d wager you’ve got tight hips and (perhaps) quads, tight/weak hamstrings, and perhaps tight calves too (the latter is more of a personal thing for me rather than what I’ve read/seen, but it might apply to you). Especially if you’re sitting all day and don’t do a lot of training with mobility in mind (ie, if you run lots but don’t do much in the way of squatting or lunging or the like).

    Are you familiar with the Samson stretch? (I can probably get you a .pdf with more details if you want). Great for loosening up the hips/quads, good for daily stretching and highly recommended for pre- and post-workout/play. If you don’t do squats or lunges or the like I’d definitely recommend getting into them–I can get you LOTS more information to that end. Docs in the states might tell you to avoid squatting but with the right technique (going to the right depth, and engaging the right muscles), it’s far more protective than destructive.

    Here’s the rehab menu from the last doc:

    1. Sit with legs dangling, massage quad vigorously (like meading).

    2. Sit with legs stretched out in front and knee slightly bent, massage calf.

    3. Sit with legs stretched out in front and small pillow directly under knee, engage quad by pushing down on pillow. Hold quad, especially inner quad muscles tight for 3 secs, slowly release.

    4. Sit with legs stretched out in front and gently massage kneecap forward (towards toes). He says my kneecap is likely being pulled up (towards head) by tight quad and calf muscles, and this off-centering is causing irritation.

    5. A new exercise is lying down face-up and with knees bent, and lifting butt off the ground until the body is straight (knees still bent). Focusing on core, butt and hamstring muscles.

    I’ve been following this regimen pretty consistently over the last month, and there is improvement. But something is def still off. The last few days, for example, I’ve been feeling pain in the inner knee area. But other times its medial, or above. Strange, and frustrating.

    Not sure if I’m ready for the Samson stretch — seems like a fairly intense exercise, want to make sure I don’t aggravate the knee. But will give it a try. Any other advice for low-impact strengthening exercises for the quads and hammies?

    How bad is the pain?  Is it debilitating?

    I’d imagine you could step up the vigor a bit if this stuff isn’t pushing you too hard. For instance, on that last one you do (I know them as “shoulder bridges”), you could try doing them on a single leg with the other extended straight–I’d also recommend keeping your hands on your butt cheeks while you do it, and really focus on contracting those muscles (the extra tactile sense from the touch can help you body figure out what muscles to activate). 

    Based on the other stuff, it sounds like you’ve probably got chronic tightness and weakness in the quads…the Samson stretch might sound intense, but you can definitely ease into it and I think it’d do you a lot of good. A similar stretch that’d probably hit the areas you need to stretch really well is pretty similar–the same lunge position, but you put the foot of your back leg up on a bench or other raised surface such that the back leg is bent–this will focus the stretch on a deeper part of the quad, that I think tends to contribute a bit more to the knee pain.  I can dig up pictures or the like if you need a better explanation than that.

    In terms of strengthening, my knee troubles coincided with an inner quad strength/mobility deficit–specifically, my right Vastus Medialis (VMO–the “teardrop” shape) was a lot smaller and activated (contracted) a lot less easily than my left, and I had right knee troubles.  Again, doing some stuff single-leg can likely help with this (holding the top position on single-leg shoulder bridges, for instance).  If you’re able to find a trainer and able to bear some weight/range of motion, getting somebody knowledgeable to coach you in doing lunges or Bulgarian squats or other single-leg types of exercises can help a lot.

    The one issue I’d raise with all the rehab stuff you’re doing–all of which makes sense and is reasonable to prescribe–is that, while it addresses the muscular deficits (strength and flexibility), it’s not doing much to reinforce good movement habits–in other words, it might fix the symptom, but your body is at this point probably so used to, for instance, running whilst compensating for the deficiencies that without some kind of re-programming you’re probably going to continually struggle.

    That’s why I think it’d be a good idea to incorporate good lunges and perhaps some squatting or even deadlifting into the mix eventually.  Doing those exercises with decent form and the right sort of flexibility/strength will help reinforce good habits, and if, for instance, you do mobility drills (again, something I can send you more info on) as part of your warm-ups, it’ll help continue to reinforce good habits.

    One last thing–are you familiar with foam rolling at all?  This email is long enough, but it’d probably go a LONG way towards helping you improve your mobility if you haven’t been doing it yet.

    Yeah.  So, let me know if you want me to dig up some resources for that stuff.  I’m not surprised if your rehab specialists haven’t been aware of this sort of stuff, as thinking in terms of mobility, foam rolling, and the like is still more…hm, cutting-edge, and has only recently started getting enough data and support that it’s becoming popular, accepted, and therefore, taught to aspiring therapy professionals.

    More to come in a later post, including some resource references.  Anyone out there have advice or insight to offer that I’m missing?  Especially if you think I’m talking out of my ass at any point I’d love to be corrected–I’m basing this largely off my own history, along with some advising of teammates, so I’m hardly a professional.

    Related posts:

    1. Treating Chronic Knee Issues: An E-Mail Case Study (Part 2)
    2. Mobility And Injury Prevention
    3. The Importance of Progression

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