Thoughts.

Catching. Such an essential, fundamental component of ultimate, non? Jesus Christ, just think–250 thousand hits. Already! I hit 2,500 last month and thought I was doing well.

I almost always catch in stride on a small hop for “good” passes that hover from chest to head height for me to run onto. This prevents any ground-up turbulence (uneven fields, while not ideal, are not uncommon in this sport) from throwing off my catching motion, and generally allows me to continue at the speed I was already cruising at to make the catch. Sometimes you want to accelerate through the catch, but I have yet to find myself caught and D’d up because I catch this way. Perhaps I just need higher-level competition, though. Small, but significant when you consider the sheer volume of catches you make.

As I alluded to earlier, relative positioning of the disc (to receiver and defender) is a key consideration not just for the thrower, but for the receiver in situations where the defender is close.

This notion should affect a receiver a few ways:

1. When setting up one’s cuts, have a mind for where your defender will be when you finally pick a direction to move in. Some of the most frustratingly effective cuts that have been made on me (and which I in turn started making) are set up very simply by moving until the cutter is between the defender and where the cutter expects to receive the disc. In this way, a quick movement gives the cutter the innate advantage of a well-positioned throw without requiring a ton of effort on the part of the thrower.
2. As soon as the disc goes into the air, a good receiver will not move simply to catch the disc as soon as possible–she will also move, perhaps laterally somewhat in addition to the direction she’s already running in, to position her body behind the the disc’s trajectory. In so doing she will put her body in the way of the disc, making a play more difficult for a defender (picture a football receiver shuffling to catch the ball rather than reaching, allowing them to take a hit while receiving the ball without fumbling).
3. Along with 2, a good receiver will catch the disc such that a defender cannot make a play through his body without fouling him. This means either attacking the disc as soon as possible in front of him, or, if pancaking the disc (this is seen with some frequency at the elite level), will position his arms such that the lower arm is on the side of his body that the defender is likely to bid from–a good layout D comes from a low angle (high, gazelle-style layouts (hi Watson), while impressive looking, contain a lot of wasted motion in the up-down plane and are less likely to get to the disc as quickly), so using your arm as a buffer (catching with your arm under puts your elbow in the way) in addition to your already well-positioned body makes a clean D nearly impossible.

Feel free to comment if you have additional thoughts here. Certainly the case is such that sometimes you need to lay out for the grab, but that falls under “exceptional” rather than “good,” in my opinion.

See the frisbee clearly when you catch it.

Give it a try sometime when you’re tossing. Don’t judge based on initial results–you have to learn to trust your body, and your body has to learn that you’re trusting it, which can take a little while–but let it go for 10, 15 minutes and see if you don’t notice a difference, an extra ease to your motion. And then see if you can’t carry that same ease and relaxation into your in-game performance, too.

This is something I never really thought about until this spring, when I was teaching somebody how to lay out.

Do you have any preference? What’s standard for you, and why? I’ve decided I prefer one handers because it allows for maximal extension and a braced landing (and I fancy myself consistent enough with the one-handed grab that the two hander is unnecessary). And I prefer fingers underneath because it’s an easier transition to sliding on the ground without having the disc stripped, as I use my forearm for impact absorption on the landing (I’ll do a more extensive post on layout technique sometime later). Think about what works and why. And PRACTICE if you’re unhappy with your skillset! Visualization is a nice tool to practice layouts without the extra wear and tear of throwing yourself on the ground repeatedly, if physical practice is too painful. But it’s through repetition that you’ll find the most success in-game.

So, how you grip the disc is important. However, as with just about anything in sports, it is not enough just to know how to do it right. You must possess the requisite athleticism to execute–knowledge alone can only take you so far.

So how do you train your grip to be stronger? I actually don’t do a ton of grip training anymore–I’m at a good baseline level, though I imagine a bit more training would help with my forehand hucking in particular–but when I did do grip training, I considered a few things when I planned my grip workouts:

There are different kinds of grip strength.
Pinch: Between individual fingers and your thumb.
Crush: Between your fingers and your palm (the “standard” grip when you think about grip–think handshake)
Support: Not a gripping motion, but the ability to maintain one’s grip (think holding on to a heavy bag full of groceries by the handle)

It’s my opinion that the first and the last are the most important for ultimate. The former is particularly important for catching (think about it–attacking the disc, you should be using your thumb underneath/on top to go with your other fingers), while the latter comes into play more for throwing and transferring power from your hips to the disc. Crush grip really has little relevance to ultimate, and it is not something you need to emphasize in your training (though you should still include it for completeness’ sake from time to time).

So, how do you train pinch and support grip? By gripping, of course!

The easiest way is simply to find a gripper or a grip machine at your local gym. these lend themselves fairly easily to a variety of gripping motions–really think about using your thumb–when I talk about support grip, it’s essentially support pinch grip. Start with a relatively manageable amount of force/weight, doing sets in the upper end of the rep range (think 20 reps), and work down to doing a few reps with higher weight, for reps and for time held closed. Pinching and then holding (whether you pinch with one, two, three, or four fingers simultaneously with your thumb is your prerogative–I prefer two fingers, with middle and pointer, as I think they are the ones that do the brunt of the catching work) allows you to work both types of grip simultaneously.

Another exercise I’ve done for supporting grip is holding plates. Grab a 5 or 10 lb plate and simply hold it with four fingers flush on top and the thumb on bottom (or vice versa). Hold for time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Other options for grip training:
-Sand/Rice gripping. I’ve never done this myself, but others have.
-Fingertip pushups. I used to do these with regularity. But consider the range of motion in which you’re training your grip by doing these (see below). If you can get to the point where you can do them just on your thumbs or on three fingers (thumb+pointer/middle), you’re on the right track.

More conventional thought says doing things like farmer’s walks and deadlifts are good ways to train grip, and this is true–but it’s not as specific to ultimate (often training primarily crush grip, and in a range of motion unseen in ultimate). I do think, however, that learning to use the hook grip, with your thumb under your fingers, will emphasize strength of the thumb more and will carry over to your grip in ultimate though (to at least some extent).

Another thing to consider is that grip strength is highly specific to the range trained. I can do grip training for climbing, working on gripping at the outermost edges of my hand’s extension (think a hold several inches thick, so there’s a lot of space between your fingers and thumb), but, despite possessing phenomenal strength on the wall, have little to spare when gripping a disc with very little separation between fingers and thumb.

I couldn’t tell you what the exact range for the specificity of the training effect is, but the more you can work your grip in the range you’ll be using in-game (ie, closer together), the more you’ll find the results carry over to throwing and catching in game. That’s not to say you should avoid training grip at the edges of your range–to the contrary, a balanced program necessitates it–but pick your focus wisely.

Finally, grip strength fatigues easily, and recovers slowly. If you’re some kind of superhuman, perhaps you can train grip every day and continue to see improvement. For me, a good grip workout would actually leave me worse off for at least the day following. Some of my best throwing has come after taking a couple days off from throwing and grip training–my hands can recover fully, enabling more confident, sure throws. Keep this in mind when planning your training. Grip training is, primarily, a secondary focus for workouts, so I usually save it for the end of workouts where I won’t have to worry about a fatigued grip affecting my other lifts.

You’ll be surprised what a big difference this can make, though you might not notice the gradual improvement over time.

Frisbee is not natural. Man never evolved to throw a flying piece of plastic, and there’s really no analog to it in nature (throwing a rock or a spear to kill prey is a far cry from the mechanics used for most throws in ultimate). The same goes for catching–there are certain spots on the frisbee that make for easy catches (see Zips Tips for more on that–really, just read all of Zips tips) and some that make for easy macs.

It’s absolutely essential, if you want to play at a high level in this sport, to make frisbees as natural to you as any other implement (perhaps even more so). I spent the couple weeks leading up to Regionals my sophomore year (’06) (and during my summer throwing in Japan in ’05) carrying a frisbee with me everywhere, constantly throwing to myself and catching it. Hone your instincts.

One of the things that I feel like is a great strength for me as a player is the ability to quickly move from catching the disc to throwing it again–and not just a swilly upside-down backhand or a rushed toss, but legitimately stepping out and throwing a backhand or a forehand.

It’s to the point for me now where I catch the disc and can immediately go into stepping to make the next throw–between my catching the disc and my being fully extended the disc goes from ‘caught’ to ‘ready to throw,’ and there’s no time lost in transition (the step is the limiting factor). I actually need to work on right-handed catching more now, as my instinct is to always go with the left and I need to re-learn which situations require right hand just (like layouts for a Callahan against one of the best teams in the country).