Thoughts.

(Part 1 | Part 2)

Supplemental work, in my mind, refers to work or mini-workouts that you do in addition to your normal routine(s).

This can refer to grip training, for instance–not enough to be called a “workout” in its own right, really, but it goes great as a finisher after a lifting session. Other things you might consider supplemental work:

• Forearm work. Slightly different from grip, but also very important for putting good snap on your throws. Think forearm curls, with the palm facing towards or away from you. Think wrist rolls, and bar twists (with extra leverage as you improve–hold the bar further and further off-center). A good ultimate player, more often than not, has well-developed forearms, or at least one on his throwing arm.
• Core work (but see here for a discussion of what core training really is, and give some thought to the work you’re doing)
• Single-leg work (this can make its own workout as well, but things like stability ball squats, while good for balance/proprioception/etc, generally tend to be followed with heavier/more intense work)
• Working on your weaknesses, for instance your posture–lot of fun reading to be had there, if you’re interested…otherwise, short version–you probably need to do more external rotation work for your shoulders and develop range of motion in your hips and thoracic spine so you can stabilize your lumbar (core) more. The latter range of motion comes from practicing proper squat form (I opt for olympic style squats more often than not–the extra range of motion and getting more strength from less weight both mean fewer injuries in the long term). If you’ve been benching for years and years and your back is lacking as a result, you might consider doing pull-ups or rows to try and deal with it as supplemental work (ie, a little every day) rather than as a part of your regular workout.
• Practicing lifting technique. Seriously. If you haven’t squatted or deadlifted before, practicing the form should precede any lift, and you should start light–and even after you’ve gotten a good hand on either/both, a bit of extra work on the range of motion will only help. Similarly, if you’re looking to get into olympic lifting (check snatches and the clean & press on the crossfit exercises page), practicing the form before you get into working out proper will go a long ways towards keeping you healthy.
• This also refers to recovery work…foam rolling, yoga, whatever suits your fancy. I call it “supplemental” but really it’s pretty essential stuff to do if you’re at all serious about your performance and health. Stretch before bed.

As for overtraining…this ties in to doing recovery work. Keep in mind that “overtraining” has become something of a buzzword to be avoided in fitness these days, but that overtraining (or, rather, over-reaching) can and should be part of any good exercise plan–you have to push your body beyond what it’s used to if you want to see good results. The trick is not to over-reach for too long–that’s when the physical symptoms appear, your testosterone level drops, and you start to see symptoms like mild depression, a loss of motivation, and a decrease in training returns, all of which can take weeks or months to adequately recover from. Again, the occasional period of under-reaching–intentionally doing less than you are capable of to give your body room to recover and grow–will go a long way toward ensuring you aren’t taken down for the count by overtraining. PLAN on under-reaching and recovering. And be willing to be flexible if your body tells you to back off sooner.

Again, when I talk about over-training I really mean over-reaching, a temporary plateau. If you’re curious about physiological overtraining, which is a treatable medical condition (requiring more than just rest and recovery, though that is also a big part of it), the NYT has a nice article on it you might find interesting.

Finally, applying training more specifically to ultimate. When you condition, seek to incorporate more game-specific work–you’ve surely done drills that involve lots of running along with catching and throwing. That’s the sort of thing I mean.

Outside of conditioning, or outside of using a disc, you can incorporate visualization–seeing game situations; for instance, when you do speed work envision running down on the pull or chasing a huck; when you do plyos, see yourself covering a defender and having to keep quick feet to respond to her, or leaping to sky for the disc. When you do track workouts, consider starting your reps with a quick one-two in the direction opposite your sprint, to emulate the stop-and-go of actual cutting. Practice accelerating from the dynamic positions you will be in in-game rather than the same old starting stance you take every time on the track.

In the gym lifting, you can gear your training more towards ultimate–this flows as a consequence of your goal setting. If your goals include catching or throwing, it would probably behoove you to work some grip work in to your training (stability for your head while running will also help with catching, as I recently posted about).

If you’re a baseball fan, watch the outfielders closely next time you catch a game. If you’re not a baseball fan, watch a game and pay attention to the outfielders anyways.

EDIT: CP brings up an excellent point–this applies not only to catching, but to throwing too. Check the comments.

Jim Parinella lays it out in simple terms that belie his wisdom (emphasis mine):

Think about the opportunities that are created (and taken away) by your opponent’s attention on an ultimate field (if you’re really thinking, you could extend this to disrupting a team’s sideline help, too–but don’t be a douche), and strive to use that as much as you would use their acceleration or your patented drop-step shoulder juke.

More often than not, I find myself completely agreeing with what she says, and there are some great gems in her bit on subbing:

Divide your handlers up into groups of those who generate offense with their throws (big breaks and/or big hucks) and those who generate offense with their legs (effectively get the disc up-the-line and are always open for resets). You’ll want some players from each category on every line.

Divide your downfielders into groups of those who can get open with jukes off of a stopped-disc and those who are great at getting open in flow with timing and filling spaces. Again, you’ll want some players from each category on every line.

The whole issue on subbing is a great opportunity to apply a new lens to yourself as a player: how would somebody in charge of subbing view your abilities? Gwen’s bit here touches on it the most explicitly, I think…what kind of player are you? Do you create offense or augment offense? Are you a big playmaker or a solid contributor? How versatile are you, offensively, defensively? What are some flaws that might lead to you getting less play time (e.g., lack of height/athleticism/conditioning, inconsistent throws in the wind, an inclination towards high-risk shots, etc)?

What kind of player do you want to be? If you’re a coach or a mentor for other players, what kind of player do you see them becoming/what kind of player would make them the most useful? The notion of subbing also harkens to making cuts and forming your team’s identity and strategy in the first place. Lot of good stuff to consider for anybody who fancies themself a team leader/decision maker.

A few things that are important for throwing the hammer:

Grip. If you can hold a frisbee to throw a forehand as I’ve described previously, you’re probably in good shape. As I touch upon briefly in the video, it’s not so much the grip that matters as the fact that the grip allows you to hold the frisbee in line (parallel) with your forearm. If you can hold the disc, however you can manage, parallel with the forearm, you’ll be able to learn and maintain a consistent hammer.

Grip is also essential for throwing in the wind or throwing for distance. You have to be able to hold the disc firm in windy conditions, lest it be blown off-track before it even leaves your hand, and you also need to grip the disc tightly enough to transfer power to your throw.

Arm angle (tilt). This will change depending on the situation. How much you adjust this angle will affect the flight path of the throw–do you want a low, fast trajectory? A double-helix that floats? Something closer to a blade? Develop this sense with trial and error. This also affects how the disc flies in wind. Throwing upwind, you want to stay over a hammer like you would any other throw–this means a slight alteration in the tilt and follow-through of your throw so it flies lower (see arm action below). In a downwind, you want to throw with a bit more touch so the wind doesn’t turn your hammer into a sinking rock. Crosswinds are perhaps the most difficult to gauge–depending on the intensity and direction of the wind, you will need to tilt the disc so it comes out more like a blade (if the wind is blowing from your left for a righty) or with more of a flatter profile (if the wind is blowing from your right). As a general rule (this applies with “normal” throws, too), try not to expose the underside of the disc to the wind. If anybody has more insight to offer to this end, feel free. I find I have to calibrate my hammers for the wind more often than not instead of knowing right off the bat, but it doesn’t take more than a handful of warm-up throws to get to that point.

Related note about the wind–wind is not a nonstarter for over-the-tops or hammers; GUSTY wind is. The change is what makes the throw unpredictable–if the wind is consistent, you can make a consistent adjustment and maintain effectiveness.

Body angle (tilt). I’ve found a slight lean (to the left for righties) aids in-wind adjustment of the disc’s flight path. This follows pretty naturally from the footwork of the push-off described below.

Arm action (trajectory). This ties in to the above. How you project the frisbee–in my mental lingo, I cue myself to “project” rather than throw the disc–makes a big difference. Again, how do you want the disc to fly and arrive at its target? You can project the disc with a higher trajectory so that it takes longer to arrive at its target or a lower trajectory to try and speed it along. This is critical to throwing a hammer successfully in a game (particularly outside of zone situations with stationary targets). You have to learn to appreciate not only the spatial aspect of the throw–throwing to your target–but also the temporal aspect–throwing to your target in such time that it can be caught. I feel like, with hammers more than any other throw (ok, I’m really just talking about forehand and backhand) in ultimate, you need both to be successful. This is why defenses will concede the hammer more readily than the rest–the skill and sense to consistently place these throws is hard to find, and the margin for error creates easy turnovers/turnover opportunities.

I emphasize placing the hammer and projecting the disc here, because hammers are all about touch, in my opinion. This is not a throw that can simply be “gripped and ripped.” You might get the disc to fly somewhere close to where you intended by doing so, but you have to be able to control for the temporal aspect–putting the hammer in such a way that it is catchable by your receiver, ideally in uncontested fashion. A quick-moving hammer is one of the hardest catches to make for a moving receiver unless it’s placed perfectly (hi, Misha!).

Release point. I snap my wrist and release somewhere above my head/right shoulder. How soon or late you release determines in part how much (or how little) touch the hammer will have, so keep that in mind when you project this throw.

Footwork and Shoulder Use. I’ve seen/heard a few different schools of thought on footwork. I’m of the opinion that you should be able to throw a hammer from a standing, balanced position, and also capable of throwing it out of a forehand pivot. For me, my footwork requires pushing off with my right foot a little (really, it’s more of a shift of weight to the left), usually ending on my toes or with my foot slightly off the ground. I find, however, that the importance of footwork tends to pale in comparison to the importance of loading the scapula. A hammer more closely approximates a football or baseball throwing motion than a forehand or backhand, so the shoulder loading really enables one to put a lot more power behind the throw. When you generate power from the shoulder, rather than the arm, it allows you greater control over how the disc is projected–it allows you to put touch on a powerful throw.

Me, circa summer 2007.  Albany Summer League.  I must’ve thrown at least 3 or 4 goals (or should-have-been goals that were flubbed) off the hammer this game.  I also threw a greatest for a goal this game to force universe point, which we then won.  That was a fun day.

Wrist snap. Remember that the wrist snap is what puts rotational force on the disc–it does not project the disc forward. That’s what your body and shoulder are for. Impart a velocity to the frisbee with your body and shoulder, and then snap your wrist when you’re ready to release and not sooner. It’s a nice, compact motion (as it is for all throws, but it’s harder to get away without doing for a hammer).

Troubleshooting:
If you find your throws wavering or wobbling (in the wind), examine your wrist snap, but also examine your grip to make sure you’re holding the disc in proper, parallel alignment with your forearm.

If you find your throws double-helixing when you don’t intend them to, or doing just the opposite–too bladey, mind the wind first, and mind how much you’re tilting the disc second.

This thing called “field sense” is, at it’s most basic level, an awareness of space–of open space on the field, motion into and out of space, and what I’ll call “closed” space where there’s congestion or for whatever reason the space is not directly relevant to the motion of the disc.

Play. Please don’t just play ultimate, either! Boot is a wonderful small-group game. I’ve heard hotbox, goalty, and mini are also very popular, and all encourage the sort of fast-paced free-flowing decision making that you don’t get nearly the same exposure to over the course of an ultimate game. Experiment. Develop a feel for what works and what doesn’t and what you might want to look for. Know what you want, and then find it.

Run. Accelerate. Sprint.

Catch.

Stop. Assess. SEE.

Throw.

Run. Accelerate. Sprint.

Lather, rinse, repeat. In order to be successful at this sport you have to hone two divergent skill sets–you have to learn how to play two different games.

There’s the running game–you exert yourself, often in coordination with those around you, frequently at high or full effort.

And then there’s the throwing game. You calm yourself, and the efforts of your teammates only matter in the context that you devote your attention to them and choose to give them the frisbee. You execute, not a brute force, explosive movement, but a well-refined, controlled one.

Running takes effort, but it’s the effort of willing your muscles to do more. You will them to apply more force so you can run faster and jump higher.

Throwing takes effort, too, but it’s the effort of focus. You will many muscles to do less–to get out of the way–so that the main players can do their job and deliver the disc.

Both of these are automatic processes to a point.

Running amps up with exertion.

Throwing with exertion leads to stiffness and bladey, ill-placed throws.

Both benefit from a performance-oriented state of mind. Focus. However, the foci are different.

Running, you focus on the situation, you recognize opportunities on O and D, but more than anything else you push your button to kick your body into overdrive when it counts.

Throwing, you focus on the situation, you recognize opportunities on O, but more than anything else you let go of your body, allowing it to perform what you ask, when it counts.

Both have their limits.

Running, the limit is your body and its energy reserves. When those run out, you can keep hammering away at that button, but your body won’t respond.

Throwing, there is a theoretical limit from your body, but above that threshold the limit is your mind. When you lose focus (and the necessary level of focus may increase with fatigue), you lose execution. Form gets sloppy, or you tighten up, and throws become a hope rather than a certainty.

Practice.

Train your body so the energy reserves run out more slowly and regenerate more quickly.

Train your mind so you can maintain focus even as you fatigue. Train your mind as you train your body to throw, learn to let go. Learn to trust your body. Learn when and how to guide it.

This is how you find success in the biathlon. Lose sight of neither your focus nor your drive.

The Huddle’s Andrew Fleming has a great analogy for this, in his article on being the deep defender when you hear the “Up!” Call:

Have you ever sat a stoplight and watched the light for the other direction turn from green to yellow to red? When your light finally turns green, it’s just a confirmation of what you already knew was about to happen. How much quicker are you off that line if you’re peeking at the other light versus waiting for yours to change? That’s the difference between reacting and anticipating on D. When I hear that “up” call, I want to already know what throw is coming and already be poised to jump on it.

He very succinctly summarizes the components of good, anticipatory D.

Anticipation means not only knowing the current situation and recognizing which throws are most likely, but also learning how to read people and recognizing opportunities to make the play.

General things you should be aware of as an anticipatory defender, as much as possible (in rough order of importance–feel free to dispute my rankings or add others in the comments)

1. The position of the disc on the field relative to you and your man
2. How long the disc has been in that position–is it in motion for a potential unmarked huck/throw? Is it stall 7 or 8, so you should really be heads-up for a swilly bail-out throw?
3. The capabilities of the thrower. Is it the stud thrower, who can not only jack it, but break the mark to do so? Is it somebody who’s only going to throw to under cuts?
4. The force (the person on the mark). Which side of the field should passes be going to? How likely is it that the mark will hold and not get broken?
5. The conditions. Is it rainy? Are you going upwind and can dictate out with more confidence? Is there a crosswind that would cause a throw to your expected side of the field to float or sink more than usual?
6. Your man’s preferences. Are they a relentless deep threat? Do they prefer to stick around the disc? Keep in mind they may still take what you give them, even if it’s not what they prefer.
7. What, if anything, has the other team as a whole been beating you with? If they’re exploiting the around break, be prepared to pounce on a somewhat floaty around throw (and adjust when you’re on the mark as well). If they love to jack it, start backing your man or otherwise make sure you’re always in a position to strike on the huck.

All of these bits of information, summed together, should allow you to make a few adjustments:

1. What cut you choose to defend primarily–what’s the biggest (and most viable) threat at this moment?
2. What cuts you choose to respect–if it’s really windy and the player with the disc does not look confident in her upwind forehand, you can give a cushion of at least a few steps when your woman goes deep (but beware the dump/swing to a more confident thrower in motion).
3. Where you expect the throw to go to. This is particularly important at high stalls, when a less-than-perfect throw might come suddenly and surprise you. If you expect to see a throw to the forehand side of the field, allow for the possibility of a stall-9 blade.
4. Whether or not you poach off of your man (!). If you’ve evaluated your man to be less of a threat in their current position than some other play–your man prefers to cut under, but their big thrower has the disc and you see somebody setting up the deep cut–you can sometimes get away with devoting less attention to your man and more attention to the play in action.

This is a lot of information to process at once on the field. It’s impossible (In my opinion) to consciously take in all of this information and still play at 100% intensity (you’ll be thinking too much). However, you can learn to intuit things, or give yourself reminders before the point. The disc’s position should eventually become a natural sense; for me, I can often discern where the frisbee is by the sound of a catch or reading my man and, if in a straight stack, the other men on offense (be wary of eye fakes). You can cultivate an internal stall clock to anticipate high-count situations (or perhaps your teammate will count loudly enough for you to know with certainty). Conditions and the force, you should be aware of before the point begins(or at least before the disc is tapped in on a stoppage). Strive to cultivate an intuitive sense of what space is threatened and in which space (and at what times) your opponent is not a threat to get the disc. I find it usually helps to remind myself of the force on D just before the pull goes up (if I’m starting on D or O), and to spend some time (doesn’t need to be more than 10 seconds or so) trying to visualize the wind vector and anticipating which throws will float or sink on D (and how to compensate with my own throws).

You can, of course, rehearse a lot of these situations through visualization. Cutting schematics can go a long way towards guiding you here–draw up novel situations, impose different conditions, and then try and picture yourself in them.

In addition to recognizing situations in terms of general expectancies, strive to learn the signs that a play is coming–learn to read throwers. You can do this on a team-by-team basis if their system is transparent; you can also learn to read individuals. Eventually, you will start to pick up on tells that are more across-the-board; players who are not skilled in showing fakes or making quick decisions in particular become easy reads with enough attention. There’s a certain look–not quite “Deer in the Headlights”, but a similar single-minded tunnel vision, when a thrower goes from “scanning/evaluating” mode to “preparing to throw” mode. Mid-level cutters get a similar look when they’re in the lane, if you’re trying to read their fakes.

Don’t think too much on the field; simply pay attention and make associations through experience. Eventually, you’ll develop an intuitive sense and good defense will become more automatic (it never becomes fully automatic–invariably there’s always some external condition you should be taking note of). Learn when you can afford to think on the ultimate field, and learn when you need to stop thinking and just make the play. Anticipation will put you in position, but you still have to execute.