Thoughts.

It’s stoppin, it’s stoppin, it’s stoppin
What ‘chu know ’bout feet
what ‘chu
what ‘chu know ’bout feet?

Somebody asked about the mechanics of stopping. My thoughts on stopping:

• It helps to be strong, of course. Moreso with stopping than with most skills, the extra strength is the best way to stop more quickly. Deadlift. Train your hamstrings to function as extensors for your torso instead of doing leg curls (which are not ENTIRELY useless, but are mostly worthless for ultimate) to train them.
• Body mechanics. Obviously, the more traction you can get, the better. Ways to improve traction include getting better cleats, but good body mechanics can do a lot to this end too. I’m much more of a strength guy than a technique guy–being as light as I am (all of 5’8″ 136 lbs) with as much strength as I have (yes, this is a self-call. My legs are out of proportion with the rest of my body, it’s kind of ridiculous) makes for a much easier time changing direction. But there are some fundamental mechanics that work too.

See this link on ultivillage (account required) (EDIT: This clip no longer exists. Thanks for ruining my explanation, Rob). Before the hot layout grab, at the very start of the clip, you can see Zip make a good fundamental cut, mechanically speaking.

From accelerating hard off of his first step from when the clip starts, Zip cruises at speed for a step. As anyone who plays good defense is likely aware, you can’t really change direction effectively while accelerating. A basic tenet of cutting is to get your defender to accelerate in one direction while you are not. As a cutter, if you can be cruising while your opponent is still accelerating, you’re at the advantage in choosing when and where to cut. Note that as Zip cruises he’s already anticipating coming the other direction–he’s looking over his shoulder and assessing the space under he has to attack.

From there his third step prepares his body to stop. He’s already begun changing his direction slightly, and from this step his body goes in to stopping proper. The two important things to note here are the lowering of his center of gravity and the number of quick, short steps he takes. Lowering your center of gravity allows you to apply more force–think about where you are strongest in your squat, or of how you do a quarter squat before doing a standing jump. From this lowered position Zip is able to exert a large degree of force in a short amount of time–not trying to do it all in one step, he instead takes several chop steps which allow him to stop efficiently, with his hips already pointed towards his next cutting target. At one point he doubles the step rate of his defender! It’s no wonder he’s able to stop and explode into action so much more quickly than the other guy, who straightens up before he gets into his stopping squat (not to mention the fact that he has to turn his hips nearly 180 degrees).

This is a very skilled and powerful coordination of body parts–very obviously, Zip is Zip for a reason–but the fundamentals there can be applied to most cutting.

To recap, stopping:

• Takes strength
• Should be done from cruising speed, not acceleration (or get your defender accelerating more than you)
• Is greatly enhanced by choosing a direction to explode into after stopping
• Requires you to lower your center of gravity, applying force in front of your body (center of gravity) in the direction of motion you want to go in
• Typically requires several chop steps

Anyone have other thoughts/additions? Please chime in.

If you don’t know what a burpee is, look here.
It’s like a squat-thrust or up-downs, for those of you familiar with them, but it’s a bit more fluid. check the video clip.

This is a wonderful “in-shape” litmus test–it’s quite likely you’ll have trouble getting under 10 minutes. Use it as a benchmark–come back to this workout in a month or two and see how much progess you’ve made (or haven’t made). I managed to get this done, but I was seriously out of it for a few minutes following. It’s a fun workout!

Hopefully this gives you a good idea.

So many novice throwers use primarily their arm, or throw from their hip. Both sap throwing power. Relax your arm (but not the grip), and load the scapula when you’re hucking forehands.

The force that results from this loading should flow fairly easily from your torso/shoulder to the disc if you’re keeping your arm relaxed. From your biceps to your forearm, nothing should be tightening up until your snap your wrist to release the disc.

Next time you’re watching somebody with really good forehand hucks, watch their shoulder. I can almost guarantee you that if they throw with any power or authority they load their shoulder to some extent.

I’ve yet to determine whether “loading the scapula” is appropriate for backhands. But it most definitely helps for forehands. Pull your shoulder blade in when you wind up, and just let the natural stretch-shortening cycle pull your arm through the throwing motion.

This is more or less the compilation of all the useful ultimate-related links I’ve read.

I did a lot more blog reading last year and especially the year before that, which is when I came across most of these–that was the golden age of ultimate blogging, when nothing was recorded yet (outside of UT & T, which was not comprehensive) so what was put down was often the most authoritative info out there. Nowadays everybody’s run out of ideas and all you get is hype and tourney recaps.

Without further ado, here’s the list. This is culled from a blitz I sent to the mens’ team last spring:

the main compilation of ultimate bloggerdom

UPA rules blog (this is where I get all those “actually…11th edition says…”s from):

Jim Parinella’s blog (former DoG player, co-writer of Ultimate Techninques and Tactics–one of the best and brightest ultimate has seen)
highlights from his blog:

• this describes VERY well my cutting philosophy (MUST READ)
• more on cutting (MUST READ. Take these bits of cutting advice and really, reallly think about them. See yourself setting up in various situations. This WILL make you a better cutter)
• ideas for hucking practice
• simple thoughts can make a big difference
• players make plays
• drills to try alone/with a friend
• decision-making
• conflict resolution (hi Lamar)

Idris Nolan’s blog (former Jam player…thought to be one of the better/best handlers in club ultimate)
lots of good stuff to see here, too:

• on hucking (2nd is a MUST READ)
• >learn by watching
• defense in the air
• IO flick/breaking the mark, hammers/blades, throwing in general(the four-finger flick has your pointer and middle against the rim and holds the bottom of the rim with the ring and pinkie) (MUST READ)
• making secondary cuts (again, this describes my cutting philosophy very well)
• field sense and throws to space

Ultimate player on Training
just a few highlights this time. Start at the beginning of this blog and scan through if you have time and interest in different training styles (check out the stuff on tabata intervals):

• on crossfit (where I get a ton of training info from), “what is fitness?”
• hip flexor streching and a better vertical

Ultimate Strategy/Coaching blog

• broad progression for throwing a forehand

Occasionally entertaining, but not often useful

And then there’s RSD. some useful discussions (but do more research yourself, there’s TONS of gems to find):

• Ben Wiggins on throwing, esp hucking(UPDATED–missing RSD link has been redirected to a collection of Wiggins Writing)
• hammers
• laying out
• pulling
• scroll up for a bit on good forehand throwing

That caps it off. Sorry if the formating isn’t the most user-friendly to read.
-Mackey

PS For aspiring avid blog readers, check out feed readers at google reader or bloglines. Also give technorati.com a look for searching purposes.

I’ll do more explanatory posts on some things later (cutting, how I teach throwing), but all of what you’ll hear here stems in large part from what I’ve read above.

Any of the guys on the team will attest that I tend to harp about visualization a lot, particularly leading up to big tournaments or when I am, say, teaching somebody how to lay out (because botched or successful layouts hurt a lot more than visualizing a perfect one–perhaps a post on that later).

So, what is visualization? This and this sum it up pretty succinctly. But how do you then apply that to ultimate or whatever endeavor you want to pursue?

There are a couple ways to go about it…

If you’re a team leader of some sort (coach, captain), consider leading a guided visualization for the whole group. Have everyone lay down or otherwise get in a comfortable position, close their eyes, and then you (or whomever is doing the guiding) will slowly describe a situation–if we’re talking ultimate, go through game preparation (warming up, taking some throws, drilling) and in-game situations (making a cut–playing good defense–laying out, etc.), describing everything in detail–morning dew on the grass soaks your cleats, notice the lining of the fields, see how bright your light looks as you pull it out of your bag before the game–and keying in on important in-game details: you notice your man’s hips are committed, so you plant and go the other way. You recognize the thrower is going to pass to your man, so you prepare to make a layout.

If you’re on your own, or want to visualize more than that, you can do the same sort of thing on your own, right before bed, or when spacing out in class. See from your mind’s eye–visualize situations through your own eyes, don’t see yourself from a distance. Feel the way your body feels; slow down time and key in on every crucial detail, from your running form to the finer points of your throws to cues from your man that reveal his intentions. You can use a cutting schematic to help mentally set up situations to visualize yourself in.

This is probably the single most efficient tool you can use to make yourself better at just about anything. It takes no physical effort! A guided visualization can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on how long you make it; personal visualization can be much briefer than that, visualizing on a situation-to-situation basis. It WILL make you better if done correctly–just think about it. If you’ve already seen every situation imaginable (literally), nothing will surprise you. If you’ve already seen yourself running through and layout D’ing your man in your mind, you’re going to be that much more comfortable doing it for real.

Keep in mind visualization isn’t just for rehearsing–it has an actual training effect on your body. If you’re hurt, for instance, and can’t squat due to an ankle sprain, etc, visualizing a squat–feeling the tension and increased effort that go with it–can sustain your training more so than if you do nothing while you recover. The mind is a powerful tool.

So, I went to a reunion for my fall’s senior seminar yesterday–we had a good class, maybe 15 of us total, and we got to travel out to San Diego for a neuroscience conference there. We all got along pretty well, so we decided to have a reunion and our professor came too, with a slide show he had prepared.

The slide show had pictures of each of us in turn with one or two distinctive quotes–one of our students, an overachieving junior, was quoted with “Hey, I read 10 extra articles on today’s topic, even though they weren’t assigned, and I have about 70 or 80 extra questions to ask you so…can we talk after class?” Hilarious, coming from a professor.

Anyways, his quote for me (since I often spoke to him about ultimate rather than anything relating to our shared field of study) was “Check it out, I just did a search on PubMed for ‘Frisbee’ and there’s actually an article on it!”

Naturally, I immediately checked PubMed afterwards and found said article, published in 2006.

If you’ve ever wondered just what kind of toll this sport takes on one’s body, this is a good article to read. Of note:

• 88% of the 135 players surveyed had missed playing due to injury, and half of all of the players had recurrent injuries
• 65% of the 135 reported ankle injuries at some point
• 53% reported knee injuries at some point

I don’t know if anybody cares to look up statistics from other sports to compare, but those all strike me as pretty high percentages.

Try and take care of yourself.

Some stuff about running form and speed training today.

Part of the plan for track workouts this year is to get people doing some form work before they run (and get to speed work as well)–the more efficient we can get, the better we’ll be.

This is a pretty interesting bit–touching upon the neural basis of training, talking about visualization training effects. This generally has the most relevance when hurt–even if you can’t bear weight on your knee, visualizing doing squats can work pretty well too–but at times when you can’t get into the gym to do your full lifting routine or whatever, try visualizing some heavy lifts instead.

Finally, we have single-leg squatting. One of my favorite bodyweight exercises, most likely because I’m more than capable of doing them and most people aren’t. Beast Skills also has a great tutorial for this–as well as a number of guides to various other bodyweight wonders. It’s a great way to mix up your training, particularly if you’re in the off-season. I’m a firm believer that my capability to do such things with my body (specifically, handstands and single-leg squats) reflects my high kinesthetic awareness (that is, intuiting where my body is and how it moves in space and the ability to manipulate it skillfully), something that differentiates some of the best athletes out there. I’m not presuming to say I’m one of the best athletes out there, but developing in this way certainly is well down that path.