A Few Last Peeves

Okay, so we're tapering down to game-time, and we're still concentrating on light sprinting and plenty of scrimmaging. There are few things that still bug me, though.

Don't Chase Down Someone Else's Huck

Okay, so someone strikes, maybe a little bit hesitantly, but he has the lead, and the huck goes up. It hangs. What do you?

Obviously, you should support your teammate. But support means getting open for him when he lands with the disc. You should run after the huck, yes, but you must give your teammate plenty of room. You should not drag your defender into the jump-off, and most importantly, you should not rush ahead to compete in the jump-off yourself.

This is because greater numbers crowding the disc and vying for it always advantages the defense. A lone offender, for example, ought to have a 100% success rate at hauling down a disc. An offender with a competing mark on his hip might have just a 50-50 chance of catching the huck. What about an offender with a competing teammate? Well, the odds of success are good, because either one catching it is fine, but there is still a signficant chance of neither getting it, because they are both still competing. Maybe the odds of success are now just 85%, but probably lower depending on the players' awareness, focus and skill. This situation should never occur, because we would call off one of the players for this very reason.

And yet, for some reason, people think that if they see a two-on-two battle between a teammate and his defender, they should jump in as well. Increased competition for the disc does not advantage the offense. Please, trust your teammate. There is nothing you can do to help him by crowding him. If your defender runs in without you, go to the endzone, or somewhere else that will prove disastrous when your teammate gets the disc.

If the throw for some reason lands in the middle of a vertical stack, then this is not your fault, and if you have a good line on the disc, then you might as well jump for it. But if I see one of our own players unthinkingly box out the other for the huck, or violate the other's airspace, or foul him (and yes, I have seen these things happen, mysteriously), I will reacquaint you with my anger.


"Swing" Does Not Mean "Huck"

Enough said.



Make Space for Each Other

This is especially critical in zone offense. It does not necessarily mean "run away" -- that's a soccer strategy. Rather, take an example from rugby, where groups of several players may weave in order to suddenly open a protected hole for another player. If you cannot beat your defender to an open space, you can drag him away from it. If you are standing somewhere, you can vacate ("clear") it so that someone else may enter.

The problem that often occurs is that multiple tactical geniuses on the field may simultaneously decide to make space for someone else's cut (e.g., everyone jogs deep at once, every one crashes the cup, everyone cuts to the same side) while the intended beneficiary has no idea what is taking place before him. What is the solution? Communicate, dammit!

When handling in the cup, it can be vastly useful to call someone's name and physically point to where you want him to go. Why not? You're not realistically exposing a secret play or violating a code of silence. If you need someone to make a complementary cut or to see the hole you're opening, tell him! If you need someone else to take the dump position, yell for it. In the zone O, tell someone to stretch deep or to drift to the far sideline.

Thanksgiving

Over the weekend you have two exercises to perform for your teammates.

-A 60min. zone 1 run and 20min-30min of strength (your discretion). followed by 20min. of stretching.


-A light sprinting session:

1. Dynamic Stretches (called "As, Bs, Cs," these are the middle three kicking exercises in our warm-up)
2. 4x Sprint 40yds, jogging back to the start in between.
3. Side-shuffles and jog for 2min-3min.
4. REPEAT (3x total)

Focus on technique as much as possible. Time yourself to measure your consistency, if you like. Begin the sprints explosively, and then gently run them out before returning to the start.

Good work on the intervals tonight, boys. Do yourselves proud.

Zone 5 Intervals

This is a variation on the Grand Mal intervals described in the archives. Thursday night, we'll dedicate the end of the practice to doing them.

In these intervals, we sprint up the road beside Jean Royce Hall toward John Orr Tower. We will divide the team into quarters (four heats), and each will sprint for thirty seconds up the hill. You then get 60sec. to quickly return to the start and to assume a bridge hold for 30sec. You start your bridge hold as soon as the preceding heat sprints, and you begin your sprint as soon they finish.

We will repeat this cycle 8 times, with a longer break after the first four.

The key to these intervals is to find a consistent rhythm. You will find out how far you can sprint in thirty seconds on the first interval, and from then on, you must try to repeatedly reach that mark. It will be difficult, but a conditioned sprinter can make up to six nearly identical repeat performances before his muscles tire too much. There is very little idle rest in this programme, so remember to beat back to the starting line quickly.

The "lack of rest" may seem harsh, but in truth, it is merely "active rest." In a game, you should always be active, even when you are not making the primary cut. You might be making space, clearing, making a continuation cut, putting on a hard mark, etc. Everyone has to commit earnestly to these different tasks and we cannot accept anyone's slipping into the "I-don't-want-to-step-up" syndrome. This drill reinforces that work ethic, dividing your time into three different tasks that must be taken seriously. When you finish this exercise, you should lose your fear of hard cutting; in fact, you will probably relish it. Give this thought. You should always be looking forward to the next sprint, and looking for the chance.

Sunday Fartlek

This Sunday, please set aside 12:00-14:00 for conditioning purposes. Meet at the PEC at noon. We'll be running to Ft. Henry as our warmup, and then running back when we're done. This will leave us approximately 75 minutes for a fartlek followed by strength work, which should be plenty.

The fartlek will be a zone 4, and I think we'll run it in follow-the-leader style. That means we adjust our running speed according to the slope of the hill, and the steeper it is, the harder we'll go. I'll lead the run, and I'll turn uphill at random and irregular intervals, making this a mental challenge as well. We will do this for about 30min-45min depending on the condition of the group. This will be hard. Prepare yourself. Every year, we have stragglers who fall by the wayside.

Afterward, we'll retire to the steep side of the fort for some plyometric work before returning to the PEC.

When September Ends

Intervals

We'll be doing over-under intervals this Thursday.

First, you all need to recall what the "zone" system is. If you do not know what I mean by "zone 3," kindly refer to my August 21, 2005 post ("The Right Zone"). Then refer to my September 28 2005 post ("Over-Under Intervals"), where the workout is described. The justification for these workouts, as I explained earlier, is now considered outdated (as the "anaerobic threshold" is no longer considered a correct model), but the spirit of the workout is the same. The object of this programme is to run the fast intervals fast enough to gradually but noticeably tire, and the rest periods should be just slow enough to sustain for a long time. In the end, your body will adapt by learning to rely a little more on aerobic glycolysis to supply its energy.

Now, every year, I see people slip into a brisk jog slurred across both the fast and rest periods. You must not allow yourself to do this. The entire object of this exercise is to alternate between two distinct speeds. Make yourself some mental cues when it's time to go fast. I, for example, often run the fast intervals without letting my heel touch the ground. It's a good calf workout besides.

That said, we will meet at the PEC (where you can change, if you need to) at 17:30 this Thursday and proceed to a track (probably either at Tindall field or Richardson Stadium).

We'll also be doing more anaerobic work tonight, including sprints and plyometrics. If you're too sick to sprint, you still ought to be able to do the strength work without damaging your lungs. I should warn you, though, that plyometrics have a better history of making people vomit. Sorry. But, hey, Melnyk vomits if you look at him the wrong way.

Zone Offense

So we spent a lot of time flogging the issue of generalized zone offense last night. I feel like a TA again, because the team says they understand, and I don't believe them when they say it. Zone offense is like the thermodynamics of ultimate-- it's hard to visualize, it's hard to explain, and the majority of players get through a zone by coincidence and the brute force of throwing skill instead of by a system of well-timed cuts. Seriously.

Lat night, for example, was without any wind, making everyone on the field a confident thrower. We saw a lot of scoobers and blades, high-releases and even push-passes. Now, these are all great throws to have in your arsenal, but they are all notorious in the wind. I don't want the team thinking that zone offense is initiated by an upside-down throw through the cup followed shortly by a huck. Are you going to throw those in a rainstorm? If so, that's great-- go practice your rainstorm scoobers.

Fundamentally, you don't need fantastic throws to defeat a zone-- you can use consistency, discipline, and good field sense to accomplish that. Our rookies should make special note of this. The handlers should swing the disc back and forth across the field looking for their chance to safely throw upfield. Eventually, our cutters will time their cuts correctly to divide the mid's attention (two cuts splitting the side, and one cut striking deep). If the zone is putting a trap on the sideline, then the handler can quickly take his look upline and then return the disc to the middle before the cup sets the trap. These are good fundamentals. Just take care of the disc; don't let yourself get trapped; look for holes; look to see what your teammates are doing.

Now, suppose you do get trapped. Well, now your teammates need to create options for getting you out of it. You could, if you're an excellent thrower, break the cup or throw the hammer, but again, you shouldn't need to do so. Everyone was e-mailed a supplement on zone offense titled "the Anti-Trap." Please read this, then approach us with your questions.

Injuries and Recovery

It amazes me, every single year, how many people drop out of training because of muscle and joint injuries. It costs us every year. It bites into our training time, it forces us to revise our conditioning plans, and it can bring the whole team down when someone gets hurt. Granted, it's hard to blame someone for suffering a joint injury, because regardless of how well you prepare, bad luck will eventually find your Achilles heel; you can mitigate the chances of severe injury, but there's always that chance that you'll land especially awkwardly or somebody will hit you at just the wrong angle. Muscle injuries, on the other hand, drive me nuts, because these are far more predictable and preventable. When people pull a muscle, they behave as though their car just flattened a tire-- as if fate was unkind and dealt their vehicle a stroke of misfortune. Sometimes, they think of it as a mark of pride: "I work so hard that I pulled a muscle!" That's the wrong attitude. You are responsible for your body, and injury prevention is just as essential to your training as running and throwing.

Ultimate, as we all know, demandingly combines both explosive sprinting and jumping with the need for twisting and flexibility. There never was a more obvious recipe for injury in the history of sport . . . except maybe for jousting . . . or duck-hunting . . . whatever. And yet, ultimate players are characteristically nonchalant when it comes to maintaining their bodies. Players will try to shirk warmups, skip cool-downs or stretches. Be responsible for your health! Read on.

The Warmup

This is not busy work. The obvious purpose of the warmup, profoundly enough, is to elevate the body temperature. A warm body is more pliable, circulates blood better, and tires less easily. The quality of your warmup is easily shown to have an effect on your performance and likelihood of injury. Take your exercises seriously.

Stretching

For some reason, I only see people stretch at the start of practice, when we do it as a team. I have written about this before (see archives), but it bears repeating: stretching before practice does not reduce your chances of injury. We do it following the warmup because it is best to stretch your muscles while they are still warm. Stretching before practice can loosen the muscles from which we'll need more range of motion (e.g. the groin, if you stretch it for more than 6sec. at a time) or it can further prepare the muscles to make explosive movements (e.g., the quadriceps, if you stretch for less than 3sec. at a time). But again, this is just part of the warmup for us, and if you are destined to injure yourself tonight, then stretching before practice is going to do little to help.

Much more effective in the long run is light stretching after practice. This is when your muscles will tend to stiffen after a long workout, and if they are still warm, it is an excellent opportunity to stretch them. Let me put this in perspective. We spend hours every night sprinting around the field. We strengthen those muscles; we improve their muscle tone; we tend to make them tighter. The tightening of muscles into piano strings is a normal consequence of explosive anaerobic work on a muscle and its tendons. Disciplined, regular, and frequent stretching will keep tightening in check, and maybe improve your flexibility in time.

Strength

Strong muscles do a remarkable job at holding a joint together. Go to the gym or do plyometrics. I know (and some of you know very well) that I have especially injury-prone shoulders. I compensate by doing lots of shoulder-specific strength-training to avoid future injuries. The same is true for the knees and ankles; if these are your weakpoints, take care of them.

Recovery

Okay, so you've hurt yourself. What should you do?

First, you must rest the injured joint or muscle. Ice it (ten minutes on, ten minutes off, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. . . .). Take 600mg ibuprofen twice a day (my apologies to those of you who are drug puritans and yogis, but I'm interested in getting you back on the field ASAP). Try to figure out, specifically, what you've injured. If it's a tendon or ligament, for example, you can massage it lovingly; if it's bursitis, hands off! Lastly, keep active. Stretch, very lightly, and make a point of working the affected region through a comfortable range of motion. You'll need to get muscle-specific exercises, too, to strengthen the affected area.

Help Your Teammates

There are 14 players on the field, but there's an army of support on the sidelines. If you're injured, you're now an unsung hero. I cannot overemphasize how important sideline assistance is. You're an extra set of eyes, an extra voice, and an extra push when the effort gets tiresome. It's not easy, but this is not an easy game. I have a lot of respect for sideline help.

Buckle Down

So far, we've been going relatively easy on ourselves to avoid a burnout. By this time, you should have completely recovered from tryouts, and we're going to tighten the screws a little this Tuesday night before tapering off again. Come mentally prepared to work hard and fast. Arrive early and warm up your throws well before the drills. We're going to work on our throws, our marks, our set plays, and we're going to do it all to an athletic pace.

This time, I want everyone to do a 60min. jog on Friday followed by 20min. stretching. I'm serious. Do it either in the morning, or show up at Tindall Field 80min before the bus leaves, and be there ready to run, because I WILL make you do it. You can laugh, if you like, but we'll all know who wants to win and who doesn't care by Friday evening, won't we?

See you Tuesday night. Tear the roof off.