Thoughts.

Chime in with your own favorites in the comments, please!

Food items that I made sure I was stocked up on before I left for a tournament last year…

1. Gatorade Powder. Simply essential in my book. Mix with water at your desired concentration, get some electrolytes and some sugar during and between games. Stay hydratded, and stay cramp-free (probably). Great for sharing with your teammates too. Keep in mind that you probably don’t want this too concentrated…when I ran cross-country and track, at least, too much sugar meant sloshing in the gut and stomach cramps. I’ve also heard that the “sweet spot” for sports drinks is less like gatorade and more like the propel water–but sweet sells, which is why you had the former long before the latter.
2. Power Gel. I gave it a test run this year and found it VERY useful for quick in-game pick-me-ups. Maybe not necessary if you’re a role player every couple points, but if you see lots of action over a weekend, especially if you play defense and/or cut, this is a great way to replenish the tank. By regionals/nationals time I was having one at halftime of every game, with perhaps a bit spread out between points of the second half/late-day games when I needed a bit more energy. It also comes in a caffeinated version, if that’s your schtick–my personal feelings on caffeine as well as the tendency for any caffeine-related surge to eventually be followed by a crash led me to avoid it for tournament purposes (but maybe for single games, or at the end of the day…?).
3. Powerbar/Gatorade Bar/Cliff Bar. Your basic energy bar. This should have some protein in it! Eat it between games when you have some time to actually digest it–in the middle of a game you want the fast-acting stuff, because adrenaline and the need for your body to perform means basic digestion gets slowed (if not shut down) during play. You might want a few extra in case breakfast options are unsatisfying for whatever reason, whether that be rushing to the fields or your distaste for McDonald’s. Remember to start your day off with protein.
4. Gummy bears/something else sweet and sugary and share-able. Great for the end of the day. Nutrition-wise, your primary concern is just to replenish lost energy, and pretty literally any food you eat at that point will do the trick–the simple sugars hit you quicker though (one time high fructose corn syrup actually comes in handy). And plus, your teammates will like you better (and if you’re the sort of person who likes to warm down and get his teammates to do the same, you can give them a carrot to do so).

Fruits and other items tend to be good for halftime of games; they don’t hit you as quick as your gels or Gatorade will, so they’re not ideal for in-game. You can check out a list of the Glycemic Index of several common foods here. This file, incidentally, comes from Kris Kelly’s materials from last year’s Ultimate Coaches and Player’s Conference (UCPC)–the full archive is here. For guidelines of how to use the GI, check the second slide of Kris’ bit on staying balanced. I disagree with his contention about having only high GI food between games–I think you can work in slower digesting stuff at those points (assuming your breaks are longer than 5-10 minutes–which is to say, your game ends before hard cap)–but the basic idea of what to eat is there, if you’re still trying to figure your own tourney diet out.

What foods can’t you do without? What have you eaten and opted against?

I’ve taken far too long to get all my notes from the UCPC in writing on this blog. The last part is probably my favorite part, too, because it has SO much applicability to Dartmouth ultimate for next year.

Wicks coached the Brown men from 2000-2005, if I’m not mistaken, beginning and ending his time there coaching with national titles. As such, you might see how I’d value his insights on how Brown organizes their team and structures their season.

On to the recap. He talked a lot about a lot of things, I’m just going to bullet point and explain things that need elaboration as necessary.

Summer
-Select 2-3 team captains for next year, at most
-EVERYONE should be playing elsewhere! Club ultimate is highly recommended.
-This is when the fall admin/leadership is figured out

Fall
Recruiting/Development
-People with prior skills/experience playing need less pushing to recruit
-Really work to get those athletes! Anyone who played on a varsity team in high school understands what it takes to excel.
-Prioritize players with field sense–it makes the learning go faster
-Brown runs a fall league which have a wide range of skills and are captained by returners. Before games they’ll drill/emphasize a certain skill, then focus on applying it in that game.
-Attendance from returners, etc is obviously highly encouraged.
-The emphasis is on Getting Better, not necessarily to “win” fall league.
-Wicks says Brown works on throwing outside of practice, in order to make better use of the practice time they have. To that end, players are often paired or grouped so that older players can mentor the younger ones. This serves a twofold purpose of getting them to improve their throws but also encourages them to connect and socialize in a non-practice setting.
-Wicks stressed greatly the importance of socializing and building a solid team social dynamic. A team that only knows each other through playing won’t be as well off as a team that’s really invested in everyone else on and off the field–Wicks related a story of how one player had his thesis defense and he emailed a bunch of people, not expecting much, only to have a dozen or so of his teammates turn up.

Brown holds A-team practices separately from fall league, inviting tryouts up as necessary. At this point, Wicks said he did minimal coaching, allowing the captains to take the reins and letting the team develop an identity a bit before he shows up, to avoid impressing his will entirely on them.
-In planning for the season, it’s necessary to plan out practice–what your goals are, what your timeframe is, etc.
-Players on club ultimate teams can and should play with them, but they should also be a presence on the college team during this time, as well.
-Wicks says Huck-a-hunk is great time for Brown to connect with their alums and give their younger/newer players a sense of the Brown ultimate tradition. Pretty good stuff.

Winter
-The team is off until mid-January.
-Brown does a fuel cell system similar to Dartmouth, with 4-man groups (organized by schedule) that meet 2-3 times a week to work on disc skills, lift/do plyos/run
-Track workouts are weekly–they do them with EVERYONE there at once. Wicks admits it made for some strange hours running, but the team-building effect of everybody sweating and working together is great.
-He also emphasized the importance of crescendoing the work as the Winter goes on, keeping the big picture in mind–you ease into hard work such that it doesn’t hit you all at once.
-By the end of the Winter, Brown will have solidified its A-team roster for the Spring.

Spring
-One of the first things Wicks said with regard to the Spring is that he has the players/team pick things to excel at–defensive positioning, the mark, breaking the mark, etc. (This resonates a lot with the “process goals” described by Dr. Goldberg).
-They practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, taking Fridays and Sundays off, with Wednesdays as workout days. On weekends they don’t have tournaments Saturdays are competitive scrimmage days.
A typical Spring practice schedule:
-warmup
-short game to 3
-short skill talk + drill + short game to implement skill
-repeat step 3 w/different focus
-end with a longer scrimmage, possibly with rule changes to emphasize skills discussed (i.e. two score point if you’re working on endzone O and D, etc)
-Alternatively, replace all of the above with scrimmaging, depending on the day/timing in the season

Wicks’ General Observations (These relate more to coaching)
-Provide outlets for fun! Wicks said he would mix up practices every couple weeks with non-ultimate “fun” games to keep things fresh.
-At tournaments, the general philosophy is to “Sub to benefit–” that is, put in players who are capable, but not necessarily your studs, so that they learn how to play and improve and are challenged. If necessary, of course, you sub to win.
-As he stressed before, you should wait until you’re familiar with the team before you get hands-on.
-As a coach, you should never panic. You need to be a reasurring source of positivity for your players to rely on.
-Wicks’ thoughts on playing through injuries: even if you can play through it, don’t when it’s not needed.
-Take risks–establish threats (deep game, breakside, really f’ing fast callahan winner, etc)–be less predictable and mix it up!!
-Keep focused in “easy” games–these become mental games to keep yourself in it. You focus on specific goals within the game instead of just the game itself.

-Before you get into your really competitive games, make sure you make the roles on the team to everyone on the team CLEAR–and keep people in their roles! Absolutely do NOT try anything new at such a late point in the season, stick to what you know.

-With regards to Nationals, Plan! Everything! Make accommodations! The last thing that should happen at Natties is for you or your team to get caught up in logistics. There should be NO surprises.
-With regards to playing, don’t forget that your roleplayers matter a ton!
-Also, make sure your play stays in the “now” a la Dr. Goldberg.

That covers it. There’s a lot here I’m eager to try and implement next year. It took a few months, but the UCPC recaps are finally done! Phew!

Back to the UCPC recaps. I dropped the ball on these for a while, but the last two presentations I wanted to recap are the two that easily contain the most information to apply to an ultimate team. Both given by championship coaches–this one by Tiina Booth, coach of the ever-dominant Amherst Regional High School team, the second by Nathan Wicks, who took Brown to two National College titles–there’s a ton of insight to be gleaned.

Tiina’s presentation focused specifically on applying a lot of what Dr. Goldberg was talking about in his keynote speech. ARHS has been working with Dr. Goldberg for at least a couple years, from what I could gather.

I think one of the main things to keep in mind with all the information I have here is that, while it’s likely that a lot of the things Tiina does with her team does help, the comparison between ARHS and the overwhelming majority of high school teams is such that they would easily still be a top team without applying many of these methods. Don’t assume that anything here will instantly transform a team into a top talent.

Tiina broke up what she does with her team into three parts: pre-season, practice, and tournaments.

In the pre-season, Tiina spoke about goals and goal setting–drawing a large distinction between “outcome goals”–ie, things which you don’t have direct control over, but can influence (like “make nationals”–obviously, every team that sets that as a goal cannot reach it, but it is something to strive for), and “process goals,” which are things you DO have direct control over (like developing a consistent IO forehand break, or being able to run a 75-second 400. Obviously, these need to be realistic goals–nobody’s going to be able to reach a goal of an 8-second 100, or the like). Tiina said that the pre-season is the ONLY time they talk about outcome goals, whereas with process goals every player on the team will have their own individual process goals which they will write on an index card. Tiina has her players list 3 goals at a time. Every two weeks they’ll revisit the process goals, checking off or crossing out every completed process goal and writing in new ones so that players a) always have something to work towards and b) will ideally be making consistent, measurable progress that is easily measured with a glance.

Tiina further augments this process through a “buddy” system, where her older, more experienced players will be paired with newer, less-experienced ones, and they’ll help to hold each other accountable to their goals. The older players will also help the younger players in setting realistic, attainable goals, as well as generally offering guidance and support, on and off the field. This is a relationship that persists throughout the entire season, as all the players build on their process goals towards concrete, on-field results.

In practice, Tiina first spoke about the importance of people having so-called “great practices,” where a player’s focus is high and everything goes well. Tiina emphasized that while it’s certainly not possible for all players to have great practices all the time, it’s usually the case that at least a few will have a great practice on any given day. What she does is, she’ll ask at the end of a practice–”Who had a great practice today?”–and to those players that did, she’ll tell them to remember what it FEELS like, to try and hold on to that sense of confidence, and to carry it with them into tournament play.

She also went over some of the things that go along with having a great practice: high team spirit and enthusiasm (Tiina likes to say that “False enthusiasm is just as good,” and she’s right–false enthusiasm is just as contagious as the real thing, creating a positive self-feeding cycle rather than a negative one); drilling well–putting 100% effort and focus into everything practiced, keeping high standards for the team; and setting goals while scrimmaging–picking a player to cover who you know will be a challenge to guard, for example.

Ultimately, one of Tiina’s main goals in practice is to push the team beyond its comfort zone, to have them “Get comfortable being UN-comfortable,” so the team can relax as tournaments, which have a relatively lower intensity level. She also stressed the importance of eventually giving the team ownership of itself–a good coach will guide the team without constraining it.

With regards to tournaments, Tiina liked to compare them to a theatrical performance, where a team goes out and performs just as it rehearsed–Jim Parinella made a more apt comparison, though, in saying that a tournament is more like an improvisational comedy performance, where there are preset rules to follow for success, but within the framework of those rules there is plenty of room for adjustment to a given circumstance.

Tiina stressed that, in tournaments, as a coach she does very little micromanaging and absolutely does NOT introduce anything new to the team–she lets them play (though she won’t hesitate to tell her team to get its ass in order if it’s slacking). When it comes time to talk to the team, she’ll pick one or at most two things to focus on, keeping it simple and to the point, so as not to take her players out of a performance mindset.

She likes having a ritual warm-up for her team, and this is one of the things she lets her team take ownership of–especially for a team like ARHS, where they’re always under the scrutiny of somebody, and often play in games with decent-sized audiences, having the escape of a ritual warm-up definitely works towards reaching an optimal performance state.

In-game, Tiina is adamant about having strong, active sidelines–in many situations, players will be assigned to different parts of the field, rotating between the near and far sideline so nobody is too disconnected from the rest of the team, or talking to different roles (for example, “buddies” can talk to each other when one is in and the other out). When it comes to sidelines, she always wants her sidelines to be up and in the game regardless of score, regardless of situation, regardless of team morale–the sidelines should never be a tell of the team pulse.

Attitude-wise, at tournaments the attitude should always be positive, loose, and relaxed. It’s important to push in practice, but at tournaments it’s far more important to relax and just play the game the way you know how. Hand-in-hand with this is dealing with mental traps, distractions, etc. Dealing with mental blocks is often as simple as acknowledging the distraction and moving on, rather than trying to ignore it. Like Dr. Goldberg says, it’s not a matter of how well you can stay focused, but how quickly and easily you can recognize a loss in focus and re-focus. She said that, if she’s got a player who’s really in their own head, she’ll force them to take a break, tell them to go for a jog and try and work through whatever mental blocks they have, and come back ready to play.

Lastly, Tiina does a team morale check of sorts before games–she’ll ask what kind of nervous the team is: good, bad, or not nervous enough. In the case of the first, it’s good to have some jitters and be a bit aroused in anticipation of playing. In the case of the second, bad nervous often has to do with uncontrollables–worried about losing to a good team, worried about impressing the parents, etc. In dealing with these sorts of blocks, it often helps to list the uncontrollables that you are or might be getting hung up on in order to better acknowledge and deal with them. In the case of the third, which can happen when playing a team that ARHS knows it is far better than, Tiina or the team will agree to up the ante a bit by setting some harder process goals for themselves–zero turnovers, etc.

In an effort to reduce the level of distraction of her team (though I think this is kind of silly), Tiina never refers to the opposing team by name. In the vein of keeping the focus on the self (Tiina also never lets her players scout other teams, since it changes their focus), every team is numbered accordingly with their place in the season (team #1 is the first team, etc).

That sums up my notes on Tiina’s presentation. A ton of really, really good stuff to apply there.

I wrote this up in the hotel at Vegas, trying to stay more concise than my usual rambling fare. The presentation was very informative, and Dr. Goldberg gives a very convincing argument for coming over to his way of thinking. I was going to put a link pointing to the downloads section of the UCPC website, where Devlin’s audio recording of the keynote was posted previously, but it seems that somebody has mandated it be taken down. Your loss!

Anyhow, below are some of the main points Dr. Goldberg made:

•The mind, body, and performance are all related. The Mind’s conceptions of what you should focus on and do, and how you might fare, in turn influences your body, effecting basic physiological changes—your muscles tighten, your breath gets shallower, you essentially can “psych yourself out,” all through the power of suggestion that comes when you think about performance. Even seemingly positive thoughts such as “I won’t drop the disc” are still rooted in failure and prime your body for it. And the Body’s state in turn influences one’s performance, which effects how your mind perceives your ability, and so on…

•The distinction between the “right mindset” and the “wrong mindset” for optimal performance is as simple as the difference between being “in the experience” or “in your head.” When focusing on the experience itself, one should relax, trust one’s skill and LET IT HAPPEN. Practice is when you work and refine your skills, when you’re performing you need to let your body do what it’s been trained to do. Staying in the present, and focused on yourself and your teammates, and things you can directly control, are all part of the “right mindset.” The “wrong mindset,” on the other hand, comes when you are trying too hard, or are too tentative, because you are too focused on the OUTCOME and not focused enough on the PROCESS. Thinking about the last play that just happened, or what might happen if you score this goal, or generally focusing on things you can’t directly control (like your opponents) will all put you in the “wrong mindset,” elevating your stress, lowering your confidence, and therefore lowering your overall level of play.

•The distinction between the fore and hindbrain—the forebrain is where you process thoughts, essentially where cognition takes place. Your hindbrain is where your intuitive knowledge rests, in a sense your more primitive understanding of things. Optimal performance hinges on your staying in the hindbrain, where you have easy access to intuited skills like throwing, rather than the forebrain where you’re too busy processing to react quickly and decisively.

•Finally, Dr. Goldberg emphasized that it is not focus itself, but controlling the loss of focus, that allows you to stay in an optimal performance state. EVERYBODY loses focus—the best are better able to recognize these lapses and put themselves back on target sooner. You can practice/train your mental facilities in this regard through things like meditation—Dr. Goldberg suggests focusing on a Frisbee, set aside somewhere, for set periods of time, recognizing and acknowledging distractions and letting them go to refocus on the disc. Eventually he says you can get to a point where you can set the disc on top of a TV and still maintain focus on the Frisbee.

Continuing in my UCPC seminar review, Ben Wiggins’ seminar on marking.

It was an interesting seminar–definitely different from what I was anticipating; instead of perhaps an endorsement of well-known marking strategies, or a long list of little tips, Wiggins goes for the marking jugular, so to speak, with a few solid to useful ideas and a few more radical, though potentially very useful, ideas, as well as a fair bit about team defense (of which the mark is possibly one of the most important components, as the mark is the most powerful defensive position on the field in terms of space defended by a good mark). Wiggins’ target audience for a lot of these thoughts is elite-level play, where a defense cannot expect the offense to turn the disc over without considerable pressure, and where the offense will likely score with great consistency nonetheless–where a single turnover or two might be all a D-line needs to win a game, so a lot of these ideas aren’t necessarily for, say, rec league pickup.

I’m going to shoot for more brevity in this post and try to list more than rant.

Simple, useful ideas:

• The notion of “blocking back,” whereby a mark reaches away from the thrower rather than towards them when attempting to pointblock; this allows for a slightly longer window to react to the disc’s movement.
• Similarly, Wiggins suggested keeping the head back as far as possible while marking, to give oneself perhaps an extra split-second to see (and perhaps tip/block) a throw
• When trying to stop a continuation off of a dump/etc., the player setting the mark should take a very quick glance (glance, don’t stare) upfield while running to set the mark–look for a split second, and then process what you see as you run to set the mark, don’t get caught looking away from the thrower
• A good mark will learn which fakes are bad, and will ignore them as non-threats, rather than responding to any movement and letting the handler toy with the mark.
• Finish drills! In a dump-swing drill, for example, the last handler and mark should go for 1-2 seconds as though the handler were trying to continue the disc upfield. Over many iterations of a given drill this gives everyone on the team dozens more opportunities to work on marking per practice.

Less simple, but useful ideas:

• Marking with staggered feet–a bit controversial perhaps, but Wiggins insists it has situational value. Going on the notion of “blocking back,” the side which your foot is back on will have a slightly larger window with which to react to a throw on that side (so one generally wants the foot back on the side of the throw that’s a bigger threat). It also should help with movement toward or away from the thrower to avoid potential fouls.
• A moving start out of a stoppage–instead of standing passively when tapping the disc in on the mark, while the O makes play calls, etc, Wiggins suggests a mark that is moving from one side to the other as the disc is tapped in–supposedly this takes away certain options and forces the O to adjust immediately as the disc comes in, but I’m not so sure of its efficacy. Something to try.
• The notion of “baiting,” where a mark will show one look (say, with hands held as though to stop a high-release, allowing the under) for a few marks/a full point, and then when they know how the handler will throw against this mark, make an adjustment and go for the point block. Definitely a risky proposition in some cases, but against high-level O, a chance like this for a point block is as golden a chance as any you’ll see.
• The idea of always covering the space on field with the mark, instead of the sideline (i.e., having your butt facing the sideline, stopping a backhand when the backhand would be OB anyways): this is common sense to a point, but Wiggins advocates for it to the point where the upline throw, while difficult, is (I think) unacceptably easy to get off. Again, how you implement this would depend on the level of offense you’re trying to D up.

Team D strategies: you’d be better served looking at Wiggins’ materials on the UCPC downloads than my explanation here (UPDATE: note that the link is now broken, with no apparent replacement elsewhere on the internet–my apologies). It’s definitely worth noting that a tall, athletic team like Ego designed their D to force deep throws and use their athletes to their advantage, while a team like the Drizzle implemented a team D strategy that focused more on creating havoc and poach opportunities since they were playing a team that was clearly above their heads. Something to consider when thinking about one’s own team D.

Improving individual/team marks: nothing too revolutionary here, I think. Obviously a fitter mark is a better one. Wiggins suggests keeping stats to assess the quality of marks (yardage allowed), as well as using video. Pickup is a great time to implement new strategies or work to incorporate more elements to your game. It’s important to scheme one’s defense to play to one’s strengths (and/or to dumb down your opponents’ strength). Realize that the best defenders are not always the best markers, and vice-versa. Know who excels at what so you don’t put a line out that’s overmatched on the mark, and realize that good marks invariably contribute to errant or rushed throws that result in D’s downfield.

This was probably the lightest seminar, in terms of relative amount of stuff I might take with me and incorporate. That said, it was still definitely some valuable stuff.

Still in the reviewing queue:

• Keynote by Dr. Goldberg
• Applying Mental Toughness Strategies by Tiina Booth (ARHS coach)
• A Season of High-Level Ultimate by Nathan Wicks (former Brown men’s coach, ’00-’05 (note they won championships in his first and last years coaching them))
• Perhaps a brief bit on the Panel Discussion.

Probably in that order. (UPDATE: check the UCPC label for the other recaps)

Some links to other UCPC reviews:
Lean and Hungry FitnessGeorge Cooke
Jim Parinella

I plan to disseminate all the information I gleaned from this weekend’s Ultimate Coaches and Players Conference (UCPC) on this blog; I’m going to break it up into parts for (hopefully) easier reading.

Let me first say that the UCPC was a great success. All of the seminars I went to were very helpful and informative, and I’ve come away from the conference with more new knowledge to apply than I know what to do with (thankfully, I have pages of notes to refer back to). Tiina and George definitely surpassed what I think anyone was expecting for the first time a conference of this kind was ever put on, and I’m looking forward eagerly to see what they do with it in years to come.

I’m going to start my recaps with the part I’m most likely to forget detail about soonest, the seminar on training for ultimate. You might think I’m most likely to forget about it soonest because it’s harder for me to remember, but it’s more the opposite–I’m so familiar with a lot of the material that if I wait too long to go over it I’ll confuse what I learned with what I already know.

The presentation was definitely useful–given almost entirely by Bryan Doo, a former DoG player who is now the trainer for the Boston Celtics (Dan was there, but he seemed to be playing tech support…I’m sure what exactly his role was in the program, actually). Just one look at him would tell you that he’s a pretty fit guy, but he continued to put it on display for us through demonstrations of his athleticism in the various drills and exercises he went over for us.

Doo opened by saying that Ultimate is, by far, the hardest sport to train for, and I’m inclined to agree. Given that in a single point, you can be running, sprinting, stopping, changing direction, jumping, laying out, and throwing, and that you have to maintain this level of performance over the course of at least a minute or two, oftentimes longer, before you can get a break, and that while most sports have single games, ultimate has players going for a full day or weekend, it’s definitely unique in that it requires great conditioning as well as great strength and athleticism to excel (or a deep roster so you can sub out often).

He began his discussion of fitness by talking about the two most under-worked (and under-appreciated) muscle groups in the body: the hamstrings and the gluteals. The majority of people are quad-dominant; with better hamstring strength and better gluteal activation, you’ll take a lot of strain off of your quads and enable yourself to go harder for longer, as well as reducing injury risk.

Doo strongly advocated against using simple leg curl machines for training the hamstrings, emphasizing movements that involve eccentric contraction (legthening the muscle under force), as the hamstrings are your primary decelerators when running. He pointed to leg curls with the legs on a stability ball and deadlifts (I volunteered “deadlifts” when he asked what people did to train their hamstrings and got a cry of “Yes! It’s like I plant them out there!” in response) as great exercises for exercises to train the hamstrings. With stronger hamstrings, you’ll be better able to stop–I shouldn’t need to say how important being able to stop is for cutting in ultimate; additionally it’ll reduce your injury risk–if your hamstrings aren’t strong enough to stop you at a full sprint, you’re more likely to be slowing down/stopping/planting and tearing/straining your hamstrings.

For the glutes, Doo took a different approach. The thing with the gluteal muscles is not so much to work toward strengthening them as it is to work towards activating (ie, contracting) them better. Proper gluteal activation ensures proper hip function, and weak glutes will force your quads to work harder and heighten your injury risk in the back and hamstrings, as they’ll have to compensate as well (an aside–this illustrates why it’s important to not simply “treat the symptom” with regards to injuries. Your hamstrings can get tight or be strained for any number of different reasons–don’t just do leg curls and expect it to get better, because it won’t fix the true problem. Look to the rest of your body for the cause and treat that). Doo had a number of different exercises and drills to work towards better gluteal activation–leg bridges, single leg leg bridges (going up and down or holding them, and putting your hands on your butt to feel the glutes and make sure they contract), and a couple of drills I couldn’t possibly do justice trying to explain here. Check out the UCPC’s download page for a link to the videos we saw (I haven’t checked the links myself, but you should be able to find them directly or in the powerpoint) to see–Doo definitely emphasized the importance of these drills for becoming more athletic.

He also made it a point to mention that when doing these drills (some of which are plyometric in nature), they should be done when well-rested and NOT as a conditioning tool unless you’re already very good at the drill. When done as conditioning and form breaks down from inexperience, you’re increasing your injury risk.

The other major training facet he emphasized was core strength, especially rotational strength. As an ultimate player rotational movement is a fact of life, and it also comes into play whenever you run, jump, or really do anything with one arm or one leg. You can train rotational movements any number of ways, I won’t go into them here. He also emphasized general core strength, as a strong core makes your whole body more efficient and stable.

The last two parts Doo spoke about were injuries and general training strategies. On the topic of injuries, Doo spoke briefly, mentioning things like RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate–the hierarchy of treating minor injuries (minor meaning you don’t have a broken bone sticking out–in cases like that, a trip to the hospital is best)) and the need to maintain conditioning, with lower-impact activity if necessary such as swimming. He also emphasized the need to work slowly back towards athletic activity–with a mantra of “stability before mobility,” Doo said that an athlete should be able to hold a position before doing exercises that move through a position. He also stressed the importance of getting one’s range of motion back after injury–if you fail to do your rehab correctly, for example, you’ll wind up compensating elsewhere and increasing your injury risk–if not at the first injury site, then elsewhere.

Finally, he spoke in broader terms about training well. He started by attaching static stretching in your warmup, as lengthening your muscles before you do activity actually decreases the amount of strength you can apply (think of how much force is applied by a rubber band you pull apart at two points close together vs. at two points farther apart), and instead recomended low-intensity, range-of-motion type movements to get the blood flowing and the body ready to compete–he also differentiated between an “active” warmup where there is light jogging and dynamic stretching from standing position, and a “less active” warmup when you’re already warm (say, between games) and want to conserve energy and instead do less engaging dynamic work sitting or lying on the ground.

He talked for a bit about speed, agility, and quickness, and he went through some drills that work on these aspects; he emphasized a few qualities that will enhance these traits, namely that: an athlete should have a strong base (think of how you stand when getting ready to mark/guard somebody–you should be on the balls of your feet, already applying pressure inwards toward the ground. This gives you a stable position from which you can explode in either direction without having to waste time moving from some other ready position to this one); an athlete should have awareness of where his or her center of gravity is; and that an athlete should apply force to the ground. The last one is of particular importance. The more force you apply to the ground, the farther and faster you go (This is why I place weight/strength training above any other training modalities for becoming a better athlete).

The last thing he mentioned was the need to cool down, admitting that he’s not particularly dilligent about it himself. At this point, it’s OK to do static stretching to increase your range of motion, because you (hopefully) won’t be doing anything too high stress for the rest of the day. It’s important to use the cooldown as a time to relax and get your heart rate back to normal, as these things will enhance recovery.