Putting together a big review post!
Sorry for double post.
I have about a month until most tryouts have started, probably looking to get a gym membership and get my explosiveness/power up to scratch, while maintaining conditioning.
2012-13HS Junior
-1 year of loose jump manual training
-relatively high level of conditioning from track -5:34 treadmill mile
-168 - ? lbs - very little gym muscle (BS 185 *5 with butt wink)
---hip driven squat technique
-training like a dog - super high vol, frequency and pretty intense track workouts
-wow, didn't even realize, even back then my training was kind of crazy. The way I remember this time period was: my track work really helped, but mostly I was just talented
*during high vol's of training, vert dropoff by 4+ in.
2013-14HS Senior
BW:172
-only 1 logged workout: apparently I was squatting very frequently
-from what I can remember, worse shape than Junior yr, no track workouts
2014-15College Freshman
BW:187 (much higher)
-BS 265 *5
-pretty high gym vol, freq
-Str training - expl. squats, fair amount of supplemental work like hip thrusts, BSS, bad form cleans
-The adductor strain that plagued me for years......
-Pain during Adduction, but not when hip is 90 degrees in relation to the femur. Worst pain is when femur is at an acute angle in relation to the pelvis and I try to adduct.
-Restricted femur ROM. Femur can't flex all the way
-After running or cutting, pain radiates to hip flexor area
-Groin pain not present during heavy activity, groin pain appears after heavy activity, and is especially bad the morning after.
-Lumbar pain during hyperextension
-Lumbar pain after running, cutting
-Occasional ITBS pain
-Sometimes, pain during left hip extension
-SLRVJ 28-29"
-apparently decently in-shape, at least for league standard - mostly from lifting
*heavy BB BSS - may have been onto something with that, based on movement in video
*mixed pullup performance - may have been related to mechanics changes
*asymmetry correction block... wow cool
Left calf stronger, right quad stronger, left leg especially poor balance, left calf tight, hamstrings tight, right foot tended to invert during hamstring stretch- poor medial hamstring flexibility, External+Internal rotators tight, Abductors tight.
no log of club season
2015-16College Sophomore
BW: 175 (log says PR.. must have been cutting) up to 195 late in college season (+some muscle, some fat), back at 177 early club season
-Similar str loading to previous year
-310*3, 332.5*1 BS (some reps more hip, some more knee dominant)
-SVJ PR: +2" = 31"
-SL jump focus
-training pretty high vol, high freq almost daily, more specific to athleticism than previous years, looks like a lot of supplemental work
-college season "fun"
For me the bigger problem is weed: after being high pretty much all day for a few months I noticed that I'm speaking differently.. Also my motivation is just gone. Straight up gone. I can get myself to throw for a few hours because that's easy, but all other training and schoolwork have suffered a lot.
2015-16 conditioningearly college season aer
32:19 jog, 3.68 miles = 8:47 mile pace
22 minutes at 8:00 mile pace. 2.75 miles
sweet spot endurance training
-2.7 miles in 20:49 (goal: 21:00)
-10 minute rest
-2.7 miles in 20:42 (goal:21:00)
(7:45 mile pace)
-not in super great shape at start of club season - too much weight room and technique stuffI think I just had some off days
--6x800m (4-5 min breaks): 3:02, 3:14, 3:51, 3:25, 3:45, 3:30. Ran these with a teammate. Considerably worse than I expected.
-mid club season mostly pickup, league, practice and some technique work
-late club season conditioning - more conditioning volume during late season, which actually sapped my explosiveness
60 secs rest between reps, 3 mins between sets
Set 1: 200m x3, 100m x1
Set 2: 200m x2, 100m x2
Set 3: 200m x1, 100m x3
200s were mostly around 28-31s
100s were 13-14s
2015-16 misc notes*running technique not good for layouts
ne problem might have something to do with my running technique and trying to take too long strides
IDK why you put power cleans for ham power. They are glute + ham, but glute dominant so you're getting full glute + ham hip extension power from those
worth checking out this dude's free tutorials on how to attempt self-care of different major pain spots. i can't find the home link for this series but the articles are all found at the bottom of this one: https://www.painscience.com/articles/spot-01-suboccipitals.php.
The problem with regular RDL is it becomes more of a back exercise for me: my back rounds slightly at 285, and pretty badly at 315
Also, SL bounds are golden for SL jumps so when you do them remember to adjust the intensity so that you are feeling the glutes/hams do work
A good posture is probably “dynamic,” emphasizing change and movement. Keeping active, frequently changing our posture, and experimenting with new ways of moving through the world are probably good responses to the uncertainties of posture https://www.painscience.com/articles/posture.php
I have this problem, whenever I'm being forced straight up I tend to throw high release backhand hucks
My throws, vertical and decision making have a hard drop-off when I'm tired
Accel starts
starts felt extremely slow, especially off the left leg
Get your volume in with decline leg raises with a dumbbell. go more intense lower vol with decline situps
sled drags good for low impact conditioning
Low back rounding DL
i'd personally avoid fighting through fatigue on deadlifts. imho, i'd drop the weight and never let form stray anywhere away from perfect. then like you said, i'd focus on RDL more.
deadlifting off blocks is also a possibility..
pretty decent results with Westside squats, unsure how much of it was actually the squat and how much the assistance work
the 40 time improvements aren't too crazy, makes me unsure of whether to use WS squat, which I was really considering
https://bretcontreras.com/dynamic-effort-box-squats-and-acceleration-improvements-interview-with-scott-taylor/
C2 rower intervals?
Yes. A million times over biking. Biking shortens the hamstrings and will have short term negative affects on your sprint speed. And it doesn't really rest it... And rollerblading just looks lame...
suck badly at breathing during certain movements. Bounding, DL's, RDL's, BSS, sprints. If I sit/stand upright with chest out, I cannot take a deep breath
this has gotten a lot better with alignment work
ham tears
Hamstrings are a difficult muscle. I've torn mine 3x and I'm still not much wiser with what's bad pain and what's good pain.
1) Running PR level times at meets does not make you sore. Running a 60m and 200m is not much volume at all if your in shape. It doesn't feel hard. But if you run 6.7 and your previous best is 6.9 you have put so much fatigue in those hamstrings. Not realizing this is idiotic.
2) Lifting weights post performance isn't always stupid but lifting dynamically is. Respect performance.
3) Asking for more speed and power out of my legs dynamically in a sport where I cannot accelerate gradually when in a fatigued state.
So train your sore hamstrings. What you want to avoid is fatigued legs that are not sore. This is the double whammy. Fatigued means more likely to tear. Not sore means still capable of producing lots of power. Lots of power combined with high likelihood of tearing is not good.
I call it "PR fatigue"
T0ddday speed correlations
However, there are a few exercises that do past the "ability test". What I mean by that is not that you must use it as a training tool but that in my observation of sprinters where N == A LOT - I have seen very very very few fast athletes who cannot execute it well if given time to acclimate to it. Obviously this is a continuum. Some sprinters can bench press a great deal but I have seen many sprinters who can't bench press much at all even when given time to learn the exercise. For squats this is less true. Two of the exercises I find to be by far the most correlated with sprinting speed are:
1) Heavy overhead backwards shot tosses
2) Weighted decline situps
I don't mean all sprinters train with these exercises. But show me a sprinter who runs 10.5 and is given a mens shot put and shown how to throw it backwards and cannot throw it 15 yards and I will be shocked. I haven't seen one. Dan Pfaff goes further with this and claims it actually is extremely strongly correlated in female** sprinters and he gives specific speed and shot throw distance relationships.
He was telling me all this stuff about buying isolated amino acids, mixing them and taking them at strict time intervals to maximize gains. Also he recommended biotech anadrol, supposedly the closest thing to a legal steroid.
Noticed my buddy internally rotates his right leg when he runs, where he injured his ACL. I have a similar problem where I sometimes externally rotate my left leg where I have minor impingement, but I haven't noticed it lately. My high school track coach said it's not a huge deal.
t0ddday sprint criticism
you are under striding severely - you are cause you don't produce power. All you should think about right now is power. Alt leg bounding, then speed bounding, then sprinting which shouldn't feel all that different is the path you need to get on
t0ddday aer vs anaer conditioning
track interval work has more than a surplus of aerobic challenge relative to any team sport. The biggest problem with long distance running and team sports is long distances do not involve acceleration. Running at constant steady pace is just not a skill team athletes need. The more we learn the more we learn that the body is more specific than we thought... That's why I am making the point that intervals are better than long distance but I can't tell the basketball player who refuses to sprint and gets in shape on a basketball court that he might not be onto something...
Long distance running involves maintaining a speed through moderate aerobic respiration - when we play sports we either recovery with massively inefficient breathes or we sprint... Yes there is an intersection between anerobic and aerobic - but people who play team sports NEVER experience it and for good reason... If you have ever ran the 400m you know what it feels like to add H+ to lactate (ie ask for a lot out of your aerobic system after you taxed your anaerobic system)
When it comes to team sports shape - you gotta accelerate...
not so sure about his point of team sport athletes not using aer system, but probably his point about intervals having enough aer stimulus is more or less right
T0ddday anaer workout
Run 400m in under 55 seconds. One lap. Do it. It doesn't take speed but it takes work. Also do the follow. 10 reps of 150 meters. Start on the curve, finish at the end of the straight - walk quickly for half a turn and get down and do 5 pushups and start from pushup position on your next rep. Do 10 reps, keep all reps under 25 seconds. Finish the workout in less than 10 minutes - that means only about 20 seconds for the quick walk/jog between reps and about 10 seconds for your pushups. Then rest 10-20 minutes. Repeat it. I will promise you that if you achieve those two goals you will be the fittest guy on your team. Nobody will question your fitness and you will have juice for the entire game. But its gonna suck far more than long runs...
2015-2016 training progression-it looks like prior to this my P-chain work was virtually non-existent, wouldn't DL or RDL due to low back weakness (long torso)
Fall-mostly rehab
-a month of mostly SL-RDL, not squatting due to SIJ
6 minute plank (shit, that RKC plank workout stuff works)
Winter-I hit an SVJ PR doing a bunch of rehab, my squat is actually relatively weak at this point, possible causes:
-+P-chain work
--SIJ rehab work - core stabilization
--potentiation from westside squats+dynamic effort a few days prior
this PR def has to do with posterior chain shit and better core stability
SVJ is amazing considering I've been pretty much ignoring my quads
-squat improved and PR'ed pretty quick after SIJ got better
Feb: hitting legs pretty hard daily with different stuff -MEBM
+plyos, strong squat = DLRVJ PR 35.5
super-dominant quads
Springbody not ready for increased impact of field sports due to not a whole lot of aner work
shin splints are bad
missed some logging - DLRVJ dropoff with weight increase
Oh man that really bad tourney seems to have psychologically affected me badly, thats when my weight increased a lot
Looks like I dropped intensity and volume in the spring college season and conditioned more, +speed and assistance
Still almost daily training
SummerMostly conditioning and SL jumps
SLRVJ:
Cue that seems to help me is "get low"
So it looks like I have written several times "CNS drained" this seems to be following sigificant increased tryout volume, jump volume, dynamic lifting (which I don't think I did too much prior to this), and conditioning. I was still training daily, but because my training was no longer weight room stuff it seems the volume may have pushed me into mild overtraining.
...and my conclusion was to add in more RFD training because I could see that my athleticism took a dip rather than rest
OK so most of my lifting should be RFD from now on, and I gotta throw some bounding in there too. I guess this is what happens when you drop all your dynamic quad work for 3 months.
AND THEN finally I took a forced deload after running around for a month with CNS burnout - after tryouts, when it was most critical for me to be performing well!! No wonder I didn't make a good team
2015-16 tourneysa memorable college tourney second day, after killing it the first day - extremely in my head, wind especially affected throws
club tryout reflection
2. My offensive cutting needs more awareness and variety.
3. My first 0-20m speed is considerably worse than my 20-40m speed. First 3 steps are way more important to Ultimate.
4. I suck at throwing to girls. I overthrow my hucks to fast dudes, you can imagine what my hucks look like playing mixed.
5. My in-game break throws tend to be high release which is not good. Not enough faking.
6. Unless I'm feeling reaally in the zone, on cutter defense I play a step-off deep which essentially gives the other team free 5-10 yard in-cuts unless I outrun my guy hardcore. I HAVE TO STOP DOING THIS.
7. My in-game awareness of the wind is pretty bad.
8. I'm really bad at making friends. Honestly my biggest weakness, cause Ultimate is all about chemistry and trust. My biggest strength is probably winning 50-50's (high vert+great hands) but fat load of good that does me if no one trusts me enough to throw hucks. I don't think I got thrown a single deep shot during the Hype tryout that went bad. Or maybe my cut timing is really bad or something. I dunno.
another tryout
-Layout D poaching the cutting lane! I've never gotten one of these (poaching the in-cut) before, my awareness is improving.
-One of the captains complimented my quickness (initial acceleration speed)!!! All those sprint starts are definitely helping.
-Mark was great. Don't remember being broken at all.
-We ran a suicide at the end (about 600m) and I finished first (out of like 25-30 dudes, 15-20 girls) barely beating out one of the captains! Had to lay down for like 20 mins afterwards lol.
tryout
got distracted by the defenders attempt to get a layout D
thrower threw a high pass while I was running at him and I had an SLRVJ with both hands into the disc and just dropped it (quick react)
tryout tourney
improve on:
1. throws
2.Being able to jump better out of a sprint would be very helpful. Being more bouncy in general
3.Quicker first 3 steps
4.Better awareness to get poach blocks on defense. But then I'm usually covering the best cutter on the other team so maybe it's not really an issue of awareness.
in-season club tourney
2 day tourney in pitt. played mediocre, mostly because of rotator cuff but also self-esteem not good. Injured my calf day 2 and played through it. Got 3 hours of sleep day 1 and a stunning 2 hours of sleep day 2. Feeling pretty fast, oddly enough.
club tourney
Feeling really burned out the whole time. We lost 12-15 to a U-19 team. I didn't make any major mistakes, but just didn't really feel like I wanted to be playing. (why?) No layouts (dives for the disk), no skies (catches over someone in the air), got a lucky pointblock (knocked down someones throw). We ran some "optional suicides" at the end and I finished last for all of them. By a large margin. One set was about ~800m, one was about 200m. Cramps/hamstring aches after practice.
Could my lack of energy be caused by a high protein/sugar diet? Not very many clean carbs last week, very few fats. Also skipped dinner and had a not large breakfast. I refuse to believe I'm this out of shape, I usually do well at suicides. Also maybe the sprints/PR level squats were a little too much getting back into regular training.
**OH SHIT this was right after logging CNS drained consistently for 2 weeks and not resting at all. Wow who would have thought
8/6-8/7 tourney, 6 games 3W3L. Just feel really burned out. Throws looking sloppy esp with sweaty hands and wind. When I sprint a bunch of times consecutively on offense and the disk turnover, I'll just feel fatigued and demotivated to play hard defense
My forced deload to recover from burnout was...... 10 days before this tourney.
end of season tourney
I played mostly shutdown defense, wasn't able to get too many poaches cause i was usually covering the best cutter. 0 layouts, 0 true D's. I didn't get beat deep at all but I gave up short unders occasionally, twice i got beat up the line: this is a sign that either my footwork is bad or that I don't accelerate fast enough, both problems I need to address. I know I played good.. Just wish the captain let me play O-line I could have contributed a lot. I got a few tips on run-through D attempts and 3 touches on pointblock attempts. Got lots of goals.
Anaerobic Endurance wasn't a problem at all because I only played about half the D points (long rests between points) and there were no marathon points. I was slow though: not explosive at all (why?). I really should have done more short sprints during the last 2 weeks, 5 interval sessions at submax speed with not a whole lot of speed work to balance the fiber counts was poor planning.
This was 3 weeks after previous tourney. Looks like I went hard with conditioning and it didn't pay off much. I didn't log the workouts but it seems like they may have been a little unspecific for this point in the season. Overtraining may have been lingering from just a month before.
It looks like my strategy was to beat my man on a D attempt via athleticism, which didn't work too well. I played pretty well but didn't get any D's.
I only gave up short unders against the most athletic cutters and I didn't give up a whole lot of them. I didn't get scored on a single time. The most yards an offensive player got on me was probably 15, and that was maybe once during 7 games of playing starting D-line. I did try to bait a few deep throws but I don't think anyone actually threw it even when I gave the cutter steps on me. I don't like forcing the cutter deep because that takes away your visibility of the whole field and the person with the disc.
It's also obviously bad that I got 0 D's, but players tend to not throw it if it looks contestable especially at the club level. It's a little different from football because the player doesn't get to run after catching it. Once the cutter catches it I get to set up on them, start counting to 10 and use my body to prevent them from throwing to half the field. If I get to 10 and they don't throw it it's a turnover. Since I have a good mark, offensive players rarely get good continuation throws after catching it, so it's a good option to give up 5-10 yard unders and half the time the cutter is going to throw it for negative yards to reset the count.
Jumps could have also been better. I almost jumped over a kid going LSLRVJ but I was like a foot away from the disc . I did get a solid 1-step DLRVJ sky for a goal. I need to work a lot on reading and positioning for the disc, being able to jump well while bumping and tussling with the player on the opposite team. Improve plant speed and GCT for both DLRVJ and SLRVJ, learn how to make a stutter steps give me extra jump height rather than making my jump worse.
A lot of the time I would fully commit to taking away the under: then the defender would get open on a lateral cut out of their initial under cut. This is probably the way I got beat the most actually. If I get too much speed on the initial commitment it will take me longer to do a chop-step, 90 degree acceleration out of it. The good thing is this "7 cut" generally doesn't generate as much yard gains as an "under cut".
Also another note on my "peaking" training: daily throwing was not a good strategy, especially the amount of hucks I threw. As a D-line cutter, I threw 0 hucks at the tournament. All that time I spent on my throws and It didn't pay off much. Didn't stray from my role and didn't throw anything risky. 0 turnovers. People didn't cut deep or breakside (more difficult throws) as much for me though.
Today at pickup I dropped 3 perfect 70 yard dimes: 1 flick, 2 backhand into a pretty good window to recievers cutting deep. 4 pulls, all comfortably 65-80 yards in bounds.
About HIIT and running intervals:FWIW, I think my anaerboic endurance has experienced a lot of short term gain. Could just be luck but I just haven't felt tired from running since i started running intervals.
beat mostly on 7 cuts
0 turnovers
0 hucks
anaerobic endurance actually peaked pretty well with late season intervals
2015-2016 overall reflectionSo there's some nuggets here for future review but basically the general idea is I seem to have gone into overtraining around tryout time and didn't have the good sense/understanding to drop volume until a month before sectionals (last tourney of the season). Tryout time may be more taxing as a series of workouts than I thought. I basically didn't plan around this at all.
Workouts pretty unspecific, but I don't think my training age was high enough to do super specific stuff. I enjoyed developing SLRVJ a lot that season, but other than that most of my workouts fit a pretty general GPP framework. I didn't start doing a whole lot of RFD stuff yet, either. Seems like I may have been lacking posterior chain development due to not being proportioned too well for deadlifts. Hip thrusts are pretty useless, my clean technique was pretty nooby, not much BSS or anything else.
2016-17Junior Year
BW: ~190 higher due to lots of lifting
My training showed consistent development in strength and jumps.
you found out you have a near complete PCL tear and played basketball the next day???!?!?
(clean) I gravitate towards that straight body catch with the knees which sometimes causes me to lean back dangerously.
apparently supreme sports PT in rockville has really, really good coaches.
my squat is sloooow.
Got a copy of Triphasic Training May 31st
I immediately started following the program recommendations, Ecc block -> Con block -> Iso block -> Peaking. Possibly did not have enough time to actually make that work.
shortchanging yourself by not doing enough to get loose and bouncy before you start going for ME jumps
All that upper body work felt completely pointless
-not high enough vol or technique development for upper body BB. Rest periods not quite right either
Catch still pretty quad dominant but torso angle is no longer vertical which I think is acceptable and safe.
PCL recovery going slow but definitely improving. Doesn't look like I'll need surgery but at least another few months before I can play Ultimate
-Left thigh is missing 1" mass compared to right thigh. Apparently an effective way to fix this is through Blood Flow Restrictive Therapy (BFRT)
-Got a few exercises for upper cross syndrome, PT said it was pretty noticable
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ssues with pullups: grip strength actually limiting factor, can't keep torso stable, inconsistent pause at the bottom, not keeping scaps locked, wider grip feels a lot harder.
weird thing during BSS
started feeling extremely sick in the middle of set 2. Face went cold and I just felt really fatigued. Splashed some water on my face and took an extra long rest and felt a little better
PULLUPS: Forgot phone in locker, didn't film pullups. Stalling hard, no idea what's wrong. Looked through winter notebook and I was busting out 10,11,11 at one point. Tried to start with pullups to be completely fresh but it didn't help at all. Pretty full ROM, body starts rocking around rep 4 (which might be a problem with maintaining the shoulders back position) so I touch my toes to the ground to steady it and am forced to do a dead hang with no stretch reflex.
SUMO DL: Trying to pull without my hips shooting up. I think the reason this happens is because I have difficulty activating my glutes in the bottom position and getting tension in them before starting the lift. Slight back rounding towards the last reps of the last set.
DEC SITUPS: Trying to keep a completely straight body (not curling head) during the eccentric and not drop during the last part, despite decreased weight my technique is a little better. Superset with RDL is good because RDL hits hip flexors eccentrically.
SLRDL: Especially wobbly on left leg, where I'm also missing hamstring ROM. Kind of dropping the weight during the last few inches on left leg, which might be an issue with hamstring activation in that last bit of ROM. Right leg technique film looks good.
My clean and sumo form reflect my compensatory squatty mechanics. The glutes aren't active maybe because the low back is mobile? Which makes sense with my proportions.
so according to triphasic training, athletes should drop the weight/reps if there is a decrease in movement speed. SO that means no grinding sets, pretty much everything is RFD work, even when you're doing 90% 1RM.
(DL) That 'jerk' is actually really good imo because youre obviously aggressively pulling and we all know what momentum does.
I don't need to do this anymore, I used to do this before for dec situps too. It's some kind of weird technique to develop a lot of tension quickly.
*Lots of training to failure on big lifts. I prefer high vol and freq, but maybe if I can hold back a bit every workout and strategically do submax reps I can train more frequently and do more RFD reps. Obvious but I'm just able to train at high effort so much I haven't had to strategically do submax stuff even though that's pretty standard for lifting programs.
Right glute activating very poorly in 90 degree hip flexion.
I still have this problem-ish. I know the tibia isn't supposed to twist, but I frequently get the feeling that my tibia is out of alignment with my femur and that causes the glute to not be able to activate properly.
Great lunge variation but alternating lunges feels like endurance, need to up the weight, cut the volume and do same leg lunges. After getting consistent technique down.
Triphasic Iso's
-Not recommended close to important competition: might decrease coordination and speed in the short term
-Excellent for absolute strength - if a certain stage of a movement requires a maximal contraction isometric training is great for improving that stage. It improves rate coding, allowing you to generate consistently high levels of tension, rather than intermittent bursts.
-There are several types of isometrics:
--Resisted load: like a paused squat or paused bench - it is recommended that the eccentric and concentric portions of this movement be as fast as possible. Drop like a brick, come to a dead stop (not a gradual slowdown) and explode back up. Good to start workouts with this to recruit more MU's for the rest of the workout. Not very CNS taxing, especially if done as RFD work.
--Immovable Resistance Isos: these are like wall pushes. These are very CNS intensive, equivalent to Max effort work. Very time efficient, should take no more than 10 mins. Good for building strength without size. There are 2 subcategories:
---Absolute iso: Gradually build up to max contraction and try to maintain it. The whole contraction should be no longer than 8s w/ 10s-30s rests between reps. This is what you would use to improve a slow max effort lift.
---Explosive iso: You are trying to achieve a powerful (70-80%) contraction as fast as possible. This is what you would use for training for dynamic movements.
i'd say aerobic needs to be in there at every stage, just the intensity of it is what changes. Slow relaxed runs of 30-45 minutes are great for the heart especially, so being able to do say ~30 minutes of relaxed running before lifting as a warmup, and not have it tax you, is a good marker IMHO. The question is really, how do you fit it in: do you do a separate session etc? I personally like getting some aerobic work in as a warmup: ~30 minutes of light relaxed running or jump rope prior to a lifting session, allows you to kind of kill two birds w/ 1 stone. I mean initially you'd start with 10-15 minutes, but ideally you'd want to be capable of 30-45 minutes and feel fine (or even better) when you start lifting. That's a good sign of overall fitness it seems. If doing 30 minutes of light running wrecks you, not good. Should have just as much strength in your lifts, from my experience at least.
Then as you start transitioning into anaerobic endurance/skill, you'll want to throw in some dedicated aerobic sessions 30-45 minutes of steady pace under lactic threshold.
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BB can be great. as long as you put the other pieces together, skill/speed/power, no problem with BB.. BB may or may not be optimal - debatable, but it's definitely useful. The lower body responds especially well to BB style training - for example, high rep squatting (MEBM) is an old BB technique that seems to be underutilized in performance training. Here we are doing all of these advanced things, but then moderate load squatting until you basically pass out and die or 10x10 sets ended up being my favorite method for improving leg/hip strength related to jumping
you can fry your CNS during a heavy intense session, and then running with that diminished CNS isn't the best idea. On the other hand, when you're fresh, light cardio before lifting will also get you really loose
adarq said that light cardio even daily can be beneficial, ramping up in intensity as the season progresses
f you're trying to specialize in both disciplines or peaking one system after building the other as a base - in that case, you need detailed / careful planning .. in your case, you just need to get your body adapted to being able to handle *light* cardio pre or post working
I think I strengthened my hip flexors so much that my weak link is now my isometric back strength.
(for sprints)
400m 2x4 (120s between reps, 10 mins between sets):
set 1: 1:21, 1:20, 1:19, 1:17
set 2: 1:19, 1:19, 1:22, 1:20
RPE: 7
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some long yielding isos i've loved:
- hamstrings/back: 45 degree hyper holds with db's or barbell at the top (iso extension stim came from this too)
- for grip: assisted crush with off hand, then try and maintain while being forced to release
- on the fence with this one, but not being able to do it has always been a bad sign for me: single leg side bridge with off leg abducted (this ex is nuts)
partial holds (5-10s):
- pretty much everything can be utilized with a pause: seen some crazy results with pause bench, pause lunge/BSS, most BW variations (pause dips/pushups/pullups)
one quasi-overcoming iso could be TKE's for VMO
long jog to warmup for ME sprints or anaerobic intense work
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What I tried in regards to ISO's and worked wonders for my jumping ability was this weird exercise I came up with: It's basically when you are standing you lift one foot up and then violently «push» it in to the ground on the balls of your foot with your leg bent at about the same angle like you would jump and then hold this contraction for a short time, release and repeat for 5 reps or so. You could say it's a kind of overcoming iso but with a fast contraction rather than building it up slowly. It sounds very weird but it teached me to fire my muscles quickly and absorb force more efficiently
it would be interesting if this makes any sense but I feel like this «technique» can be applied to various different joint angles and muscles.
Due to not the best planning, time constraint, injuries and vacations I've pretty much been forced to skip the power block and the strength block was incomplete.
set 1: 1:21, 1:18, 1:14, 1:13
set 2: 1:14, 1:18, 1:23, 1:24 (dammit what a dropoff. Still decent progress though)
i can't recall ever being able to train properly when putting in full time (40+) hours per week. that's something I need to address eventually, or just keep working part time (preferred option)
2016-17 TourneysTourney this weekend went great! Set a record high 12 D's in 7 games which is around double what I got the entire last season (7 D's in 15 games). I got 5 D's in one of our key games we ended up winning. Team went 4-2, we were 1 point differential out of being in the finals game..
Athleticism: Really explosive, got a layout D, a few skies where I played it smart, and a massive over the shoulder layout sky, kind of like 1:27 in this video but i went over the guys left shoulder rather than his right
Throws: Some inconsistency with the wind, but played it very safe taking easy throws most of the time. Pretty high completion percentage.
A few drops but none where I was really at fault. Got beat deep a few times in the zone because of tunnel vision. Pulls far and very consistent.
Good
-Endurance! Despite playing all D-line was not gassed ever
-Man Defense - hard changes of direction felt better than usual, shutdown defense most of the game even against great players
-Deep cutting - caught a lot of deep shots, much more than last tourney
Average
-acceleration
-athleticism - very few opportunities for skies or layouts
-throws - playing it pretty safe but still managed to throw it into a couple poaches and turfed a few
Bad
-top speed - it just wasn't there. suspect my swollen af knee had something to do with it.
-couple of embarassing misplays where I lost my concentration and got beat
-went for a last minute glove brand switch which changed my throwing mechanics, especially on hucks
Captain was playing pretty loose lines so everyone got playing time, I didn't get to play much more than anyone else. It went pretty good, was working on trying to set up poach D's but my timing still isn't quite right and these teams are just too high level.. We played the #24 and #25 seeded teams in the nation which is something. Still managed to rack up a few D's mostly from blocks and I think 2G/2A? Out of the 16 total points we scored that's pretty decent and mostly playing D line. Nothing really hype a few pretty good toe-the-line plays.
2016-17 key pointsDang, these things are too much to process in a sitting, especially the multiple paragraph training advice posts
So I was injured with a PCL tear from Feb-August, and that was basically 6 months of non-stop lifting, but it didn't affect lifting, however, basically could not do conditioning or play ultimate. Was still dealing with knee swelling, even around the time of the last tourney of the season
I started the Triphasic Program a couple months away from sectionals and didn't have enough time to do the power block. It went Ecc -> Iso ->Con -> Power -> peaking. Power would have been the most critical block. Even though there wasn't an explicit RFD block, it seems like I still got a very sizable volume of RFD lifting in the previous blocks.
It looks like I did pretty well at the tourneys, CoD improvement from mostly lifting makes sense. Lots of dedicated hip flexor work was likely pretty helpful. Was still having technique/alignment issues with DL and HPC. My legs and upper body were pretty damn bulky. Acceleration was a weakness, despite a 375 squat. I did a good job counting cals and macros, but ended my cut early, scared to lose muscle
My conditioning and sprinting volume wasn't negligible, especially getting towards the end of the season but nowhere near my lifting volume. I would have thought conditioning would be my weak spot but it seems the lifting worked in my favor a little bit: was basically grinding a lot of my big lifts and the high, consistent volume and doing a lot of it in supersets with other stuff likely helped my anaerobic system a good deal.
2017-18180 deg Change of direction mechanics after PCL tear recovery
-hunched posture (unstable?) difficult to 180 out of
-sometimes losing balance
-stressful on the knee
-possible poor coordination - motion not smooth
-chop steps > jump cut : body's way of avoiding injury
-possible poor hip and ankle mobility
-apparently poor eccentric force absorption
got beat deep by a rookie. twice. granted i was playing a little cocky/lazy giving him a step, walked off field seething
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this one pro baseball player i used to train, comes to mind ... he was incredible at "faking it" when people offered him some kind of like "good try, get em next time" (from me when I was training him s&c or from teammates doing skill work etc) kind of stuff.. internally he'd be locked in like a pit bull, externally he'd be smiles and laughs, like nothing phased him at all
injury on CoD
workout with the plyos the day before seems too close to the date of competition. It's low volume but anything like depth jumps should be kept 7-10 days out from the day of competition
recovered pretty fast
So I'm coming to realize that the quad-dominant running I naturally gravitate to is much faster than the "perfect top speed mechanics" I try to force myself to do. It's mostly just a matter of stride frequency, I feel like when I have a strong forward lean I can move my legs so much faster and still get decent stride length
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One disadvantage to the "quad dominant high stride freq" running is I can't breathe properly with it and if I really want the fastest time I think I hold my breath.
Interesting take. I think squatting a ton had to do with this running style being successful, but at the end of the day, it was heavily reliant on APT. With my current alignment, I get a solid lean and awesome stride length as well as being more hip dominant.
The other sort of bad thing was my defensive footwork, got juked out quite a few times. Ended up almost toppled over from balance loss a few times too, which seems to happen when I get too low in my athletic stance.
O-line handler this college season
Thanks. Will be focusing more on acceleration and agility from now on, as well as upper body to keep hucks strong. Lots of throws as well.
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After my Summer training I have come to realize my best strength is acceleration 0-15Y.
I think I started smoking weed after a long break
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I think playing football would help me really improve my rounded cuts.
strength endurance SPP - high vol KB swings and stepups
high RPE throughout
Oooo interesting
4-6 day deload.
nice
Back tweak
Yeah that jump in weight was a bad decision. first rep of 415 was wobbly asf, should have known I was not ready for 5rm or heavier half squats yet
BW: 196 - I was avg 185 for most of the fall
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-SS2a: hip flexor ISO with 50 lbs *10
-SS2b: RFD hanging leg raises *25
-SS2c: RFD cable knee drives 30lbs*10 ea side
-SS2d: overspeed sprints 15Y *6
ME sprints 40y x4
Sprints felt very fast after the last FC set, I especially feel that this might be helpful for top speed. My turnover felt faster than usual. Do not recommend using DL with French contrast, will do trap bar next time.
french contrast is pretty intense. low volume except on power movements and longer rests between ME efforts.
French contrast for stride frequency, that actually ended up working? Pretty cool.
SVJ @31"
DLRVJ @33.5"
L-SLRVJ @30"
R-SLRVJ @32"
Going to go a little slower with trying to review so I can have some time to process my learnings.
So far my training seems very specific, high intensity and volume, but including things like careful deloads - proud of myself. I am stronger at this point in the review session that I am today, by a lot. It's a little demotivating actually, to see the quality and quantity of training I used to do.
I had a ton of momentum as well. It seems like I had been lifting weights basically non-stop for several years, which means very high work capacity. Currently, I am coming off a prolonged break from weights (maybe only training a few months high vol in the last 3 years, everything else is maintenance-ish) and quite a bit less training frequency too.
December 25
injured my wrist
it's fractured for sure
I saw a specialist today and he recommended surgery. 3 month recovery with no lifting
FUUUUUUU
Another season screwed due to injury
So I basically just kept lifting, throwing, jogging after this, avoiding the wrist
life stresses really piled up, possibly in CNS burnout? I dunno feel like I could train alright. Been spending all my free time rewatching series and stuff like that. 18hr/week Class is brutal it's much harder to draw with the cast
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anyone have thoughts about mixing different training goals in one session? for example max strength and volume in the same day or rfd and volume? the quote i remember from triphasic training is not to mix rfd with anything else because it sends your body mixed signals and you end up developing neither category
Unfortunately I have developed some kind of back problem which I strongly suspect might be a slipped disc or spondylolisthesis and has not gone away with rest
so the si joint really took a beating during the last session
its still a little fucked up. im beginning to think ive had this problem a long time only the bigger symptoms were dormant - ive always had issues with my left leg: chronic groin pains, weird immobility and naturally asymmetrical posture that came and went and no matter what my left leg was always a little weaker.
Maybe its more from the PCL tear, surprised I didn't include that in my brainstorm. I did have the groin injury prior to that
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contrast set *3 (long rests):
-safety bar jump BSS 105 *7 /ea side
-1-step SLRVJ *3 /ea leg
-both SLRVJ's over 31", R-SLRVJ might have been as high as 33.5" which is PR level
Hmm. lifting has been lower vol, intensity for a while at this point.
feeling really woke today and tried to be super aware of peoples footwork during 1v1 drills, as well as my own. Definitely the one area that can elevate my game - footwork and body control.
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figured something important out in relation to my sprint technique. i think i use my traps as prime movers when swinging my arms forward instead of my anterior delts. this somehow relates to forward head tucking during acceleration as well as unstable shoulder movement. there is definitely something to fix there, not sure whether its mobility or motor reprogramming +strengthening.
Despite all my mechanical improvements, this particular thing is still happening during ME sprints. I haven't fully managed to get the shoulders and neck neutral. But then again, almost all of the people I visually evaluate have this issue
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i cant do much going only lefty
- im bad at crashing the cup as a cutter playing against zone defense
- i start my deep cuts too early, anticipating unrealistically perfectly executed hucks from my teammates
- i need to practice accelerating out of 135 degree hip turns
- i need to stay more grounded in neutral defensive positioning because i get beat mid-stride when taking too long strides
This all feels pretty relevant weirdly enough (except the CoD), although maybe some stuff to a lesser degree.
I don't like using bar for high intensity BSS: kind of dangerous. also the weight distribution is janky. left leg almost failed rep 6 of 19
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so i can do the dot drill pretty fucking fast for my height but my body control while doing it is very noticably bad. im very good at adjusting to my imbalances but my body is all over the place. solution: slow it down and focus on keeping my center of gravity over the center dot.
9-10 miles @ 8:30-9:00 pace: 1hr 23, distance PR
-bobbled in dunks w/ SVJ, rslrvj
PM run: 4 miles in 29:20 ~ 7:20 mile pace
died during the last 200m but otherwise consistent 7:15 pace!
I still haven't beat this PR!
College Sectionals
last practice before sectionals. its been a week in hell, ive accumulated at least 15 hours of sleep debt. still a little bit sick, lungs not working optimally and im short of breath faster than i should be. also some 1 handed drops during throwing on high balls. didnt throw any turnovers, but definitely lost a good deal of upper muscle mass, hucks are missing that bit of oomph
the other biggest issue was strong winds the entire weekend and our lack of dedicated throwers. i turned it a lot because of poor throw selection for the given wind.
otherwise i was pretty good at everything else. got a layout callahan, which is when you block and intercept it for a score before they manage to get it out of their endzone. a few big skies and layouts, a lot of pointblocks. shutdown defense against their best players in critical moments. second day my IT band flared up and i was hobbling around at times but still managed to do a good deal.
going to make a full year program to mini-peak once at the end of the summer club season and then again for next year's sectionals.
SLeep debt, bronchitis? IT band flare up, hobbling around?? Bad wind throws?
i busted up my IT band pretty bad so i took the last week off. im reviewing my notes on programming, triphasic training and verks supertraining and thinking about what i want to do for thia next program. a year is a lot of time to think about. i dont feel like i really have any particular athletic weaknesses except maybe attention span. i have to choose what i want to specialize in or end up slightly above average at everything at the end of this next training year
Cool, good thinking.
->
thinking about a few weeks of building work capacity+ trying to get big. gonna take some of the pressure off and temporarily abandon this idea of a perfect athletic program for me. its gonna be summer. i should put on some aesthetic weight and enjoy my young adult life while its still easily possible
Mmmmmmmm
i need to take a longer rest between high int squat days.
ahype was today, med men this weekend.
tryout went fine. no highlight type plays but pretty consistent at everything with no wind. defensive footwork is looking shoddy once again, speed wasnt quite there.
i nees to be more honest with myself so heres a brief monologue about my feelings at the moment. i am baselessly arrogant. i have never played on a high level team. my training organization is shit. i am just ego lifting every other session and my training is likely doing more harm to my athleticism than good. barely giving myself enough time to recover.
for the rest of the summer, im keeping all non-rfd lower body to once a week and brolifting to twice a week. i have been working on a program and i have a good general idea of what i need but i need to iron the specifics out.
Ego lifting every session awareness, weight room freq drop, yes.
Man, there's a lot of stuff about club season, this was the season when I hit my best athleticism
'17-18 Club TryoutsSummary
-still keeping weight room freq high
-I seemed to have been training hang power clean and hip flexors and core frequently when I peaked my top speed
-logged a few 'slow top speed' tryouts, "not resting enough."
-"some days my endurance is my best quality, today it was my worst. it was 90 degrees and i possibly didnt pre-hydrate enough."
-"My conditioning has clearly taken a hit" - result of all weight room stuff, no conditioning skill work
-"I think I am still yet to throw a turnover at any of the high level tryouts"
-had an injury (not from doing something stupid) that left me out of upper level team contention
-I like this scheme for hitting the hip flexors. I hit them for max RFD, max strength/middle ROM, and bottom ROM. All I need is some weighted iso knee-up holds and I'm hitting them from every angle.
Cool workout
400m *1 @60s
set 2:
400m *2 @78s, 85s
set 3:
400m *2 @83s, 89s
set 4:
400m *3 @78s, 78s, 82s
-since I tend to die hard after really intense efforts, I decided to just go close to ME on the first rep (could have maybe shaved 2-3 seconds off, but I would have been totally dead). Then try to do the rest of the workout after that super fatiguing first rep. I was so fucked, never really recovered, despite 3x 10-minute breaks. That last set kind of evened out though, weirdly enough. I really wanted to give up after the third one.
3v3 ulti *45 min
-worthless reps. I really need to keep a lookout for higher level pickup cause im in desparate need of touches but this is not the answer.
Specific notesI'm gonna read these another day - just 10 pages left in the log!
most of these were in rain. much more consistent than in wind: I was throwing with 8 discs, and on some of the sets I was hitting a 5*5Y box 55Y out with 6/8 discs, I think I got 7/8 once. Hit a handful of money 85Y pulls. The really excellent thing is I am getting my hang time to be much more consistent. Before I would just throw for distance but having a space as a target and tracking hang time will help my game throws a lot.
Realized that my backhand technique just needed a complete makeover, so I was trying out a different technique today. Again, sacrificing some distance for a much better extension, much lower hang time and consistency. The distance will come with practice.
misc notes:
-my first few sets I always anticipate the throw to blade over and adjust for it, leaving an ugly but accurate throw. But as the sets keep coming and my technique becomes better, I should stop adjusting for it because my technique becomes good and throws end up veering off IO.
-Practicing pulls and backhand hucks on the same day is a bad idea because a good stepout backhand huck has a tight torso and a good pull has a loose one. Learning one interferes with learning the other.
-having difficulty transferring momentum from power position backhands to my throw. Maybe throwing more IO would help? I default to always throwing OI backhand. In general my runup/power position hucks need loads more work, they are not as powerful as my stationary throws.
400m workout:
400m*3 1:21, 1:19, 1:17 (90s rests)
6 min rest
400m*2 1:14, 1:18 (90s rests)
I did a few laps and the ankle felt good enough for some 400's. Big improvement from last time, even though I have not done anything anaerobic in more than 2 weeks.
The other thing with the 400's: There are 4 ways I have gotten fatigued from doing these: leg lactic acid buildup, ammonia buildup in the head, core fatigue, and lung fatigue. I almost always get exhausted from lactic acid buildup and sometimes ammonia buildup (horrible headache feeling). Today it was mostly lung fatigue and some core fatigue. Very strange. Possible reasons: my hip flexors are the strongest they've ever been and I think the hip hikes I've been doing have been a game changer. General core strength is around PR levels too. Maybe the swimming improved my breathing? I am completely awful at breathing when swimming.
heavy wind. upwind i couldnt get my flicks past 40y and no consistency. downwind i focused on choosing whether the disc went IO or OI. too much in either direction and the disc blades or pops up and veers 20y to the side. no point in being able to throw a full field bomb if you cant control it. i did end up hitting a water bottle from 50y out but y'know, it's 1/100. who gives a shit. jk it was a money shot
-upwind (+slight RL cross) flicks worst, complete opposite of last time i threw with this wind. Need to slow down and get my flick technique down, I think im overcomplicating the arm motio ln
-overall pretty inconsistent, especially upwind. Downwind im controlling the angle much better, everything was looking decent towards the end.