Thoughts.

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.

Yeah, a bit. Nothing like intense practice with no impending tournaments to get a guy feeling like he’s working a bit too hard.

Last week was pretty crappy. Got really sick/exhausted right after frozen, messed up my thumb so that was bugging me, and I’ve really just gotten over it (1 week, your usual immune suppression time–I’m like a metronome, baby). Then back to practice on Friday, still half-sick, only half warmed-up, and in pretty cold weather, where I was pretty fatigued but still played more or less savage, and then classwars on Saturday, which I pretty earnestly didn’t care that much about. Played a bit, nowhere near as much as I could have or should have were we really being competitive, but I’m pretty ready to take ultimate easy for a bit. In any case, we did beat the 09s, who were the only legitimate class aside from ourselves (the 07s and 06s had pickups from graduated classes), so I claim victory for the 08s from a technical, if not practical, standpoint.

Incidentally, I wound up playing O-line in OvD at practice for the first time, which was kind of a nice gesture but given that I was in poor form I didn’t do it anywhere close to justice. I would be making cuts and feeling my legs run out of gas as I struggled to change direction, I dropped the disc more than once (which pretty honestly never happens–I take a lot of pride in my hands), and on defense the conditions and my lack of juice led to me getting beat several times. I was also playing conservative since I was still waiting to hear on a mono test (didn’t want my spleen destroyed) so I basically caved at the threat of physical contact and was expressly forbidden from laying out, taking another dimension away from my game.

Anyhow, it was more or less a wash. I don’t feel like I got anything out of practice, save frustration at myself and at the ‘sick’ and ‘injured’ people on the sidelines who came out to do little more than yell at people when their cuts weren’t right or they otherwise screwed up on the field, you know, actually playing. One of my main gripes about the ‘serious’ practice we often did this fall is that even compared to tournaments, where people are generally giving help from the sidelines, there’s just far too much criticism from some of the same sources in practice for my liking. Were it more constructive criticism–rather than “that’s too late! You’re too late!,” “start that cut a bit sooner”–I wouldn’t mind it, but for me at least, while the negatives might get me thinking about it after practice, which can be helpful, during practice it makes me focus on the last play rather than the next, and on doubt rather than confidence, which is not something I like or try to foster. Subject for a later post.

But I survived, in any case. I didn’t do too hot, but I take satisfaction in knowing that I came out to play despite having a ready-made excuse not to play in a potential mono diagnosis and helped make play possible, and hopefully somebody got some good practice out of the matter.

In any case, Thanksgiving break is well-timed. I’ll get to go home and relax for a bit, with a little bit of fitness upkeep thrown in, as always, and I can shift gears. Rather than using ultimate as motivation, which for me needs fairly regular tournament play as a sort of justification and reaffirment, I’m thinking a return to simply having ‘getting into great shape’ as a goal will do me a lot of good, at least for now.

On that note, I’ve been enjoying reading this blog. Lot of interesting thoughts on diet/fitness from an evolutionary perspective, and it makes a ton of sense. Not sure how much I’m comfortable applying, but I definitely think I might try some of it out. Certainly seems to work for the author, apparently in great shape despite being well on in years.

Also, the blog spellcheck doesn’t think “blog” is a word. Weird…

So, given that I’m sick, with what may be the flu, potentially mono, and that the weather’s starting to become more and more prohibitive of practice, I think it’s nigh time I look back on the fall season and see if I can’t glean some insight from it.

What to say. The term started off magnificently, as I got to work H-Croo shortly after returning to the states from Japan, which was magnificent–there are few things I’m as proud of as being able to bring a boatload of enthusiasm for the school and the freshmen to bear as essentially the first collegians the freshman class gets to see. Some of the best 2 weeks of my life.

Shortly after croo stuff was over, I got to take care of club open sectionals business up here in Hanover, which went fairly well with only a couple minor hiccups. Great experience, really satisfying to provide for 200+ players.

Once that was finished, I really got into ultimate proper this season. Practices, good, competitive scrimmaging, and a couple tournaments all made for a great learning experience. It’s definitely an adjustment going from B-level stud to A-level standard; playing D-line is good, but given the large roster size I definitely saw a big cut in playtime. I handled the adjustment fairly well; I like being involved on the sidelines, and the extra rest means I can go all-out when I am in, which certainly kicks up my level of play a notch. I do feel like I can be playing a larger role when I am in, though–at our last tourney I didn’t touch the disc much, but I was pretty effective when I did–and it’ll certainly be up to me to step up my game and make more plays.

In terms of specific skills, again I don’t know if I ever really had sufficient opportunity to display my abilities–Seigs mentioned a couple things the D-line needs, having good, strong marks, and having people with decent 40+ yard puts, and I definitely have those. I take pride in my strong mark, though it can always be improved, and I spent most of the summer developing good, relatively consistent, 40-yardsish throws with touch–it just seems that, outside of the occasional power-position in practice, I haven’t really used them a ton. It’s something to work on–specifically, using them in more varied game situations–and certainly will be something I want to develop as a strength.
Seigs also mentioned good break throws–while all of my throws are fairly good/consistent, this is one area I don’t excel in. I’ve worked towards improving them a bit, visualizing certain situations and stepping out to make the IO/around break when tossing, but outside of the occasional break-mark drill (I definitely missed out on this sort of stuff as a result of work cutting into practice) I haven’t had a ton of practice using anything other than your high release backhand on the dump. So there’s something else to work on.

With regard to team skills, I definitely need more practice playing in our 2-man cup Z, at any of the positions, and also playing wing/deep in most zone sets. I’m starting to develop some confidence in my ability as a deep/last back, but I’m still pretty raw in terms of experience getting the sky (as most of the team is). My non-continuation cutting needs shoring up; I’m thinking the best way to improve this is through my mental game, not letting the defender dictate where I’m cutting when I know where I’m a bigger threat with/to get the disc. On a similar note, I need to be more firm as a defender in terms of holding my position, as it’s key to shutdown man D.

So let’s list things to work on (in order of personal importance):
-cutting with a plan
-breaks, in general (along the same lines, improving my pivoting/faking)
-being more effective deep
-new defensive schemes
-stepping up my activity on O
-using my ‘huck’ more effectively
-making the mark better, as always

Not a bad list. We’ll see to what extent we can work on this sort of stuff come winter…

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.

I love ultimate. It is my passion, it drives me to stay in shape, and all sorts of things besides. But why?

I like ultimate a lot for one main reason (everything else that comes is a result of getting involved with the sport or a corollary of this): I know I can be successful with it.

Ultimate’s a great, competitive sport, mind you, but it’s really not even close to any other given sport I could do in terms of reaching the upper tier; you have athletes training for most of their day to compete for one day or over the course of several days every several months. That’s some serious dedication. Ultimate has people who train simply by scrimmaging every few weeks, with perhaps a few bits of “lifting” or “training” thrown in for good measure that are able to perform quite well.
Would I have liked to been blessed with the body of a fish like Michael Phelps? Yeah, but instead I got this short, small-handed, small-footed thing, which doesn’t even float without something keeping it up (most people float naturally; I sink).
Would I have liked to have been a Steve Prefontaine sort of runner, driven to train and compete at the highest level? Yeah, but I’m nowhere near that motivated to run great distances every single day, and nowhere near good enough to run for Dartmouth’s team.
Would I have liked to have been a world-class triple jumper, hurdler, or sprinter? Yeah, but again, I lack the requisite build to project as something exceptional.

I want to be great at something, particularly a sport; I was exceptional in my high school, but unfortunately I hit a wall of sorts advancing to college (graduating a year early probably didn’t help my case, athletically speaking, either). I needed to diversify, find something else I slotted into better, and ultimate is that thing.

I’d already played a bit in my high school years, summer camp, summer league, so I could already play a bit when I got here at Dartmouth, which gave me a leg on a lot of people. And I’m a good athlete; most schools, the best athletes do their chosen DI sport, so I stand out in that regard as well.

And I can continue to stand out as an athlete in this sport. Unlike my other chosen sports, you have all sorts of skill levels and athletes being competitive, which bodes well for my future–there is no single prototypical ultimate player.

I’m hoping for great things, and planning to work towards them. If I work twice as hard as the next guy, I’m going to be that much better when it counts, I’m going to get better that much sooner, and I’ll continue to elevate my game until I find a ceiling.

Right now there’s no limit in sight…