The Huddle is a Gold Mine. (Response to Issue No. 8, "Catching")
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Loading ...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’ve touched upon a lot of the same stuff the huddle authors touch upon already with my catching talk in this blog–the importance of attacking the disc cannot be overstated at high levels, and using your body is an underappreciated but equally important component of making uncontested grabs. Read all of the articles, and note the frequency with which some of the information is repeated–continuity of an idea is a pretty good predictor for its utility.
I’d like to draw attention to a couple gems that really stood out for me, courtesy of Nancy Sun and Gwen Ambler.
Taking a direction completely different from her co-writers, Nancy talks about receiving the pull–but when she talks about catching and throwing at the end, there’s a bit worth pulling outside of the the context of just pull receiving.
First, on catching (emphasis mine):
3. Execution. I want to pancake the pull at chest height and close to my body. I focus on keeping my hands at 90 degree angles to each other (as opposed to parallel) to eliminate misalignment and the chance that the disc might flip out of my hands.
Brilliant. Just pick up a disc and try this at home. I could NOT flub a clap catch with my hands oriented at 90 degrees. Whenever you teach somebody how to clap catch from now on, make sure you specify the importance angle of the hands–this is a very simple hangup that somebody who fancies herself uncoordinated will get caught on when first learning to play.
Second, on the catch-throw turnaround:
Getting your feet into a balanced throwing position should be done simultaneous to catching. Tenths of a second can be the difference between hitting the swing or having the mark come on to prevent you from hitting the swing…As a right-handed thrower, I mostly pancake with my right hand on top so that sliding into a backhand grip is very quick. Coming out of the pancake, right-hand on top is also the most natural and secure motion for me to enter into my forehand grip.
If you haven’t already, think about your hands’ positioning when you catch with regards to being able to throw right afterwards. I’ve already mused on this here (it’s really nice to see some of my thoughts validated by elite ultimate players), so give that a look for a bit more exposition on that topic if you want. For the record, I am now more comfortable catching right hand on top, but transition pretty quickly to throwing in either orientation.
Also, play around with your footwork and how you set your body up to make a continuation when you receive the disc–if you receive in a balanced position (“balanced” can be in motion towards a throw, too), you’ll be able to execute a throw shortly thereafter under control. Perhaps more specifics on that at a later time.
Gwen also chooses to go in a different direction than her peers–rather than getting into the nitty-gritty of practicing catches, she talks about the mental side to catching and grabbing high/deep passes instead of the under. Read the whole article. And then re-read this part, which resonates a lot with my own catching experience:
You have to anticipate when and where you’re going to reach the disc and already be ready to catch the disc when that time/space arrives.
This does not mean stopping to wait for the disc to get to you. Instead, it often means propelling yourself through the air with your last step so that you have time in the air to concentrate on the watching the disc into your hands. I am always a fan of catching the disc with both feet off the ground, mid-stride whenever possible. This gives your body, hands, and eyes the appropriate time to prepare for the catch.
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.
Nationals Coverage
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...For those of you who don’t follow RSD (congrats), some pics of college natties are up online. I reserve the right to link to a picture of me (I was very impressed with the quality and quantity of shots of me playing in the Arizona game–incidentally, the best game of my ultimate career).
CP put up some good Dartmouth highlights(from the same website) on his blog, too.
Nothing like reliving the glory day(s).
Bonus double post: A reaction to the Huddle’s Issue No. 6: "Footwork"
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...Almost all of the authors are very vague about how one actually improves footwork.
“Oh, do ladder/cutting/change-of-direction drills. Think about changing direction.”
Thought-provoking, sure, but some of those articles are not particularly actionable as far as improving as an ultimate player goes. I’m sure it’s all well and good to be able to watch high-level elite players routinely or be covered by them routinely, but your average layperson can only imagine what most of these authors are alluding to, and much of the benefit of such models is lost.
I’m not trying to say such commentary is not valuable, because it is tremendously so–the Huddle is the best thing to happen to the development of this sport yet. Universally accessible, not filtered through the lens of one person (the problem with blogs today as a source of information, including yours truly), and broadly applicable strategy and skills. It’s a helluva lot better than what I’m doing here, which is more of an effort to guide beginner / intermediate level ultimate improvement.
At any rate, sifting through the thought-provoking-ness for the actionable items yields the following gems, in my opinion:
“Get low, chop my feet, and explode…if you can envision [emphasis mine] yourself making a strong cut, you will be able to do that.”
Try combining those two. And then try implementing what you’ve envisioned. Also see my previous entry on stopping for some exposition and a link to some good video on good stopping/change of direction mechanics. Maybe the Huddle didn’t beat me to the punch here after all.
“Planting off your inside foot instead of your outside foot” (shamelessly stolen from L&H F)
Again, visualize this and then try it. Ladders, yeah. Drills, yeah. Good, but I say pah.
Work through it mentally–whether purely through visualization, if you’re comfortable enough with your body to know how it should be working, or through a little bit of trial (you can do this in slow motion right now–if you’re at work, maybe fake a little on your way to the bathroom to save face) to give your mind some reference material–and, once you’ve identified what the key motions to stopping and exploding in a new direction (while maintaining balance!) are in your mind, recreate those motions in your practice and your training. Train them with plyos, train the main muscles with some strength training too (hint: single leg lifting works wonders here, and you can do a lot with just your body weight).
Finally, my two cents about footwork: you can compensate for a lot of errors in footwork/balance simply by being strong(er). I’ve gotten away with being off-balance (sometimes intentionally to bait the man I’m defending) by being strong enough to recover quickly. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. That said, you’re usually better off being strong AND having proper technique. Strive to be your best, rather than simply good enough–there’s ALWAYS room for improvement.
Catching Thought: Focus on the spin
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...See the frisbee clearly when you catch it.
This comes inspired by the Inner Game of Tennis, which I just read recently (if you fancy yourself an athlete, this is mandatory reading. If you hope to learn anything from athletics you can apply to the rest of your life, this is mandatory reading). Galwey, after an initial explanation of some fundamentals of tennis play (which is all tied in to performance and performance mindset), suggests simply to focus on the spin of the ball as a means to concentration, getting your mind out of your body’s way.
Have you ever dropped a disc because you were thinking about your next throw or how you were going to spike it or some other facet of the moment not directly related to the catching of the disc? I should amend that to “have you ever dropped a disc because you were thinking,” because all thoughts are a distraction.
It’s a bit tougher to constantly focus on one thing in ultimate–unlike in tennis, in which the ball is a constant object of focus, in ultimate the frisbee is really only your primary concern when it is in the air. With each facet of ultimate, you have to focus on the cues specific to that facet–the hips (interspersed with awareness of the frisbee’s location and the play developing around you) for defense, space and the thrower when cutting–and when you’re receiving and the disc is in the air, you should have little else on your mind beside the spin of the disc.
I don’t mean contemplate the spin of the disc, thinking about the disc’s spin. I mean, simply, noticing how it is spinning and moving in space. Let your body find and attack the frisbee (these are skills you develop with focused practice–perhaps more on that in a later post), and keep your mind out of it by devoting your attention to the disc’s spin.
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.
So, you’re interested in training, huh?
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...Just how interested are you?
Do you like working out? Are you the sort who prides himself on out-working your teammates (and especially your opponents)? Is the main thing for you how HARD you work?
Are you more of a “work smarter, not harder” type? Do you prefer the newest training modalities and exercises? Are you concerned more with efficiency (perhaps you have time constraints) than brute force of volume of work?
Do you simply like the idea of training, but struggle to put it into practice? Do you strive to be the second type I’ve described, but lack even a modicum of the motivation of the first?
Motivation is key. There are definitely goods and betters with training (and bads, too, but generally speaking, you’re better off doing something than nothing at all), but none of it matters if you’re not properly motivated to train and improve yourself (or inspire the same motivation in others).
My motivation took me a few routes. I certainly have worked hard in my time, putting in the time and the intensity of work, to get into the shape I’m in (or was in–I’m definitely falling out of shape now that I’ve stopped training regularly for ultimate). But I’ve also spent countless hours looking at resources on the internet, as well as simply trying out new routines and structures.
If you’re interested in following the same path, I have some recommendations for you. Much of my fitness knowledge has come from time spent perusing the following sites:
Almost all of what I’ve learned about fitness has come either directly from these sites or from other resources I’ve found through these sites. Look for common themes and threads throughout–if something is repeated by several different individuals, it’s probably got a lot of truth to it–and don’t be afraid to learn by doing.
Throwing/Catching Thought: Grip Training (Types of Grip)
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...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.
The Future of this Sport
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...New entrant into the blogosphere James Kim ’11 has a great post on his blog looking at some of the issues addressing the image of ultimate frisbee.
I don’t read Match’s blog with any regularity, but while Match seems to rant a lot about all sorts of ideals when he talks about the future of ultimate and what he’d like to see, James definitely seems a lot more realistic and measured in his views, taking the view less of a dedicated fan wanting to make ultimate a really sweet and hugely popular sport and more of a player who simply wants his sport to be respected by the world (and public) at large. Anybody who fancies themselves advocates for the sport would do well to consider the issues he brings up.
Summer Workouts: Bodyweight Strength Training
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...In lieu of a conditioning workout (if you want to mix it up, I suggest applying any of the previous formats with different exercises, or running hills), this blitz will have some ideas for strength training using your bodyweight.
Exercises like:
-Single Leg Squats: not just wussy quarter squats, but going all the way down so your butt meets your calf/heel. You can do this with your leg out in front of you, but it’s hard to balance (holding 5-10 lbs in front of you will help), so you can also try doing it with the leg behind you, though you can’t get down as far. Go down as far as you can. Check out Jim’s Beast Skills for tutorials on all kinds of bodyweight feats, including the pistol and most of the exercises below.
-One-arm pushups: spread your legs a bit wider than usual, keep your core really tight, and lean towards the arm that’s doing the work.
-Handstand pushups: you can put your feet against a wall to help balance. Go down as low as you can.
-Pull-ups, if you can find a bar/rafter/tree branch to use: make sure you get your chest up to the bar/rafter/branch, not settling to just get your chin over.
-Glute-Ham Raises: you need a special setup to do these. see here. As long as your heels/calves are supported–somebody holding them, or putting them under something suitably heavy, you can try these–it’s easier to start at the top and go down, these are really hard on the hamstrings
Doing these exercises for a few sets, stopping short of failure (inability to finish the movement) each time, will give you a great workout without having to go to a gym and load up on heavy weights. The single leg squat (aka pistols when you do them with leg in front) is one of my favorite exercises. Add in some core work and you have a full-body workout.
Blitz me if you have any questions.
Stay Strong,
Mackey
