Thoughts.

I’m not talking the standard step-forward, push back up type, I’m talking stepping at angles and especially stepping sideways. You’ll see a noticeable improvement in your pivoting speed, which will in turn allow you to develop more effective fakes and generally become more capable with the disc in your hands.

Frank (of RSD fame) talks about people being off-balance with their throwing positions because they step out too wide; if you can develop enough strength, these positions are far from off-balance (though you can still over-extend in the context of a given situation/against a given mark). Work to extend your absolute pivot range through better flexibility and strength (lunging can help with both–heavier weight obviously means more of a strength emphasis, but you can work on your mobility with adequate work in these positions too), and practice your pivots and fakes to extend your practical pivot range.

As for specific recommendations, simple standing side-to-side lunges, or 45 degree lunges (stepping across your center or away from it), are what I have in mind here.

Weight/rep ranges really don’t need to be that intense–pivoting is plyometric in nature, so relatively light loading (if you’re in 12-20 rep range you’ll probably still see an effect) should still be enough to stimulate a positive adaptation, especially if you’ve never trained it before. You probably don’t need to get much heavier than 8 or 6 reps, especially if it’s light enough that you can really explode up out of each lunge.

Other lunge variations include standing lunges (stepping both forwards and backwards), walking lunges, and (a personal favorite) bulgarian squats. These, however, are all in the sagittal plane, and won’t carry over to action in the frontal plane (pivoting).

The lunge position itself is pretty important to throwing well and consistently–more on that in a later post, but regardless you can only stand to improve as a player if you improve in your lunging.

UPDATE: Some good addendums with other exercise can be had in the comments–definitely worth a look.

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).

Been spending some time on the ultitalk.com forums lately (searching for something outside of the RSD monotony), and wrote this in response to a question about training. You might be interested to download the file, if your team is lacking a lifting program or you’re an individual looking for something to work from.

Caution: one size does not fit all. Train smart.

Without further ado:

Genie,

You might be interested in a general lifting program Dartmouth Ultimate followed a few years back–it’s a general strength program, designed not to be too technical (good for a college ultimate team when some people have no lifting experience), and incorporating some plyos and single-leg work to help prep for ultimate play.

The program is designed to be done in six weeks scaling up the weight as you scale down the reps, with three days a week (likely MWF, though TThS would probably work too) and about an hour-hour and a half to commit to working out, depending on how quickly you work. It also tapers down so that you should be at a relative peak by the end of the program (you can cycle back to the start if you want to).

For the record, we always spread the program over 9 weeks (with practice it was too much to lift three days a week), which fit our pre-season winter training leading up to spring break very nicely. The first year we started this program the A team had no significant injuries in the spring season (which was a big difference from prior years, but sample size skepticism should apply here).

My own impression, having followed the program for at least two seasons and maybe another off-season as well; it’s a solid all-around program that will help get you in game shape. It’s not going to make you into a stud by itself, and it’s not going to kill you either (unless you try to do so to yourself very hard).

I’ve uploaded the .xls (excel) file here for download.

Some descriptions are on the second page (book) of the file. [edit: the current download link is an older version without descriptions added - however, the internet is a great source of descriptions and video!]

I’d recommend throwing in some sprinting/conditioning work to go with as others have suggested here (I would recommend against straight “cardio” in favor of good old-fashioned intense interval work in the range of 100-200m, perhaps starting with 400s if you have the willpower and really feel like your endurance is lacking). I don’t buy not being able to do a lot for endurance in 6 weeks–people have gotten “in shape” in less time with enough hard work. (Which is, incidentally, the Most Important Thing with training. Do you want it enough?)

Incidentally, I subscribe to the theory that it’s less “endurance” and more “recovery” that gives you staying power in ultimate–there’s all sorts of breaks on-field, between stoppages from calls to your man just chilling in the stack, and you get to rest between points too–train to go hard when you’re on, and recover quickly when you’re not.

Somebody asked a great question looking for more information on deadlift technique similar to the clip I linked in my post on squatting.

Get lifting.

The squat.

This is the simplest (and most complicated) lift you can do. It is the easiest (and hardest) lift you can perform. It is the most beneficial (and most dangerous) lift you can perform.

It is a lift you absolutely need to be doing.

This lift does far more than simply train your legs. It’s not simply a lift you do to get big. This is a movement, and its benefits will carry over to all aspects of your life, if done correctly. It makes you stronger and healthier.

Avoiding the squat invites a host of nagging aches and pains, most notably in the back and knees. The hip strengthening that comes from effective squatting is a panacea to your back and knee woes–when your hips are actually able to carry their load of the work, it saves your knees from taking more force than they have to–and you’ll develop a range of motion and core strength that allows your back to stay in a more natural position, unperturbed by stress and torque from weak/tight muscles.

I’m going to preface the descriptive part of this post with a warning: Don’t be stupid. Don’t trust me as though I’m a certified fitness professional or your doctor (ask me in 10 years when I’ve got my MD and a few trainer certs under my belt). Don’t jump headlong into heavy weight training if you’ve never done it before (or if you haven’t in a long while). The risks of overdoing it far outweigh the benefits, and particularly given the timing of this post–in the fall “off-season” for college and the post-season for club–there should be no major impetus to overdo it to strive for incremental benefit. Just doing the lift properly and consistently will lead to great results without much loading at all.

For information on proper squat technique (in far more depth that I’m going into here), check out T-Nation, and keep an eye out for Dave Tate, Mike Robertson, and Eric Cressey. Crossfit is also hugely keen on the squat (including the overhead squat). They have a wealth of videos that can enhance your understanding.

***This clip*** is THE clip to see if you’re new to squatting, want to teach other people to squat, want to squat, or do squats. It gets at the most basic components of squatting in the quickest way I’ve seen (I wish I had known this last year when I was teaching guys to lift!) Note the stance at the beginning.

Another squat option for the particularly risk-averse is the front squat–note that this will work your hips differently than a back squat, emphasizing the quads more (which astute readers will note in a comment I made last week, is not a muscle group that I believe needs training emphasis in most of the population).

Mark Rippetoe puts bad form more eloquently than I ever could:

The common form problems in the squat upset this balanced lever arm relationship and result in the biomechanical inefficiencies that typify bad form. If the knees cave in toward the middle, the quads are being asked to do the job of the adductors, and, as in our earlier example of the hamstrings in the deadlift, they are strong enough to do it, even though it leaves the adductors untrained and ultimately weakens maximal squat capacity. The femur and the tibia, which normally operate vertically parallel as the knee flexes and extends, deviate inward (toward the midline) at the knee, squishing the lateral meniscus in the knee joint due to the uneven load. The bones move wrong, the muscles move them that way, and the muscles get trained wrong as a result.

Don’t train the muscles wrong. Practice GOOD FORM! Get a spotter to observe you. Use a mirror for cursory checking (but realize that it’s not the end-all be-all, as your view is limited). GET A CAMERA and RECORD YOURSELF lifting. Number one way to see how good or silly you look. Most of you will disregard this advice and just go dick around in the gym (or perhaps worse–not go to the gym at all). At the very least, get somebody to check you out for the first few times you do it until your body gets a good sense of how it works.

Squatting IS a natural movement to some extent, so you can teach yourself–however, most of us lack the range of motion in the hips to truly pull it off. Do the Samson stretch. Practice doing overhead squats with a broomstick or similarly light-weighted item. Make your hips work through a full range of motion (Get Your Butt in Gear). Squat.

You get better at squatting by squatting, but only well-intentioned squatting. When I caution against going too heavy too soon it is for this reason–you need to be able to get a full, comfortable range of motion (and know its limits) before you progress to developing strength through that range of motion. This means, ideally, a fair bit of time devoted to squat technique before you even get under the bar. If you want to get under early, that’s your perogative, but use light weight and still focus on form (if you can’t get your butt down to parallel without arching your back, go as far down as you can without compromising it–and consider box squats). It’s important to progress slowly if you want to avoid injury trouble and weakness-inducing imbalance down the road.

As you get comfortable with your range of motion (and you WILL notice an improvement in your fitness just from this improvement alone without any additional weight), THEN you can start adding resistance (weight) and make yourself into an Athlete.

To be sure, you can get away with just about anything for training in the short term. But long term, you need to plan. Set some goals. This practice will help ensure continued progress (and an idea of what might be stalling your it if you hit a wall).

Female readers should note that this advice applies every bit as much if not more so to you. The lack of strength training in women’s ultimate is rather astounding to me. Getting “huge” is not a consequence of lifting–it’s a consequence of diet and bodybuilding. If you know me, 5’8″, 135lbs on a good day, you’d know that all my training has done very little to jack me up–I’ve maybe seen a net gain of a few pounds at most. It has, however, helped me to lean out, and left me heck of a lot stronger and more athletic than I would have been without stepping inside of a gym.

There is no good reason not to squat. None. Absolutely none at all. Do you have reservations? Email me or leave a comment and I’ll do my best to allay them. Short of being recently (a couple months) off of ACL surgery there’s very little that should keep you from this, the most fundamental of motions.

UPDATE: Deadlifting is the squat’s complement; I’ve written about it here and here.

If you don’t know what a deadlift is, you DEFINITELY need to be doing deadlifts.

If you do know what they are, you should still be doing them. And you can probably be doing them better.

Before you go to the gym, check out this extremely informative crossfit article on deadlift technique. As the title says, it’s a bit, but if you and your training buddy both read this and spot each other, I can almost guarantee you you’ll see good results. Hell, I coached myself without a second set of eyes and saw plenty of benefit.

Train the posterior chain! Anyone can accelerate–but being truly explosive, in starting AND stopping*, will make you unstoppable.

*in my mind, stopping is the most underrated ability in ultimate.

UPDATE: More on deadlifting here.

The following is a list of some of my favorite lifts/exercises. The exercise name will be followed with a “why I like it” and a “how it’s done.”

Bulgarian Squats: The Dart endorses it, too. It’s a 1-legged exercise, similar to a 1-legged squat. The difference is, instead of doing them from standing, you do this lift from a lunge, with your back foot elevated and resting on a bench (I try to have it sticking straight back so I can’t use the back leg to push up). You can do it with barbell or dumbbells. It’s a movement you don’t usually do in the gym in terms of the motion and the muscles worked, and you can go pretty deep into it without too many issues. It’s really good for improving squat form and general explosiveness as it pretty much forces you to push through the heel and extend through the hip. You might also consider looking into various other 1-legged squat derivations, as the unilateral (1-legged, or 1-armed, as opposed to both working together) work is very worthwhile for athletics and injury prevention.

I apologize for the lack of any kind of posts, after I said I would a while back. Hadn’t been feeling the muse much. I DO have things to write about, though, so stay tuned.