Thoughts.

Wound up responding to a blitz about some ultivilliage clips of good skies and figured my response might as well go on the blog, too:

— HumbleTrout wrote:
especially in the shank gets up one, you see he picks out the disc as he’s continuing his cut, then slows down, then accelerates and rises to the disc as opposed to camping under it. seigs can tell you this guy catches a lot of deep looks and this has to be a reason why.
— end of quote —

Speaking as a jumper, this is definitely a large factor in a good sky. While you can occasionally win the position battle by camping, ideally you can get a posiiton that’s actually several feet away from where you intend to catch the disc, then accelerate hard for a couple steps into a plant and jump. Generally speaking, you’ll note the penultimate step is usually shorter and faster than a regular running stride, and usually involves a lowering of the center of gravity; this is followed by a hard push-off from the other leg and a drive up with the knee as the body explodes upward, converting some of the horizontal, running momentum into upward drive. If you think about high jumpers they always take a running approach, as you can get significantly higher from a run with good form than you can from standing.

Of course, simply jumping higher than your man isn’t always a guarantee of a sky if he’s in front of you and the disc is low enough for him to get up to it before you. So it’s a very situational sort of thing, you really have to respond to the situation.

Just a listing, for myself, again…

Better Nutrition. Really want to work more veggies into my diet, lots of good nutrients to be had there. And generally working on getting more natural foods, less simple sugars and more good fats and protein along with complex carbs, as that’s what my body is designed to use.

Hydrate. Really important, generally speaking. Did you know that being well-hydrated on a constant basis increases the water content of ligaments and tendons, making you 3-5% more flexible? That might not sound like a ton, but a little bit can make a big difference. And of course there are all sorts of negative effects associated with dehydration, as well.

Further eliminate nagging injury concerns. Ironic that I set this goal as I just rolled my ankle a bit earlier (nothing too serious). But yeah, my right knee, lower back, and hamstrings have all been potential sources of trouble. I’ve got a pretty good handle on the knee and hamstrings, and I’ve done a bit of reading and found some new things to try for the back as well. If the ankle winds up being an issue I know all sorts of things I can do for it (I’ve done a lot of strengthening for the ankles already, generally speaking).

Further improve core strength. I’ve always had fairly solid core strength, but it can always be better. A rededication to pushup/situp sets in the morning will help here, particularly over winter break. Just doing a total of 50-60 of each with variations on the usual pushups and situps to work more parts of the abdominals and the arms/chest I feel really helped a lot when I was doing my best to not fall out of shape in Japan.

Get better at short-term recovery. This will come with conditioning, to an extent. I want to be able to go all-out in short bursts, and without taking too much time, have recovered for another burst of energy, all without having a too detrimental effect on how I feel. Conversely, doing lots of workouts where I am put beyond that lactate threshold will help me retain a focus on putting all my energy into the next cut or response to my man when I’m in a game. I used to be really solid at this–swimming training is, to an extent, geared towards making the most of the limited recovery time you have between strokes–but I’ve definitely fallen off my fitness in that area a bit. Plan to re-evaluate how I lift and try and shift towards less rest between exercises in an effort to force some improvement.

Get adequate rest. This may or may not prove difficult; it’ll depend on my courseload. Being the sober rager that I am, the party/pong/get wasted factor isn’t as big; it’ll really just be a matter of managing my time well enough during the day that I don’t wind up at 11:00 with little work done and an assignment due the next day so I can get to bed.

Don’t overdo it. Classes should provide ample distraction, but it’s definitely important to keep the working out in check. If our current schedule holds, I’ll already be doing more than enough with conditioning/plyos and lifting (though bio lab might necessitate an extra day’s work if it conflicts), and it’ll be tempting, especially for some of the young, upstart freshmen to do a lot more than is necessary. All it takes is pushing yourself beyond your limits for a little while and ample rest to trigger positive muscle development. Too much work can be detrimental to development.

That’s about it for major goals. Improving upper body strength is a more minor goal, as it’s not as crucial, though it’ll see some work for sure.

I’ve done a fair bit of training in my short lifetime. You know, I really have a hard time remembering the last time I was really out of shape–not the “oh, I’m not up to my standards” out of shape, the “my god, I can’t finish this run/exercise/etc” out of shape. I’ve been a lightweight and a fast one for a good while, and I’ve more or less run with that (pun intended) all my life.

Point is, I’ve learned a fair bit about being athletic. Training for cross-country, swimming, and track–particularly swimming, as our coach was also a biology/anatomy teacher and would often fill us in on exactly how doing sets of 50s at fixed intervals so rest was at most five seconds and at worst nonexistant helped get the most work out of our muscles without building up lactic acid (oh, anaerobic threshold workouts…)–provided me with a lot of experience working and getting stronger as a result of it, with some solid results to show for it.

I’ve also done a lot of reading into the topic of fitness–a few years ago I started studying Bruce Lee’s life and what he did to maintain his high level of fitness, and man, was that man ever in shape. He remains my fitness role model; we’ve similar builds (Lee was 5’7″, 135-140 lbs at his fittest; I’m 5’8″-ish, 135 lbs) and he was the sort of man who started with no particular genetic predisposition towards athleticsm and essentially molded himself into something great though years of rigorous training–and not just the same old sets. He was ahead of his time in terms of his regimen, always researching newer and more effective ways to challenge his body while simultaneously streamlining his workouts, eliminating anything that wasn’t contributing fully towards his goals; the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, which incorporates a lot of ideas from zen, it seems (reading into that further is on my to-do list), guided his training. Really, he embodies everything I want to be from an athletic standpoint.

But I digress. I just wanted to go over some of my opinions about fitness and working out and getting stronger, really so I can get them down somewhere–I’ve not really taken the time to define what fitness really is to me.

Firstly, I’m a huge proponent of ample rest. I learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better not to always do the extra sets, straining my achilles’ tendon my sophomore track season as a result of overdoing it with the jumping workouts (Triple Jump is ridiculously high-impact). It came shortly after a 3-foot PR, as I jumped 41′ flat at a meet, and then the following practice took a few jumps and found that it got progressively harder to keep the same momentum. Had to get taped for the rest of the season, and I think I only came close to breaking 40′ once thereafter (though I did enjoy increases in my long jump and sprinting ability the following season).
With any sport, there’s always a tendency to want to always do more, to get stronger and faster sooner, and it’s this sort of mentality that leads to inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and injury. Simply working at your full capacity for a limited amount of time will lead to ample development when given enough recovery, particularly when it comes to high-impact stuff like plyometrics and weightlifting.

Which leads to the next tenet I have; working all-out is really the only way to go beyond your limits. I don’t adhere to this anywhere as much as I’d like; I more often fall into the trap of doing a fair amount of stuff that’s “safe,” stuff to “stay in shape” and the like, as opposed to training for improvement, to reach a tangible goal (another one of my problems–I’m horrible at setting goals). But just thinking back to so many of the workouts I did in high school where I’d finish one set, and be perfectly content to be finished, only to have another hard run/swim set ahead, and just buckle down and do it all-out, not half-assing to conserve energy for whatever might be next–after workouts like those I really got a great sense of accomplishment, not just in the physical sense but mentally as well. I distinctly remember powering through a particular cross-country race, telling myself “it’s not as bad as swimming workouts” as motivation to keep pushing it.

Of course, to maintain fitness it’s imperative that one does the right workouts and has balance in the workouts. Doing the right workout means making sure that I’m working the muscles I need for whatever I’m training for–generally speaking, my legs (particularly the quads, as a jumper for track and for pushoffs in swimming, and now for sky-ing in ultimate) and core (always important, crucial to good running/swimming form), with some upper-body work being secondary. Having balance means not neglecting the lesser groups–for example, I added a ton of quadriceps strength over a relatively short time my junior year, from a combination of lots of lunges/squats and the like as swimming training and many a plyometric/jump squat set, but more or less completely neglected my hamstrings. As a result, I had great acceleration and good power during track, though deceleration was never a sudden thing, but then doing cross-country I developed knee issues because of my overpowered quads pounding with little counterforce from my hamstrings. I’ve since done a lot to develop the hamstrings and I’ve become much more well-balanced (though knee issues still crop up when I slack off of strengthening the area).

In the vein of the right workouts I’ve all sorts of opinions on what makes for a good workout; in terms of lifting, it generally means lots of compound, free-weight type exercises, with progressive weight increase so you get elements of conditioning and strengthening, very similar to the ultimate routines we have. In terms of running workouts and the like, any workout that incorporates peak effort over short-mid distances and some (though not full) recovery are the way to be. I’m really not a huge fan of the long, slow run anymore, partly because I’m lazy, partly because I’ve read in many a source that the benefit is minimal compared to shorter, more intese work, and partly because I feel like there are simply better routes to improvement. I do enjoy the occasional run of a few miles for the theraputic effect it can have, and I suppose it does help to build aerobic fitness, but quite honestly, my chosen sport (and generally speaking, being athletic in general) is less about aerobic fitness–being able to work effectively over long periods at sub-maximal effort–than it is about being able to exert oneself fully over short periods and recover from it quickly/still be able to maintain a high level of athleticism despite the lactic acid buildup. Again, this agrees pretty well with the type of workouts we’ve been doing as a team–generally speaking, I’ve really no complaints with our fitness program.

Variety is also important. With anything, repeating the same old thing can get boring. Mixing it up helps to keep fitness engaging, and at least in terms of lifting it ensures you work out as much of your body as possible in as many ways as possible–different exercises, though they might target the same muscle groups, nonetheless exert different forces, working out the same muscles in different ways and making them still stronger.

Finally, mentality is important. Being able to focus on the workout at hand, wanting to go workout, commiting to doing the workout despite the difficulty–it’s not always easy to do these things. Distractions are many. Finding the motivation, having the desire to improve, to become better, to reach one’s potential, is perhaps most important of all. Lee was never content with his fitness–he was always working to improve it, never was satisfied with what was working and what he had, and that is why he was able to become so great. Not getting trapped in the idea of a finish, of an end to improvement, is essential to becoming the best you can be. I’m eventually going to make a post about some of the general philosophies I have–this sort of stuff.

On the lines of improvement, I took home the bacon with the “Most Improved Player” award at the fall banquet. Definitely unexpected, though I guess it’s not surprising. I was expecting something more along the lines of “most capable of procrastinating via the blogosphere,” but when one of your captains is trying to be the next Jim Parinella of blogging, it becomes more of a positive than a novelty when it comes time to make up awards. Who knew?

Let’s do an unordered list (so many neat toys in the WYSIWYG editor) of my main thoughts for later’s sake:

• Make sure to get ample recovery
• When you do work out, work all-out
• Do the right workouts, and keep it balanced.
• Make sure to mix it up every now and then
• Keep a progressive, upbeat, restless mentality. Never be content.

Lifted a bit today–good stuff, got a lot of upper body work done, and my favorite, the wrist curls, as well.

After that, though, was yoga. SO good.

I don’t care who you are, you can benefit from yoga. As our instructor pointed out today, when you think you need to stretch a tight muscle, the reality may simply be that it’s too weak and feels sore all the time as a result. Improvement comes as a result of strengthening AND stretching, words for the wise indeed.

And Yoga’s definitely one of the fastest ways toward both. Particularly in terms of flexibility, I was feeling the stretch in areas I didn’t realize existed, and got some great stuff to do for the ever-important quads and sublimely-important hip flexors.

Incidentally, I read in a strength/improve your vertical! blog the other day that the hip flexors are one of the primary factors in speed running and power in jumping, and also one of the easiest areas to make sure is functional–a good warm-up and some static stretching can go a long way towards reducing the friction cold hip flexors generate, slowing you down.

And that’s it for tonight’s rant.