Today’s Links
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Loading ...Some stuff about running form and speed training today.
First, a couple links about “Summer Training for Speed,” which offers some good general guidelines for any speed training program…part 1, part 2.
Next, a great article with some very specific coaching points for speed. For somebody trying to coach themselves this is a good resource, but it’s even better for trying to teach others as a lot of these cues are hard to “feel” yourself as you’re running (though I suppose trial and error might give you feedback in the form of faster running).
Finally, this website and this one have some good drills one can do as part of a warm-up (the latter also includes some more strenuous stuff, which can be more of a workout). The first site has some good .pdf files with pictures of how to do a few running drills–the site is geared towards tennis players, but the drills are the same.
The second site focuses on sprinting technique, which is a little different from simple running form (more of an emphasis on drive and acceleration, for one).
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.
Friday Links
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...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.
Implications for general training here too–it’s not just the weight lifting and stress on the muscles. Your nervous system coordinates the whole assembly, so making it work better makes you more efficient too. More than one means to improved performance…of course, visualization of skills and ultimate situations have similar effects–making your nervous system more efficient. Slightly different effects, but same general principle.
On the same thread of alternative training means, this one is a personal favorite–simple, daily bodyweight holds to develop strength. This is just upper body, but you can do similar things for your core (planks–advancing to 1-arm/1-leg planks as you see fit, as well as side planks, etc), and I find split squats work pretty quickly to the same ends as well. There’s plenty you can do without weights or without much time to maintain a training effect when you’re too busy or otherwise too inconvenienced to get to the gym.
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.
Linkin’ Time
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...I keep a ginormous compilation of links on fitness and training.
In part because I’m planning to be running the team’s training this winter, and in part because I feel like sharing a lot of the resources I draw information from will help people who happen upon my blog, I’m going to start posting a few links every week.
Without further ado:
Found this collection of articles via Lean & Hungry Fitness (which has a great collection of fitness-related links and information, especially for the aspiring ultimate player), and man is it a treasure trove.
A few things I’ve already found very informative:
This bit on planned overtraining might wind up being the best framework for our training this winter I’ve found yet. Coordinating our training so that we’re recovering at the right moments to perform and get the most benefit from our training should leave us in great position to whoop ass this year.
These vertical jump lessons are great. Especially the first–My own form needs a lot of work, and hopefully I can bring a lot of this stuff to the team as well.
The whole collection there is money, but those in particular leapt out at me. I can’t wait to whip ourselves into great shape this year.
Linkin’ Time, incidentally, is a reference to the Jack-O prank Drinkin’ time.
101st post! (on tournament prep)
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...I missed the 100th post, but this is the 101st. That’s a hell of a lot of words I’ve typed.
I’m also closing in on having maintained this blog for two years, which is just ridiculous to think about. I think a retrospective with some highlights of past posts might be in order at some point in the coming month…
Anyway, I wanted to link to some posts in other blogs that talk a bit about preparing for the grind of tournament play.
First, this post on Seigs’ blog first explores the question of tourney prep…
Then he goes a bit more into his take on simulating a tournament in practice
Dusty also offers his take, in comments here and in Seigs’ blog.
I think it’s a really great question to consider–really, tournaments are the measuring stick against which your team’s entire body of work is measured. It’s not always the case, but being better prepared to come on strong at the end of a tournament means more wins.
Getting Into the Zone
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...Sent this out to the team a few minutes ago, warrants blogging about, too…
Came accross this article the other day about “getting into the optimal performance state,” ie the zone:
http://www.taisdata.com/articles/optimal.pdf
(short summary below. Socks: free summary! look!)
Basically, it takes a lot of practice at a given skill to be able to do it at a preconcious level and get into the zone, and it’s essential to maintain focus (or rather, lack of focus–things come automatically), and to recover from any distractions ASAP–confidence in your abilities is essential.
Of note, stumbling blocks to self-confidence include lack of confidence in one’s ability, lack of confidence in one’s capability to meet expectations (or is it goals?), whether those are your own or those of others, and a fear of injury/death. It helps a lot, for example, if you play ultimate because you love playing ultimate, not because you absolutely must make nationals or your captains mandate that you must make nationals or you want to impress the womenfolk. These may be applicable in a given instance, but one needs to shift focus to performance and performance alone. Get out of your head and into the game. Don’t worry about winning or losing, just play.
Also of note, generally, better athletes do more “mental rehearsal” (ie visualizing–from an internal perspective, not ‘seeing yourself,’ but ‘doing,’ so to speak), and of course more practice means better refinement of skills and more improvement as well.
There’s also stuff about “flow,” which is basically the mental performance eqivalent of being “in the zone,” if you’re interested in that.
Definitely a worthwhile read, it’s maybe a 20-30 minute read. Improving as a player doesn’t just mean training and practicing–the best athletes bring a mentality that allows them to get into the zone and perform more often. Don’t neglect your mental game.
Drills, strategy, application.
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...So there’s some discussion about trends in strategy in ultimate.
Interesting stuff, for sure. I especially liked one of the comments about ‘resistance’ as a means to gauging progress.
When I was co-captaining the B-team last year, we always started practice the same way–at least 10-15 minutes of marker drill, and a bit longer than that doing dump drill. Simple, yet effective drills, and I definitely think they paid off–by the time we got playing in sectionals, we were regularly using dump-swing-continue O as opposed to the force-it-up-the-line mentality with decent success. We certainly were able to beat a fair number of low/mid-level A-teams and were not often outclassed, save against the upper-level teams in the region.
We did a lot of other drill-type stuff, and I think the proof is in the pudding so to speak, in that a lot of the guys on the team were able to improve a lot fundamentally and became much better players as a result.
I definitely feel like there’s a lot of benefit to be had from devoting a significant portion of practice time to skills development rather than straight-up scrimmaging. It provides a great opportunity to really hammer down a specific part of one’s game, and on the B-team in particular it was a good opportunity for players of varying skill levels to work at their own pace–the hardworking guys can work together and push each other, while in a scrimmage it’s not always the case that all 7 guys are fully invested in their play, or are as capable as one would like. That said, scrimmaging is very necessary–there’s plenty of strategy and chemistry to develop, and it’s a lot more fun and keeps people coming back out to play, important to the B-team in particular.
With regards to Dartmouth ultimate, keeping a focus on the essentials of good team play (the mark and dump-swing) is always a good idea, for both levels. The B-team should perhaps spend a bit more time on it, but I think there’s ample evidence from the fall season that says the A-team likewise needs to invest time as a team to working on the mark and the dump. I like a lot of what we did otherwise in terms of drilling though–a lot of what we do, even in scrimmages, revolves around working with a specific set of circumstances–D team starts with the disc on a sideline rather than receiving a pull, some of the man D drills we do.
I wonder if we can’t improve the effectiveness of the drills further though? Idris talks about teaching a sort of improvisationality to the players, which is an interesting contention. We do a lot of drills that are fairly rigid and simple in their setup and execution. I definitely feel like there’s a benefit to be had from these drills, and we don’t necessarily need to change them, but I wonder if there aren’t perhaps variations or new setups we can incorporate to make drills more like real, game-time situation. Drills more like the drill we did a while back to work on our three-cutters dump scheme, where the person with the disc has multiple options to evaluate and decide upon.
I don’t know. Just an interesting topic to keep in mind down the road…
