In with the old, in with the new & STS 12-4

"Fast as the wind, quiet as the forest, aggressive as fire, and as immovable as a mountain" - Samurai battle banner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57pv_1j4dH0

I love Ross's back-to-basics training style with his emphasis on getting absolutely as much intensity and efficiency out of every single movement. Everything is as intense as possible, as explosive as possible, and with as much resistance (of all variety) as possible. I also dig how much he thinks outside the box and creates new movements and new tougher progressions. Because that's the true beauty of creating new movements and workouts, they don't negate the previous ideas and concepts, but instead builds upon them. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that something new has to replace something old and that the old no longer has any value, but that couldn't be more wrong. Like every other area of your life it's all just a series of progressions.

Like Vern Gambetta said, you have 3 constants to play with to affect your workouts: gravity, ground, & your body. Think outside the box for your workouts on how to affect those constants most effectively, the point is to THINK and focus on your body, not plug into a TV and mentally check out for your workout or zone out through the same boring stuff you've been doing since High School. Your training should be where you do the most thinking and analyzing, not the least. I have a teammate that hates standard workouts and prefers to get his training in by altering his ground environment. Running through dry creekbeds where he bound/runs from rock to rock, down steep hills, and the like are all part of his training routine. 2 different roads to reach the same fitness goals. Though I will say that I prefer combining different ground environments with the weightroom because while you can't make your steep hill any steeper, I can always add weight. And at the end of the day we still play on a flat grass surface so training on flat grass is still unquestionably a major part of your workout. But I love that he's thinking outside the box and figuring out new ways to push his body.

Todays workout session was inspired by a Crossfit workout with some adjustments. This thing is a killer.

Movement Prep: Same as usual.

Superset 1:
Squat-pulls
Jump punches (2x w/no rest)

Superset 2:
Step-ups w/weight
Box Jump March http://www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BoxJumpMarch.html
(2x w/no rest)

Hang Cleans- 4 sets of 6,6,4,4 increasing weight

Xfit section: Perform activities in any order, must completely finish each activity before moving to next one, and workout is timed. Obviously the focus here is working at maximum intensity and fighting fatigue.

50 Box Jumps (24 inch box minimum)
50 jumping pull-ups (jump up to pull-up bar, do full pull-up, land, repeat)
50 Kettlebell swings w/dumbbell (I use 45lb)
50 GHD's
50 Walking lunges
50 combo of handstand pushups/dips/plyo pushups
50 Double-jumps w/jump rope
50 Knee-to-elbows
50 burpees
50 push-press w/bar

Flat. Out. Exhaustion. If you're Tuff Enough to do this hit me up and let me know how it goes.

This weekend was absolutely amazing here. A bit o' rain on Friday left the fields in perfect playing conditions. It was even a bit chilly, making for perfect outdoor sports weather. Practiced with my football team on Saturday, we've got a slew of great receivers to catch the ball and a stacked defense to match. Our first tournament is this weekend, it'll be fun to see how we match up against the best LA has to offer. Supposedly there's something like 160+ teams and 12 divisions from all over SoCal going to be there. I dream of the day when local Ultimate tournaments have that kind of draw.

Sunday was the tournament for Beach League and brought the 3peat for our ridicuously fun team o' clowns. Kind of fun winning a league since it's been in existence, regardless of the league. It was 72 in Santa Monica and sunny enough for me to even get a lil' tanny-tan. Semi's and finals were both close in the beginning, but with our stacked defense and margaret jackin' it to timmy "2pointer" paymaster who grabbed everything under the sun it was Crushville, Population: us. (Cross-gender coast-to-coast goals worth 2 points is the dopest rule ever for beach). One thing I noticed specifically is that busting down on the pull is even more important on the sand than on grass as field position in the sand is really everything, and being on the mark when your guy picks up the pull for a stall-6 count is just dirty, easy defense.

Keep on truckin'

#40

What off-season?

No, seriously. What off-season?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtOPgv8ZxYg

With Nationals over most Ultimate players enter some sort of off-season. I refuse to call it that, as it suggest that you're taking this time off. (just like I hate it when people call split-squats/lunges, they're split-squats. There's no lunging involved.) There's NO off-season 'round here, just a time to get back to other sports and to make gains in the weightroom. Off-season is for chumps.

Now is the time to accomplish two goals:

1. Get healthy. Give yourself time to fix all those nagging injuries. Note: this isn't taking time off, this is recovery.
2. Further increase your strength base for next year.

The most effective way to accomplish Goal 2 is through functional full-body strength-training 3 times a week. As I've said before, if your body is a car, then sprint training gives you more miles to the gallon, while strength training gives you a bigger gas tank. Neither one is nearly as effective without the other.

As for me, I'm looking forward to changing my workouts up and focusing on moving up in weight on my functional lifts and spending this time playing Flag Football with my team (8 years running and still league champs every year...perks of having the best QB in the league. Ah football...so nice to only have to work 6 seconds and then get a 30 second break), spending more time on boxing workouts and in the pool with sprint-swim training, snowboarding, more advanced medicine ball work, and winning beach league again. Only in LA can I play beach ultimate and snowboard in the same month, even if they are lame Mtn's with sucky man-made snow. But like my dad says "a bad day skiing still beats any day at work."

Today's Boxing Workout:

1 round:

-2 minutes of heavy-bag work. I usually break up it up into 1 minute of cardio boxing (rhythm-based combos for speed n' agility) and 1 minute of power-punch combos. (as fast and as hard as possible). Mad cathartic.
-2 minutes of jump-rope. Different variations all the way through.
-1 minute rest

I usually do 10-12 rounds then run do hill sprints 10x10 seconds, no rest.

Hill Sprints: Find a hill and measure out a distance that'll take 10 seconds to run (over-estimate the first one). Focus on sprinting the hill at maximum intensity for 10 seconds anaerobically (no breathing), then walk directly back down the hill backwards taking large steps so that you're further putting extra stabilization efforts on your posterior chain, once you reach your starting point, repeat. No rest until you've done 10 in a row.

Yesterday's STS:

Movement Prep

Functional lifts:

-Hang Cleans 4 sets @ 6,6, 4,4 w/increasing weight

-Front-Squats Supersets:
4 sets @ 8 reps w/increasing weight
Pullups TF
Hand-stand pushups TF
1 set= Front-squat to pullup TF to handstand pushup TF, no rest between exercises

-Overhead backward split-squats w/bar & weight
3 sets @ 8 reps, then 2 more sets of split-squats with heavy weight on back instead of overhead.

-Deadlift Supersets:
3 sets of deadlifts @ 10 reps
Box-jumps
1 set= deadlift to 12 box jumps w/no rest inbetween. SO crushing.

-Push-Press Supersets:
3 sets of push-press @ 8 reps
Box-jumps
1 set= push-press to 12 box jumps w/no rest inbetween.

Finished with jump-punches (2 sets each arm) and 2 sets of 1-arm snatches.

Hope your non-competitive part of the season goes well. Hit. Those. Weights. If you do, and you hit it right, I won't have to tell what it'll do for your movement ability...you'll already know.

Train hard, train smart.
-Chris

STS Oct. 11th

"Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks." -Joe Paterno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2J9uuU1BCY

This guy makes two great points with this video: 1. Don't wear spandex in the park by yourself. (WTF!?) and 2. There are easily 30+ variations of pushups you can do with different levels of progression/regression. Plyometric pushups with arms close to the body should be an absolute staple for any Ultimate player as you're training the exact movement you'd make if you'd layed out on a D and missed the disc and now have to get back on your feet and throw a mark on or play recovery D. The faster you get back on your feet could be the difference between stopping their offensive flow and getting scored on.

Today's focus is on moving explosively while at a high rate of fatigue. To do this I combined functional lifts with jump movement supersets with no rest in between.

Movement Prep: Same as before.

Functional Lift:

Hang Cleans- 3 sets

Superset 1 (2x):

1A: Squat Lat pulls- on the cable machine with handles in each arm and the cables at the top perform lat pulls while in 3/4 squat position. 10 reps.
1B: plyometric pushups TF

Superset 2 (2x):

2A: 1 leg'd step ups w/weight
2B: pullups TF

Super-duper Superset 3 (each specific superset 2x's through with no rest)

3A: Overhead squat w/weight
3B: Lateral Jumps http://www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BoxLateralJump.html
x2
3C: Quick drops http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/QuickDrop.html
3D: Lateral Jumps
x2
3E: Front Squat
3F: Lateral Jumps
x2

Superset 4 (2x):

4A: Push press
4B: Box jumps

Next did 2 sets of Hang Jump-shrugs http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/HangJumpShrug.html

Finished with 2 sets of 1-arm snatches and row machine intervals.

18+ different sport-specific explosive movements all in under an hour. That, my friends, is what we call nationals-ready training.

#40

STS Oct. 8th

"Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything"- Vince Lombardi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgXgjCaus4

Floyd's rope is moving so damn fast it's hard to tell if it's even there. Awesome. So that's one of the reasons he can bounce on his toes and throw lightning-fast punches for 15 rounds straight. Huh.

This weekend was a local workout with the LAdors. Took advantage of another 75 and sunny Santa Monica Saturday and did a beach workout. (suck it rest of the country) There were six of us so we threw first to warm up and did some standard plyos on the sand, shortening the distance to 10 or 20 yards (depending on the specific plyo) and focused on just moving explosively and anerobically for the entire shortened distance. Great thing about sand is that it warms you up REAL quick. From there we moved into Lateral Movement and went through marches, highknees, explosive karaoke, shuffles, lateral bounds, and tons of shuffles-to-sprint. Threw again, then moved onto Forward Movement: marches, high knees, skips, 2 inch skips, bounds, a grip of backpedal-to-sprints and did some backpedal 10 yards to sprint forward 10 yards. Backpedaling in the sand is f'ing comedy, especially when you specifically tell the group to make sure they stay low and keep the feet moving or else they'll bail and then 5 seconds later 2 of the 6 are face-down in the sand. Threw again then broke into 2 groups for some agility work. One group did quick change-of-direction drills while the other group did sprint-progression work: One guy would start holding a 6lb medicine ball over his head, he'd sprint with the ball for 10 yards, then throw it to the side as he accelerated through to top speed for 15 more yards, then immediately had to jog and retrieve the ball for the next guy waiting. Mad fatigue and an awesome drill for disassociation and core work. Finished with 3-man mark for a long time and did some medicine ball throws for pillar and core strength. I showed up early for a mini-hat tourney fundraiser to support the US womens beach team in Brazil, so I got two easy games of beach in, plus the 1 1/2+ hour workout, then strolled back over to my team that was now playing in the finals and were down 9-6. I came back in, decided to run my already-fatigued self silly and played the rest of the game as we cleaned house 15-10. It was great to get back to fun no-stress ultimate for a day, and I forgot how much I love beach ultimate. A ridiculously fun sport in the best environment (could it be the most offensive sport ever??) . Throw in beer, good peeps, and bodysurfing (things that were all in high supply) and you've got a recipe for awesomeness. Needless to say that after 5 hours of running on the beach I was a tad bit tuckered out, but nothing that a meatball sandwich the size of my head and some college football couldn't fix.

Today Workout:

Movement Prep:

Jump-rope TF
Handstand pushups TF
Walking lunges w/weight overhead forwards n' backwards
Overhead squats w/weight
Jump-rope TF

Did 2 sets w/no rest then switched lunges for side-lunges and squats for quick-drops. Also added 25 burpees and 2-inch runs.

Functional Lift:

The Bear. Ugh. I keep waiting for it to be easier, but no luck yet. Hang clean to front-squat to push-press immediately back down into another front-squat to push-press. That's 1 rep. 6 sets of 6 reps. Here's it broken down:

Hang Clean:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/HangClean.html

Front-Squat:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/FrontSquat.html

Push-Press:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/PushPress.html

36 hang cleans and 72 front-squats to push-press. Just typing it makes my core want to start crying like a little girl.

Finished with jump-punches w/a squat (check previous post for description) and overhead jump punches.

Overhead jump-punches: Starting with the cable up top and my arm in an 90 degree L (like I was doing a shoulder press) I squat then explode up switching my feet in the air so that I'm landing with both feet pointed to the left but still underneath me at the same time punching explosively straight down to the ground on my left side. So my legs are moving up while my upper-body is moving down, which obviously means that my core must stay locked n' active to keep me balanced and stable. Note: when I explode up it isn't necessarily about how far up in the air I can jump, but about how explosively I can leave the ground, change direction in air, and land with my feet underneath me ready for the next explosive movement. Make sense?

Did 12 box-jumps in between each set of jump-punches. 3 sets of 8 reps both regular punches and overhead punches.

Two weeks before The Show so this is really the last week to make any significant improvements. This weeks workout schedule:

Monday: Weights
Tuesday: Core & Explosive work in the morning, throwing and agility work in the evening
Wednesday: Weights
Thursday: Speed training, medicine ball work, and throwing.
Friday: light weight, core work, and light explosive work.
Saturday & Sunday: Practice

Side note: went to The Shins concert last night at the Greek with Paymaster, Corey, and some other great friends. If you're a fan do yourself a favor and see them in concert. One of the best shows I've ever been to, they legitimately sound better live than on CD and their musicmanship was solid. They just looked like they were having so much fun and their vocals were even more phenomenal live. We officially decided that they are our generation's Beach Boys.

I wish they all could be California girls...

#40

STS Oct. 3rd & The Show.

Well, SW regionals is over and the dust has settled. Condors have once again secured a spot to The Show and took Bravo down to the wire for the #1 seed.

Recap:

Saturday- Things in the Inland Empire started out screwy, as they normally do in the IE, or as I like to call it, SoCal's armpit. I've been in LA for most of my life and have only been to the IE maybe 4 times. It's everything you don't like about LA (unbearable traffic, smog, intense desert heat, plus the always comical white trash population) without any of the good stuff. I made sure to remind Calle the RC of my disdain for his field choices throughout the entire weekend. The morning started off with a helpful phone call from a friend that the main freeway to the armpit was completely closed at one section...sweeet. Luckily us roadwarrior badasses knew an alternate route and jumped the 10 and made it out there lickety-split. Thank god, because the only thing worse than going to the IE is sitting in traffic going to the IE.

Games 1-3 were against Anomaly, Sunburn, and some other team I can't remember. We were firing on all cylinders and rolled through the games 13-4 or 5ish. Nothing especially spectacular to report.

Game 4 was against Monster, and we finally got the SoCal Showdown I had been looking forward to all year. Playing against a former team is always emotionally intense, especially when you're still good friends with the majority of the team. They came out fired up and ready to play, and we did too. A decent crowd had gathered and created an exciting atmosphere. Unfortunately for Monster it was business as usual for the Condors as our Zone D was looking SICK and played some of the best team defense I'd seen all year. They jammed up the Monster O, forced quick turns with great field position and scored even quicker. We took half at 8-5 and rolled from there. I somehow managed to match up on Ben Spears the majority of the game on both sides of the ball, and we ran each other silly. He was unquestionably the best player on their roster this year and it was so much fun battling with him. We each got each other good a couple of times, I caught a nice score on a great huck from Geoff Buhl, and he got a good D on me on a huck that fell short. I thought it was mine all the way till his hand knocked it out of the way...so it goes. We rolled through the second half with fierce efficiency all the way until the final point, which also happened to be the longest point of the game. 4 turns on each side (one of them mine) till I caught a caught a filthy IO forehand break from Rory and hit Robbie G in stride with the only IO huck I've thrown this season for the score and the win. 13-4, no 2nd half points for Monster. Mission: accomplished. Message: delivered.

Sunday:

Semi's: Yet another game against SDU. This one was much more clean and much more fun. We jumped out to a 4-0 lead with more aggressive Zone D and transition work, kept our marks sharp and capitalized on turns. Ran away with it 15-6.

Finals: 'Dors vs. Bravo. The excitement in the air was palpable. So thick you could cut it with a knife. We played at 11am and it was mothaf'ing HOT. The crowd had grown and everybody came to see some entertainment. I can't even describe how exciting it was to be a part of that game, it was one of the most intense and emotional games I've ever been in. It was exactly as I thought it would be: a battle of athleticism. We threw a grip of zone transition at them and tried to slow their offense down as best as possible. They went mostly man on us. The 1st half was pretty standard, we each got a couple breaks, and mostly traded to half, which Bravo took 8-6. Don't remember much specifics, but we did open our deep game up and had some nice huck scores on them. Lorenz the Swiss Air Force was droppin' bombs! Bravo did their usual bravoness and made some athletic plays. Second half was equally as tight and we took it down to the wire, getting to Universe Point, but unable to get the score and the win. Beau was unfortunately the hero of the day with the most athletic rundown of a huck I've ever seen on a full-field backhand from Dugan, and also scored the game-winner with yet-another iso play to him to take it 17-16. I don't remember much else of the specifics, but there's a video that should be floating around soon enough. One thing I did notice was the concept of "Big Game" players though. Some players have the ability to raise their level of play according to the impact of the game and we sure had some guys that proved their Big Game ability this weekend. Seeing guys play their absolute best when it matters most was truly inspiring. That's really what this is all about, competition and athleticisim at it's highest, and players rising up to meet that level and exceed it. You can't write drama like how sports have the ability to play themselves out (just ask Box & Rare). We had some guys step up huge, but these 3 come to mind first: Alex "A-bomb" Roedel played the best game I've ever seen him play. Dude had 5 D blocks on Bravo, including the filthiest game-saving layout D on Universe Point on an up-the-line throw to rabbit for the score. He was everywhere on the field and played a truly complete game. Jimmy Chu was another Big Gamer with super solid D on some of Bravo's best, and had the sickest layout score when we really needed it. He loves those trailing-edge grabs. Always a crowd pleaser. Tim Paymaster showed his old team how much they miss him with some of the best D on Beau I've ever seen and had some great grabs and hucks.

After the finals we saw ourselves emotionally and physically spent. But we also saw what kind of team we are, and what we are capable of. I'd say we learned a LOT about ourselves from that game and from this weekend. I think we also really became a team for the first time this weekend, and that's a great thing. We played the best team defense we've played all season and the emotional and mental connections with the guys have never been better.

Backdoor Finals saw us with SDU again. 4 times in 7 days. We made a decision to not let our finals heartbreaker affect our backdoor game, as John Wooden says "the best athletes have no short-term memory" and we had to learn to move on to the next game real quick. Same story as the morning, we jumped out to a lead and kept it to grab the #2 seed. I will say that that wormser guy on SD is a hell of a runner and never quit the entire game. Real respects real.

So we accomplished 1 of 2 goals for the weekend. We made it back to The Show, but didn't beat Bravo. But what I didn't expect was what we learned from it and how close it brought us together as a team. And it reminded me (again) how much I love team sports.

Now, there's still tons of work to be done. Florida is going to be a dogfight...and the Condors are comin' to rumble.

My focus for today's session was on explosiveness.

MP: same story, but I included 2-inch runs and added more jump-roping in between the quick drops.

Functional Lifts Supersets:

Overhead squats w/weight 3 sets @ 1o reps immediately followed by plyo-pushups TF

Overhead backwards lunges w/weight 3 sets @ 10 reps immediately followed by pullups TF

Deadlifts 3 sets @ 8 reps immediately followed by box jumps 12 reps

Cable explosions: starting with the cable down low at my right side I face outward holding the handle in my arm in a karate punch-ready position. I perform a squat and explode up switching my feet in the air so that I land facing my left with my feet still underneath me now pointed to the left while throwing a punch across my body. Resume regular athletic stance facing forward and repeat. 3 sets @ 10 reps each arm.

1 arm-snatches 3 sets @ 10 reps

Lateral box-jumps 3 sets TF http://www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BoxLateralJump.html

Finished with some abs and a bit more jump-roping.

#40

STS 10-26-07 & Sectionals/Regionals

-Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing that you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable.

-Winning is a by-product. Focus on the product: EFFORT.

-The teams that compete at the highest level love the thrill of the contest, They may have winning in their heads, but they have a love for the struggle in their hearts.

-Intensity makes you stronger. Emotionalism makes you weaker." -John Wooden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-KDhVwD0UA

Some great quotes from one of the greatest coaches ever. I had the chance to meet John Wooden and hear him speak at a charity event when I was in High School, and I even got to shake his hand and tell him how great it was to meet him. It wasn't I got a little older that I realized how lucky I was to be able to meet and listen to such an impactful coach. Easily one of the top 5 most influental coaches ever.

Put Rocky in there because pump-up montages are meant for the days before tourneys. Man Law. Special note: The original script was written by Stallone in 3 days and had Rocky throwing the fight at the end. Kinda adds a whole new perspective on the movie had they kept that in.

Sectionals was last weekend and unfortunately didn't bring the matchup I was so fired up for, as Monster forgot to close out their semi's game and lost to SD United. I was curious to see how the PBR split would work out for San Diego, but they surpised Monster by showing up strong and putting it to them 15-11. My initial thoughts were that SD would be weaker than last year as I depth would be an issue, but SD United is most definitely better than last year's PBR squad. They still play the split offense with two downfield receivers on each sideline and the middle of the field open, and depend on big breaks from their handlers to their always-active cutters. Finals was an ugly, scrappy game with the old condor/pbr/tide/squid bad blood spilling over onto the field. The first half was simply terrible, too many stupid turns to write about, but we managed to cleaned it up a bit in the second half. Our offense was clicking and moving the ball fast, and our D had some great marks, held up their offensive flow and kept their main guys in check. Bad calls and bad vibes were unfortunately the order of the day, and it left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but so it goes. SD does play hard the entire game and have some athletic dudes who made some athletic plays, so I respect them for that, even if neither side showed each other much respect during the game. I guess I just much rather like playing tough, physical, athletic ultimate with my opponent and then be able to look each other in the eye and acknowledge our mutual heart & hustle vs. having them talk shit after we shake hands. Luckily my football background is one of nothing but shit-talk and showboating, so it's an environment I'm used to and quite comfortable in. There's more shit-talking and mental games in one of my flag-football league games than in an entire Ultimate tournament. For a game that requires so much communication between opponents (contested calls...etc) it's a cakewalk in the shit-talk department. Thank god. But I will give SD mad props for beating Monster early and supplying me with an endless amount of jokes for all my LA buddies. :)

Workout:

Movement Prep: Same bat time, same bat channel. Added the usual quick-drops also.

Functional Lifts:

I sprained my right pinky this weekend, nothing serious, but it's swelled up something fierce which means I can't hold a bar in my hand so it meant I had to alter things up a bit. No hang cleans makes me a sad panda.

Front squats 4 sets @ 8 reps

1 leg step-ups 3 sets @ 8 reps each leg

Backwards lunges with bar overhead 3 sets @ 8 reps. Gnarly mofos.

Cable twists while in squat position 3 sets @ 8 reps each side

Box Jumps 3 sets @ 12 reps

Core Circuit:

Couldn't hold anything so that meant no pullups, dips, or medicine ball work

GHD's

Sit-ups

Side twists

Plyo push-ups

Windshield wipers while holding 135lbs with locked arms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcNGCG2L0OA Those KILLED me. Did mine on a bench instead of on the floor.

Repeated circuit 3x's with no rest.

Regionals this weekend in San Bernadino. Time to do what I've been in the weight room and on the grass 10 months for...get back to Nationals. Playing Monster last game of pool play on Saturday, and if things go as planned, Bravo on Sunday. Time to go to WORK.

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=124&id=3871

STS 9-19-07 & The Sectionals Beatdown

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play." -Mike Singletary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy2ElkOuNF0

Posted that again because it's just so awesome to watch. Imagine training so that each time is different than the last time and each session pushes a new threshold of fatigue. Now stop imagining it and make it a reality. Seriously.

With Sectionals under way it's crunch time for everyone. While this is the point to fine tune the high-level concepts of your game, don't fool yourself into thinking that where you're at physically now can't be improved in time for The Show. We are a month & change away from Nationals and if you've been working hard consistently then there is still time to make significant strength, speed, and recovery gains. Time for another check-in to make sure you're doing what it takes to get you where you want.

Yesterday's workout:

Movement Prep: same ol' story. Added 2 sets of overhead squats with the bar and 3 sets of quick-drops. Btw...if you're still not jump-roping as either part of your MP or workout then you should feel real guilty right now. Have I taught you nothing!?!? You're killing me smalls.

Functional Lifts:

5 sets of Hang-cleans. Last two sets were hang-clean to push press. Just cuz.

3 sets of Jump-shrugs- did 6 jump-shrugs then finished with 4 regular deadlifts. Coretastic!

3 sets of Front-squats @ 8 reps

2 sets of 1 leg step-ups @ 8 reps...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXngKlZhqiQ

Interval Training:

For this I did a set of 10 push-presses at 135lbs then immediately did 12 box jumps, rest 30 seconds and repeat for 3 sets.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/PushPress.html

This superset was awesome because of the progression/regression involved. The push press is hip-initiated and requires the body to enter a 1/4 squat to begin movement and generate power. And the box jump obviously uses the entire legs & core to generate the vertical leap. So you'd go from small (but equally powerful) squat to 3/4 squat for box jump back to 1/4 squat movement. Filthy. And really, really effective.

Finished with core & upper-body circuit that consisted of:

Pull-ups TF to hanging leg-raises TF
GHD's sets of 20
Plyometric push-ups- both feet & hands off the ground TF, then hands-only TF
Medicine ball twists
Sit-ups w/weight

Went through circuit 3 times w/no rest. Finished in 1 hour and 5 minutes and did more work in 1 hour than all the meatheads at my gym could do in 3 hours. Suckers. But their curls and bench press did look sick. Seriously. Sick.

SW Sectionals this weekend. That means a beatdowns a' coming. Condors are Back in Black and will be putting some people on notice that they might have made the wrong decision a couple months ago. Frosty-frost has been waiting for a specific game against a specific team and is so fired up for it that he's now speaking in the third person.

Showtime.

#40

STS- 9-13-07 & Your Ego

"Do not let your ego get in the way of your speed potential"- Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVKayGh7LTg

Little dude with BIG hops.

I was training with a new client for the first time this morning and I realized how much easier it is to train women than men because of the ego factor. No guy (especially an athletic one) likes hearing that they have imbalances or weaknesses that need to be addressed before they can reach their full potential. But all truly intelligent athletes know that once you have a solid strength base and aerobic capacity your main focus needs to be on recognizing and addressing any and all weaknesses. Because an imbalance or weakness during speed movement translates over to an energy leak, and that means you're now working harder to move slower.

The problem is that addressing a weakness correctly sometimes means that you have to move back down levels of regression to a very basic movement and build up from there. Something guys with egos hate to do, myself included. I still remember how much I fought the simple routines when I was learning Athlete's Performance (http://www.athletesperformance.com/) until my trainer showed me how ridiculously deficient I was in some areas, and then it fully hit me how much I had to learn and re-teach myself about movement efficiency and form. Because a lot of it isn't innate principles and has to be cognitively recognized and applied, and bad techniques have been reinforced throughout the years with muscle memory and movement patterns. And it can take a long time to un-learn incorrect technique if you're fighting it the whole way and think you're too cool for school. News flash Walter Cronkrite: you aren't.

So in summary:

1. Drop. Your. Ego. and recognize that you have weaknesses and imbalances that need to be addressed before you can reach your speed/strength/agility/vertical leap potential. And recognize that some of those imbalances might mean that you might have to start at the basic moves and build up from there. How do you expect to be able to jump your highest if you can't even squat correctly?

2. Recognize that exercise science has evolved significantly in the past few years and that the routines and techniques you were taught in High School or Jr. High may not necessarily be the most effective or even correct way to acheive the results you're looking for. Recognize that you DON'T know everything about exercise science and be open and willing to learn new things. You might just surprise yourself.

3. Variety is the spice of life. There are too many activities out there for you to keep doing the same routine over and over. Change it up constantly so that you're always keeping your body guessing and ready for anything. Running stairs exactly how you've run them since college is not only f'ing boring, but also means you're getting 1/2 the bang for your buck. If you're going to commit the time to training you might as well get the most out of it.

Onto the training:

Movement Prep- usual nonsense. Also did 3 sets of quick drops and 3 sets of overhead quats. Steadily improving at those.

Did The BEAR today, and...well...it was quite unbearable. The BEAR consists of a hang clean to front-squat to push-press, then back down for another front-squat to push-press. That's 1 rep. 6 sets of 6 reps. Yeah, that's right. 72 front-squats to push-press in one setting...with 36 hang-cleans. Note: the regular BEAR calls for the 2nd squat to be a back squat but I keep both front-squats as I'm really trying to improve my front squat. And it's harder.

Next I did an core-circuit consisting of hanging-leg raises, medicine ball twists, sit-ups, & GHD's (glute-ham developers- awesome exercise). Went through circuit 3 times with 45 second rest between circuit, no rest between exercises.

After core-circuit I did box-jumps and row machine intervals. 30 seconds on/30 seconds rest for 4 sets to hit that lactate threshold even more. Legs. Were. Spent. Along with the rest of me.

Tonight will be medicine ball throws, speed & agility work, and throwing. Love September in LA, it's sunny and 78 degrees till 8pm 7 days a week. Say what you want about the traffic, smog, and flaky people but I'll take that weather any day o' the week!... along with the saucy girls that walk their silly little dogs at Studio City park in their silly little skirts. God bless that park.

CF

STS 9-9-07 and Rollin' with Nolan

"I wouldn't ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important —like a league game or something."

-Dick Butkus, former Chicago Bears linebacker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5pWMP6HdXc

Yeah that's right kids. It's that time again. It's time for some mothaf'ing football!

I've been waiting 7 months for this. 49ers on tonight and back in the hunt. We're winning 10+ games this year. I'm calling it now.

Football has always been my first true love. The only good thing about Nationals being over is that I get to play Flag Football with my boys again with the Sandlot All-stars. 6 of us on the team have been playing together for 7 years now. In honor of the season finally here I ran a bunch of routes with QB Chris this week intermixed with our speed workout. We also did some 2 and 3 ball drills. For The 2 ball drill we would run a 12-yard out, catch the ball, then immediately drop it and explode into a post-corner route as ball #2 was coming over the shoulder. The 3 ball drill consisted of a slant across the field, catch & drop, immediately change direction to a 15 yard out across to the opposite side of the field, catch & drop and immediately turn upfield for a streak and a long-bomb ball #3. The focus is obviously on changing direction at maximum speed and catching every ball. Both of the drills felt VERY ultimate-specific as it was 5 cuts in a row. Oh yeah, and it's fucking sweet to catch 3 balls in a row from a guy who's got a collegiate-level arm. Dude throws darts.

On to the workout:

Movement Prep- Same stuff as before. See previous posts if ya don't know. One change though as I started incorporating more overhead squats and quick drops into my workout. Quick drops have officially taken place as my new Hot Exercise of the Moment. An unbelievable disassociation & explosive exercise. In a single explosive move the arms move up, the legs move down into a squat, and the core stays stable. Simply phenomenal. And amazingly difficult to get your arms and legs to move in opposite directions with fluidity. Took me 3 seperate sessions before I felt mildly comfortable, so don't worry if they don't automatically click the first time you try them. Remember, the point is that you're trying them. Because I guarantee the guy you cover at the next tournament isn't...well, unless you cover me.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/QuickDrop.html

Functional lifts:

Hang-Cleans 4 sets: 6,6,4,4 increasing weight

Front Squats 4 sets @ 8 reps increasing weight

Jump Shrugs: 3 sets of 6, then immediately transitioned into 6 deadlifts after each set. Those rocked.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/JumpShrug.html

Push-Press: 3 sets @ 10 reps

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/PushPress.html

Russian Dead-lifts: 2 sets @ 10 reps, wasn't planning on doing these but felt like hitting the hamstrings a bit extra today so I only did 2 sets. I'm such a wimp.

Next was a core circuit that consisted of twists on a swiss-medicine ball w/weight, weighted situps on a decline bench, glute-ham developers (SICK exercise), swiss-ball planks- improved at those to the point where I can balance on two swiss-balls, one on my feet, one on my hands in push-up position. Really fun to balance on those, even though I don't think people like it when I take up two of six swiss balls we have available. :)

Finished with Box Lateral Shuffles while holding a 10lb medicine ball overhead. This strengthens your core at it's weakest point (hands overhead). Remember the longer your body is the more your core is forced to stabilize it.

Two words to think about this week: Pillar. Strength.

What are you doing to improve your pillar strength?

CF

STS 8-27-07, the Beach & Labor Day

Bruce Lee on competition:

"Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being "wholly" and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw_v67Izt50

Probably still the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The ability to generate usable force from a standstill (or deceleration) can't be understated in sports. It's what seperates great athletes from the rest. If that is not an area of primary focus in your training then don't be surprised if you find yourself left behind...literally and figuratively.

Did a beach workout on Sunday out in beautiful Santa Monica with a buddy and realized (again) how much I miss living out by the beach. SM is the perfect exercise beach. Tons o' deep sand, the usual running path stretching for miles, and a big-kids jungle gym full of rings, 40-foot rope climbs, and a different assortment of parallel bars, ring-swings, etc. Interesting note: SM is actually home to the 1st Muscle Beach. Venice Beach is the epicenter of the body-building craze and where the sport really took off, but the first beach to offer any kind of exercise equipment was SM.

Did a variety of sprint & agility work on the sand and found out that all my lateral movement exercises can be done effectively on sand, which was awesome because I was concerned that I'd get too bogged down and not be able to move explosively, making the exercise essentially useless. But much like swimming, the faster I moved the more I stayed on top of the sand. Was even able to do lateral bounds for about 35 yards across the sand. I'm okay with that. I forgot how much sand running exercises the foot muscles as they were aching at the end. Finished with some rope climbs and some parallel-bar work. Also forgot how much climbing rope makes your hands ache and how scary being 40 feet in the air is, especially when the only thing holding you up is fatiguing really quickly.

Sunday in the sand left my legs feelin' great for my workout yesterday. All springy n' stuff, exactly how I like them for the jump-intensive workout I did yesterday.

Movement Prep set #1 (no rest in between):

Jump-rope TF
Lunges w/weight overhead (25lb plate)
Hand-stand pushups
Side-lunges
Jump-rope TF

Set 2 I replaced lunges with bulgarian split-squats (essentially a lunge with back leg on a bench or plyo box) and side-lunges with overhead squats with the bar. If you have any trouble with your squat form (which is 98% of the population) these are the best way to correct it. Set 3 was clock lunges and hang-cleans with just the bar.

Lift #1:

Hang cleans 5 sets @ 6,6,4,4,4 reps with increasing weight

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/HangClean.html

Lift # 2:

Front squats 4 sets @ 8 reps with increasing weight

Lift # 3:

1 leg step-ups 3 sets @ 8 reps
(Haven't done these in a while and they crushed. Such a great exercise).

Next I did an Interval Circuit that consisted of 4 sets at 30 seconds, with 30 seconds rest, and 1 minute rest between exercises.

The exercises :

1. Jump-shrugs- LOVED these. Hadn't done them in a long time, and kicking myself for it. As functional as functional gets.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/JumpShrug.html

2. Box Jumps on a 30 inch platform

3. Romanian deadlifts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eZA_QDy9cY

4. Row Machine- emphasizing generating as much force on the pull-back rather than using the momentum from the forward motion. Again, working on that generating usable force thing.

Finished with an ab circuit and lateral stepper walks. Lateral steppers= still ROCK.

http://www.power-systems.com/nav/closeup.aspx?c=4&sc=27&g=1419&Lateral/Stepper™

Labor Day is this weekend. Besides having quite possibly the lamest Saturday schedule I've ever heard of (game 1 at 8am, then 3 games in a row starting at 1:15...WTF!?!?) we've got a solid weekend ahead of us. At least we can play game 1 then grab some breakfast and have it fully settled before facing JAM & Sockeye back to back. Can't wait. We've definitely improved some from Colorado and cleaned up some much-needed areas. Hopefully we show up ready to blow up both days instead of coming out flat like we did on Sunday in CO. Time will tell.

Funny note: my Summer League team won the LA Men's League despite me being there. Coolest part about the team was that it included my old Fraternity brother and college roomate Ulises, the guy I started playing Ultimate with and who I won back-to-back Fraternity Champs with. Also on the team was 3 guys from our rival Fraternity, the guys who used to win it before we came along. These dudes were actually the spark that ignited my ultimate career. In college ultimate was the first sport of the semester-long competition and since it was directly around rush there was always BIG bragging rights on the table. Well, the 3 dudes (along with some others) would play in the LA Summer League every year and clean house till we joined the league and then cleaned house on them. From my Summer League team I was invited to play with DAMN, a Winter League that included Butta & Corey, who took me under their wing and really taught me the game and later on invited me to try out for the Condors. The rest, as they say, is history...

#40

Cabo'n & Wabo'n

Like Tom Glavine, now it's time for a change-up.

http://www.stevenellis.com/steven_ellis_the_complete/images/wallace_circle_changeup.jpg

Instead of crushin' in it in the weightroom and on the grass like my normal, I spent a glorious 5 days in Cabo San Lucas with some great friends last week. Although I've already given up my soul to Mexico many a' time in college (mmmm...she was a giver), this was my first time experiencing the Wabo that is Cabo.

Epic & beautiful are the two most appropriate ways to describe this place. Warm water beaches and air temp so perfect you want to spend every moment you can outdoors. Palm trees as far as the eye can see, beach town vacation vibe, and carne asada & 'ritas 'round every corner. The bansion (beach + mansion= bansion) was the true main character of our story as it was THE place to be. The greatest part of my room was that it was beachside so when I left my huge sliding glass doors open as I stood in the open-air shower I could watch the waves crash onto the rocks. I can't describe what that's like, but I hope you get to experience something like that someday.

The view looking out into infinity:

The view from the right:


And the view to the left overlooking the most awesome rocky shore I'd ever seen:

This trip was the longest amount of time I've taken off from training since my foot break. Since I only had a 1/2 season last year (started playing about a month before sectionals) I didn't need to take any time off after Nationals, instead jumping right into my program the day I got back as I was still ridin' the Natty's wave and determined to do whatever it takes to get back there this year. And the next. And the next...etc. :)

I figured the best way for me to fully enhance my 5-day break from training (and life) was to drink my body weight in Tequila. Luckily I had my partners in crime (or enablers, as some people like to call them...whatever that means) Brian Bogle, Aussie Steve, & the infinity pool to help me in my quest. It was a big task, but we were up for the challenge.

Cigars taste good in Cabo. Real good.

Our schedule consisted of laying around the infinity pool listening to the uber-swanky sound system that was hooked up to every room in the place, including outside, meandering down to explore the rocks & our private beach, and heading out to the club/bars at night. The spots were decent, the employees were well-versed in the art of handing you alchohol when didn't ask for it, making you drink it, and then charging you for it. They only fooled me 9 times before I caught on to their sinister plan. Tricky bastards. But a sizeable amount of dodgy characters plus the Entourage-esque bansion waiting at home made for us mostly just showing our faces for a couple hours, getting some drinks, and heading back to the swanky pad. Plus I'm now fully convinced now that living in LA has tainted me in the club department.

Another unexpected bonus in an already over-the-top adventure was that the company that owned the house also gave us another smaller condo & private resort to use during the day since they were doing construction on the house next door. The only thing better than having one isolated picturesque place to chill is...having two! This resort came with another private beach, 4 ridiculously beautiful and huge pools to relax in, and a nice lil' grass area to throw the ol' bee around.

All in all, it was a perfect trip that I'll never forget. Getting a chance to spend some quality time with Steve and Brian was SO great since they're up in the Bay and we only see each other sporadically. Miss those guys already.

Random awesomeness from the trip:

-The $1.50 silver plastic running suit that Steve & his girl found at the supermercado. Apparently mexian physical fitness extends further than futbol and bullfighting. Who knew?

- Supermercado's have a whole aisle dedicated to straw hats. They LOVE them straw hats.

- Apparently eating 3 pounds of fresh shrimp + 5 pitchers of margaritas = a bad thing. Again, who knew?

- Cabo Wabo= Lame. You heard it here first.

- Hunter Steve and his homemade spear.

- Crabs on rocks.



-Snorkel Time with Sara





-Butta vs. infinity

- Mr. Iguana

- Rocky beach Sunday morning after an unforgettable 24 hours.

-Da Boys at da pool

- And last but not least, some jerk.

We'll get back to that exercise thing later. For now just try and soak up a bit o' Cabo for a moment...

STS July 29th- Fight Gone Bad & the C-Cup

"Vision without action is a daydream, Action without vision is a nightmare."- Japanese Proverb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMZcCeS0Ph8


It's been a couple weeks since I posted last as I've been busy stepping up my training another level in anticipation of the upcoming season. Last week I got three 2-a-days in and I'm looking forward to the results it brings. I've already noticed that my lactate threshold has increased substantially, and I'm getting stronger and faster than I've been before. Who woulda thought that I'd be getting faster at 26? all I can say is God Bless Athlete's Performance.


On Sunday I attended another Crossfit session at my new favorite hangout in the Valley. Each time I've taken a class there I've sworn that it was the hardest class, but Sunday's really takes the cake. We performed a routine called Fight Gone Bad, but upped the intervals to Tabata intervals, which is 8 rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest. I know what you're thinking, and you're right. 10 seconds is NOT a lot of recovery time at all. For this we did a normal Movement Prep warmup with some plyometric movements and then jumped right into Tabata FGB.

http://www.valleycrossfit.com/


Fight Gone Bad consists of a circuit of 5 exercises, each one done 8 times with a 20 second maximum intensity/10 second rest interval with a 1 minute break in between exercises. You perform each exercise 8 rounds, then move to the next.


The exercises:

1. WallBall- Using a 20lb medicine ball you do a front squat with the ball at your chest, explode up and throw the ball against a wall 10 feet high as your feet leave the ground. Catch the ball as you enter your next squat so that you accept the ball's kinetic energy and transfer it into your explosion out of the squat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lstv1mOqNaw

2. Dead-lift to High-Pull- With a dumbbell or kettleball perform a deadlift and then bring the weight to your chin with your elbows flared out. Can also use a barbell if necessary, just bring your hands to the middle of the bar, about 2 inches apart from one another. We used a 32lb kettleball. Here's an example, though you want to keep your feet facing forward, rather than flared out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qruUYEGNlUM

3. Box-Jumps on a 24" platform.

4. Push-press- With a 75lb bar start with the bar at chest level while standing. Explode up and press the bar overhead so that the lift is activated by your feet and legs. Remember that you generate power for this from your legs & core, not your upper-body.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOfaWlres4A

5. Rows- On a rowing machine with medium-level tension

So the whole workout took less than 20 minutes but it was the most exhausting 20 minutes. Each lift is a full-body multi-joint lift, and 4 of them involve a squat. As you can imagine, the 20 seconds go quick, but the 10 second rest goes even quicker. It seems daunting when you start and are only at set 3, but you quickly stop thinking (because you're too fatigued) and just focus on moving as hard as you can as fast as you can as correctly as you can. To give you an ultimate analogy it felt like a hell-point for the entire session, I was at absolute total maximum output for almost a solid 20 minutes. Crossfit doesn't just make your muscles hurt, it makes your muscular system hurt. Along with your neurological, motor skills, pride...etc, etc.

We paired up for FGB and had a partner count reps for us and push us. I was (un)lucky enough to be partnered with Miss Fitness (my exercise goddess from the previous post) who gave the class a lesson in athleticism as she was easily the most in-shape person there. She went first and set the bar REAL high for me. Crossfit does a fantastic job of making everything a competition so we tallied up all the reps for all 5 activities giving you a total score. For rowing we counted calories burned per round instead of reps.

WallBalls gave me a bitch of a time because we use a huge, cushy ball that has displaced weight as opposed to the basketball-sized rubber ball that I'm used to. I must have dropped that damn thing 4 or 5 times, losing valuable rep time. Or gaining valuable recovery time, depending on the way you look at it. :)

I felt pretty strong going into the Deadlift High-Pulls and posted solid reps on that. I was most proud of my box jumps though as I managed to get 9 jumps in for 5 of the 8 rounds, which is moving fast for only having 20 seconds. I was spent for the Push-press and rows but still finished mildly strong. I finished second overall in the class with a total rep count of 333. (Miss Fitness finished at 327) and 1st place went to a cop who posted a whopping 384. The dude managed to get reps of 20 on the push press for 4 of his 8 rounds. Yeah, that's 1 a second.

Afterwards I finished some boxing intervals. It consisted of 1 minute jump-rope, 1 minute on the heavy bag, 1 minutes on the speed bag, set of ring dips, set of kipling pullups (pullups on the rings) followed by 1 minute rest. I managed to get 6 rounds in and then headed for the pool where I spent the rest of the day lounging around in the glorious LA sun and wondering why my body ached anytime I moved. I hadn't felt that bad since the last time I went to that Evil Exercise Facility of Death. Love/hate that place.

In the Ultimate world we had an awesome practice weekend up in SB the weekend before last. The weekend itinerary went something like this: practice, burritos, beer,butterfly beach & the SB co-eds, beer, bbq at Whit n' Nick's pad, beer, foosball, beer, bar, bar, bar (& more co-eds), sleep, bagels, practice, burgers, couch. Things I love about SB: see all the above.

We've also got a big weekend coming up at the Colorado Cup. Saturday has us starting off with Johnny Bravo, followed by Sub-Zero, Boston, and finally JAM. Sunday brings us Revolver, Machine, and BAT. If we were looking for a test to find out what kind of team we are then I think we found it. I am absolutely stoked to play boston and sub as it'll be my first time playing these teams. Can't wait to go to battle with the boys and get into the thick of it.

Train hard, train smart.

#40

STS 7-11-07 and what could've been

"You don't win the fight in the ring; you win it in the gym"- Muhammad Ali


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vL19q8yL54


Rumor on the street is that Adrian Wilson once jumped over Beau while Beau was jumping over some other guy. Just what I heard.

Did another Xfit-style workout again. And I do mean WORKout. Tried to stick to the time allotment as best as possible this time around which turned an already fatiguing set of activities into a completely gut-busting session. Seriously, at one point during the front-squat-to-push-presses I thought I was going to throw-up cuz I was so fatigued. Guess that means it's working...that and the fact the I am sore in every large muscle group today. And I thought I was in shape.

Movement Prep:

Same great stuff, different day.
Jump-rope TF
lunges w/weight overhead
hand-stand pushups
Squats w/weight overhead
Jump-rope TF

Did two sets of that with no rest in between then switched lunges for side-lunges, squats for 1-leg'd squats, and handstand pushups for plyo pushups w/one hand on a medicine ball, switching everytime. Also added hanging leg raises. Performed 4 sets total.

Functional lifts:

Hang-cleans 4 sets of 4

I then moved into the crossfit activity which consisted of a front-squat-to-push-press for 20 reps, then immediately move to 20 pullups. That's 1 set and you're supposed to perform 3 sets without rest. I still needed a solid 30 seconds rest after the first set, and a full minute after the second because I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest...followed by my lunch. Always humbling to find out you're not as tough as you think you are. Sigh.

The front-squat-to-push-press is a great exercise that adds an extra lil' twist because you're holding the bar in a push-press position instead of a regular front-squat position (elbows extended forward, bar on shoulder) which forces your core to be even more activated and the stabilizer muscles in the shoulder and upper & middle-back are working in overdrive to keep the bar centered and stable.

Once my Central Nervous System calmed itself down enough I moved into Tabata intervals for pushups and pullups. Tabata intervals are 20 seconds of as many pushups you can do, followed by 10 seconds of rest, then 20 seconds again to failure, 10 seconds rest...etc. Perform 8 sets which means that you're only working for 4 minutes total, but it is the most crushing 4 minutes, believe me. Immediately followed with pullups, and by the end I could barely grip the bar my hands and forearms were so fatigued. Great stuff all around.

After I moved back over to regular back squats and went heavy. I also followed each set with a set of medium-weight russian deadlifts to hit the hammy's even more. I had to do medium-weight because I literally couldn't hold the heavy bar as my grip was completely shot.

3 sets @ 8 reps for squats
3 sets @ 10 reps for russian dead-lifts

Moved directly into a Pillar Strength circuit that consisted of:

incline-situps w/weight
back extensions
Swiss-ball pikes
Swiss ball twists

Performed two circuits with no rest.

Finished with Powerband walks and calf raises. Workout took an hour and 10 minutes and I think I sweated 4 gallons of water out of my system. Note to self: bring 3 shirts next you work out, you're going to need 'em.

On a side note, I realized today that I've missed out on 5 seperate tournament finals this year alone because I either couldn't make the tourney or had previously committed to another team. That sucks, as I need all the big-game experience I can get. But just for chuckles:

-Fools Fest-unable to attend. But no regrets there as Bogle's birthday in Vegas was so much ridiculous fun it would require it's own blog to fully explain. Where else can you meet Neil Patrick Harris and Travis Barker in the same club? well, LA, but you know what I mean.
-SB Classic- a local tourney, but still a tourney. Committed early to a team that lost in the semi's instead of playing with one of the 'Dor squads.
-Kaimana- Played with Voltron instead of Ono and lost to them in the semi's. But absolutely no regrets there as playing with Voltron was one of the top 3 frisbee experiences of my career thus far. It really is just SO much better in the future. And we will be back. Yeah, you heard me Ono.
-Potlatch- had an invite by both teams in the finals. Sigh. Shoulda made it happen but $700+ for a non-open tourney is a tough pill to swallow, especially when you're saving for a new car (my truck is at 120K and counting).
- Huck it Long Beach- another local tourney, but I missed the chance to play/party with Husak & Tommy again, damien, Brent Russel and some goofy guy named Corey.

But so it goes. Guess I'll just have do my darnest to make sure my team is every other tourney finals from here on out. That should even things up quite nicely. :)

On saturday I'll be participating in a Crossfit session in a studio out in the valley followed by a grappling class immediately after. (They've got a Xfit & grappling combo for $20, hard to turn that down). Never done grappling before so I'm excited & curious to see how I'll hold up. Like Fight Club says "you never really know who you are until you've been in a fight." We'll see if that applies to a training class as well.

Train hard kids, and keep that 'Dorsiflexion.

#40

Oaks of a Thousand and Goals for the season

"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team"- John Wooden

Had another great Condor weekend with practices on both days. This year the majority of our practices are in Thousand Oaks, a quaint little suburb about a half hour (with no traffic) outside the city that is so picturesque that it makes me want to puke. But it's a perfect location as it's about equal distance from both SB and LA. The team has done a really fantastic job of making things easier for us LA kids, as all the Santa Barbara weekends can sometimes wear you down by the end of the season.

Funny note about TO, we used to play them for the season opener every year in HS football. It was an f'ing trek out there on the bus, used to take an hour and a half. That's a loooong time to be sitting in your football pants, especially when you're SO jacked up for the season to start. But since it was an upper-class suburb they had an amazing plethora of smoking hot rich girls there, so that gave us something to look forward to. Nothing better than beating a team AND stealing their girls. So when our JV game was over and we had to stay to watch the Varsity team play my boys & I would take our jerseys off and go over to the other side to hit on the girls, telling them that we were from nearby Agoura, or Malibu, or whatever else we could think of at the time. Some great memories of making out with a girl and getting a tap on the shoulder from my coach telling me it was time to get on the bus and asking where my jersey was. Needless to say I didn't get her number. :)

Saturday practice was great, full of fundamentals n' drills for the first couple hours, then we ran through the O plays and finished with a solid scrimmage of Broken Home kids vs. Nuclear Family's (their cheer of "mommy loves daddy" was only slightly better than our "we get 2 Xmas's") I started out sloppy, continuing my retarded trend of doing 1 dumb thing for every good thing I did. After getting off a nice forehand huck for the first goal I proceeded to turn the next 3 forehands over the course of a few points (1 bad decision, 1 bad throw, and 1 that Robbie Gillies had the sickest layout D on to get the turn. If you've never seen a 6'4" guy get completely horizontal at full speed, trust me, it's pretty f'ing amazing. Robbie is also my pick for the blow-up player of the year. That guy is going to turn some heads this season. Just you wait.) But I managed to clean it up after that, scoring a few goals, playing solid D, and no other turns as we won the scrimmage. Chalk another one up to the dysFUNctional latch-key kids. But my parents still love me, right? right?

Sunday morning brought tons o' marking drills, hucks drills, and a whole bunch of endzone work, for which we definitely needed. I felt great by the end of it, felt much better about my timing, and worked with Dugan a bunch on endzone cuts. SO good to have that guy out there with us. His calm demeanor and ability to translate his knowledge of the game makes a world of a difference. And he's got some ok breaks too.

My goals for the upcoming season:

1. Take the other team's stud receiver, D him up, and shut him down/contain him enough that we get the W.
2. Move the disc as fast as possible when it's in my hands with a high-percentage throw.
3. No drops. Ever.
4. Improve my mark tenfold. Which would move it from god-awful to just plain mediocre.
5. Be a supportive & positive teammate always.
6. Be super-vocal and active on the sidelines always.
7. Score goals when we get the turn.
8. Be a resource for my teammates to help them achieve their athletic potential.

Going to do another Xfit workout in about an hour. Will post on it and let you know it goes. My prediction is that I'm going to be exhausted. Just a hunch.

STS 7-4-07 XFit and the Kwik-E-Mart

"Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead."- Roger Bannister (After becoming the first person to break the four-minute mile, 1952)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zPo7qwMluHo

Had a great workout yesterday. Whit, one of the Condor captains, showed me a Crossfit workout that I incorporated into my session. Crossfit is a program designed by police and military tactical specialists for combat conditioning. It's principles are extremely effective: full-body exercises done in rapid succession until exhuastion immediately followed with body-weight activities. They stress doing a variety of different athletic skills to keep your body adapting and workouts fresh. They use a lot of kettelball, medicine ball, and gymastic fundamentals in intense, exhuastive, and short workouts.

Movement Prep:

Usual nonsense. Set 1 was Jump-rope to failure followed by lunges holding a 6lb medicine ball in each hand over the head followed by hand-stand pushups followed by medicine ball squats. Switched up leg and pushup exercises for sets 2 and 3.

Full-body Lift:

Hang-cleans: 4 sets @ 4 reps

Jumped right into the Crossfit activity. This particular one is called "Frans" (not sure why, and frankly the name is kinda lame) consisted of 20 front-squat to push-press immediately followed by 20 pull-ups. You're supposed to then go directly back into another set of those, but I must admit that I was flat-out fatigued from the first set and needed a break before going again. Here's another video of what it looks like:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=e0nwx7Q5j-k

Now I consider myself in decent shape, but it's been a long time since I've done 20 front squats in row, much less combined with a push-press, so I was exhausted at the end of the second set. I knew it was going to be a good workout, but those XFit guys know what they're doing. Full-body, functional, and exhausting. Sounds good to me.

Pillar Strength Circuit:

Went directly from that into a Pillar Strength circuit that also included some medicine ball plyometrics. Went through each activity once with no rest. Completed two circuits.

Swiss-ball pushups
Split-squat medicine ball forward throws against a wall.
Swiss-ball knee tucks
Side-plank
Swiss ball situps w/weight
Hanging leg raises

Last functional lift:
Russian deadlifts 3 sets @ 8 reps

Finished with power-band walks to failure and calf raises. Props to CrossFit for inspiring this workout. For more info check out www.crossfit.com. I even looked at a CrossFit center in the Valley to check out the real deal. We've got practice this weekend but I'm definitely going to next weekend. They have a CrossFit session immediately followed by a grappling class, all for $20. Never done grappling but it'd be fun to take a class on it. Will let you know how it goes.

Also, as a sweet teaser for the new Simpsons Movie they put a Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank complete with it's own Frostillicus in the freezer. Must get over there and get photo taken with the Man himself. God bless the Simpsons. So. Funny.

http://www.7-eleven.com/kem.asp

#40

STS 6-26-07 & Count Snatchula in da house.

"If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat." -Herschel Walker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKuLT9wqP8

That clip is probably the most athletic thing I've ever seen.

Changed things up a bit today. Got up early to do an AM workout. Not really a huge fan of early morning lifting because it usually takes my body a lot longer to warm up and sometimes I feel like it doesn't respond as well...almost like my muscles are used to being in a resting state at that time. Huh. But it's good to keep 'em guessing, and I should get used to working out in the morning as first round games are definitely in the AM. Plus now I can play golf tonight. Booyah. Here's todays workout:

Movement Prep: (no rest between these exercises)

Jump-rope TF (to failure)
Lunges w/med. ball
Handstand pushups
squats w/med. ball
Jump-rope TF
Side lunges
Handstand pushups
1-foot'd squats
Jump-rope TF
Walking lunges w/med. ball
Hand-stand pushups
side-step squats
Jump-rope TF

That was set #1. Switched up the handstand pushups for 1-handed pushups (on an incline platform) and also added some hanging leg-raises on set 2. Finished that and jump-roped for another 8 minutes or so going through the different variations to warm up further. (Remember that 10 minutes of jumping rope burns as many calories as 30 minutes of running. Something to think about.) I'm also a big fan of 1-leg squats right now. They are SO much harder than they look, and really work the intertior/exterior stabilization muscles. Legs were feelin' pretty saucy by this point so I knew it was going to be a good workout. Had to move fast today as well as I only had an hour to get through all the lifts before work so I decided to do a lot of circuit n' superset (moving from exercise to exercise without rest) work after the heavy lifts.

Multi-joint Lifts:

As always, started with hang cleans. Don't forget the primary focus of these strength-training sessions is on the Posterior Chain (back, lower back[& core], glutes, hammy's, calves). Legs were springy today so I was able to pound through the first 3 sets of cleans pretty fast, ended up doing 6 sets total. Cleans are fun because it's 100% maximum output on a quick-burst movement vs. slow n' steady lifting, so while they are immensely tiring n' difficult, they only last 3-4 seconds per lift.

Hang Cleans 6 sets @ 4 reps
Deadlifts 2 sets @ 8 reps
Front-squats 2 sets @ 8 reps
Regular squats 3 sets @ 6 reps (heavy)

Front-squats are still one of my favorite lifts right now because nothing makes my core work as hard and you can really feel it in the wrists n' grip strength as well. (Great for holding onto that disc). Dropped down the reps on the regular squats but went heavy throughout. When doing your squats remember to go slow on the way down, no reason to rush at all. Should take you 3-4 seconds to completely lower. Focus, as always, is on form and control.

Core/Stability/Circuit:

Physioball pushups 3 sets TF-(feet on a small physioball, hands on large. Balance for 10 seconds then attempt pushups. Notice I said attempt. Only could do pushups on the first set. Those mofo's CRUSH.)

Did a Pillar Strength Circuit next:
Cable-chops to medicine ball twists to physioball knee-tucks without rest.

Moved directly into Army Ranger standards just to make sure I could still hang:

80 pushups in 2 minutes
80 situps in 2 minutes
14 pullups
(Super-set)

Technically I should run a 2-mile in under 15 minutes immediately following to truly say I kept up with Army Ranger standards, but I'm fairly confident that I could do that pretty easily if I ever wanted to run for 2 miles. In a row. Without catching a football or frisbee. Just running. Yeah...sounds like fun. Bleh.

Last Multi-joint lift:

Walking lunges w/weight 6 sets @ 12 reps
Finished with a super-set of Power-band walks @ 4 sets TF

Second time using the powerbands, those things are S-O-L-I-D. Will post further about them in a future blog. But I will say that they are lateraliffic.

Only had 7 minutes left on the clock by now, only enough time to get one last lift in. Decided to stick to an oldie-but-goodie, also one of my top 3 favorite lifts right now: 1-handed Snatches. Same lower-body and core movement as the hang-clean, exploding up out of a squat and catching yourself back in it, but the single arm goes straight overhead following the natural line of the body. It's a phenomenal exercise because you're using the whole body and strengthening the abs at it's weakest point (arms extended). You're teaching your body to stay strong n' stable while fully extended from the torso up...exactly the same body positioning when you're at the height of your jump skying some chump for the disc.

Seems to fit all the criteria for an effective ultimate-specific exercise:

Full-body and functional: check.
Explosive n' fast-twitch: check.
Body positioning during lift translates over to body positioning during on-field movement: check.
Stimulates muscles in way different from previous exercises: check.
Makes me tired: check.

Final Synopsis:
Count Snatchula is up in da heezy.

Here's a visual example for all ya suckas that don't know:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg77Os9mtXs

Ran the 'dors through the speed movement program on Saturday for the first part of practice. I managed to get through the first 3 phases in under an hour and threw a good amount of information at them. Almost all of them picked right up on the concepts and were able to recognize how it translates to on-field movement. Because that's what it's all about: how does what I do while training apply to how I move and react on the field.

The most rewarding part was seeing how f'ing athletic some of my teammates are. I had them doing movements that they had never done before and some of them looked like they'd been practicing it for years. All good signs. I'm very excited to progress further into the program with them and see how they respond to it. Most importantly, I got some of them to analyze my program and methods against their current workouts and compare/contrast. Anything I can do to get my teammates to cognitively analyze their training will only serve to enhance their training. (even if they disagree with me for some weird reason) Because the point is not just to train hard, but to train smart as well.

Practice was both days this weekend and they were constructive, informative, and exhausting. Our captains do a great job of setting up smart, tough practices that make the most of the few hours that we have together. Very fundamental practices...exactly what I need. And love. I am SO fired up for the upcoming season. Our team is starting to come together and find it's sense of identity. We're practicing with fire n' intensity and everybody seems to be on the same page in terms of discipline and commitment. This squad definitely has heart n' grit. Two things I'm a big fan of.

ST Workout 6-21

"I can barely lift my arms, I did so many" - Ron Burgundy







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbDoQGdDKo&mode=related&search=

My Strength-Training program (you'll notice I don't refer to it as weight-lifting because...well...you do so much more than just lifting weights that it's actually insulting to my Strength-training program to call it that. Seriously. She told me she was insulted. We're all about new-age terminology 'round here) also follows a four-phase system.

Phase 1- Movement Prep

Movement Prep is SO much more than just warming up. It's about getting your body (with emphasis on legs + core) ready for the madness you're about to put it through while also raising your internal body temperature. You're going to perform the movements you're about to do but with body-weight.

The single greatest activity for Movement Prep is jumping rope. If you fancy yourself an athlete and jumping rope isn't a part of your routine then you are simply selling yourself short. Jumping rope for 10 minutes burns as much calories as 30 minutes of running. There's a reason jumping rope has been a staple of boxing and other sports for many, many years. Because to jump rope successfully your body must be in correct positioning. Everything from your head down must be in perfect alignment and your core holds your body stabilized while your legs are plyometrically and anaerobically moving. So you're warming up, getting lighter on your toes, and teaching your core it's proper alignment. Name me another activity that does all of that as effectively. Plus it's pretty f'ing fun when you can go for a couple of minutes and do all the many variations that there are. Still workin' on the double-jump crossovers though...not much luck there yet. Yet.

I like to mix in different body-weight functional movements in between my jump rope intervals. (Functional is defined as any full-body activity that resembles any movement either on the field or in your normal daily activity. Two examples would be a side-lung, such as when you're trying to stop a backhand break, or a deadlift, like when you're picking your grocery's up off the floor).

Last night's MP went something like this:

Jump rope TF (to failure)
body-weight lunges-10 reps
hand-stand pushups against the wall-10 reps
Jump rope TF
body weight side-lunges
hand-stand pushups against the wall
Jump-rope TF
1-legged squats
hand-stand pushups against the wall
Jump-rope TF

That's one set. In 7-8 minutes I've done 3 different types of full-body functional movements for my core and legs, an upper-body stabilization exercise that also hits the core, and done high-intensity anaerobic and plyometric movements.

For set 2 I switch the Hand-stand pushups for some variation of a plyometric pushup (like doing the "clap" pushup without the clap part, simply springing off the ground with your hands and landing back down into the pushup and plyometrically repeat) and mix-in hanging leg raises (for further core activation and to warm up my grip) or a pull-up set and some type of twisting activity with a medicine ball. The point is to do different activities, keep moving, and make sure every activity is functional and full-body. There is NO body-part training involved in these workouts. For further clarification on the reasons for that read my previous blog.

I usually do 2 or 3 sets depending on how I feel. I also like to grab a 25 or 35lb pound and perform the lunges and squats while holding the weight over my head with locked arms. This strengthens the abs and core at it's weakest point (fully extended upper-body) and works the stabilization muscles in the upper-body. If I'm doing a 3rd set I'll again change up the movements in between the jump-rope sessions. Inch-worms, backwards-walking lunges, cross-over squats are all examples of other body-weight activities.

Phase 2- Multi-joint full-body lifts

This, as my old football coach used to say, is where we separate the men from the boys. Phase 2 is the nitty-gritty. The emphasis on this phase is on working the Posterior Chain (from your Erector Spinae and Core down through the hip muscles and glutes (ass) through the hamstrings and calf). Your Posterior Chain controls all of your movement, especially running and jumping. The two exercises I always do religiously is the hang-clean and the squat. They are without a doubt the two greatest strength exercises ever. After that I pick 2 other full-body lifts to perform along with them.

Last night:

4 sets of hang-cleans @ 4 reps each
2 sets of dead-lifts @ 8 reps each
4 sets of squats @ 10-8-8-6 with increasing weight.

Also, every other workout I do front-squats to switch things up. If you've never done those, give 'em a whirl. They f'ing CRUSH. Usually by this time my legs need a lil' break before I can jump into the next full-body lift so I move into Phase 3, then come back and finish the last full-body lift. Cuz that's how I roll. :-)

Phase 3- Core and upper-body supersets

This phase is all about working your core, or what Mark Verstegen calls your Pillar Strength (core + hips + stabilization muscles in the legs) while also hitting the upper-body with supersets (moving from one directly to the other) to keep your heart rate up, to work when you're tired, and to push that threshold further, further, further. The only isolated upper-body work I do is body-weight activity (dips, pull-ups, push-ups...etc). Boxing takes care of the rest of my upper-body strength so I can focus on my legs and core. It's been a long time since I've bench-pressed anything, there's simply too many other better exercises to be done.

Last night:
Physioball push-ups- balancing on two physioballs, one for the hands and one for the feet TF
Pull-ups TF
Dips TF
Physioball Pikes TF
Chin-ups TF
Plyometric push-ups
Physioball Plank w/feet on bench TF
Close-grip pull-up TF
Dips TF
Twists w/medicine ball TF

All these exercises are done as a circuit, without a break. Keep moving, keep pushing. None of these activities are using weight so you've really got nothing to piss n' moan about. Pushing through when you're tired now means you won't be as tired on double-game point. Hopefully.

By now my core and stabilizer muscles are rocked so it's the perfect time for that last multi-joint lift. Here's where you figure out what kind of mental toughness you have. Walking lunges, step-ups, donkey-press (1-legged if you're a badass), squat-presses, straight-leg deadlifts...etc are all examples of full-body multi-joint lifts. Enjoy this last exercise knowing it's the last heavy lift of the day.

Phase 4- uni-lateral/stabilization training w/disassociation

Phase 4's emphasis is on performing 1-footed (unilateral) leg + core exercises intermixed with stabilization training with upper-body disassociation(being able to maintain an athletic position while your upper-body is moving independently and explosively...sound familiar?).

85% of your stride is done on one foot (think about it) so we want the body to be so unbelievably comfortable working on one foot that it's second nature. I usually pick 2 exercises and mix them in with 2 stabilization/disassociation exercises

Last night:

-1-legged russian deadlifts 2 sets @12 reps

-split-squat medicine ball presses (while in a lunge, hold a medicine ball and chest-pass it against a wall, catching it still in the lunge. Maintain the stance and hold. That. Core. Strong. ) 1 set w/each leg forward. 10-12 reps.

-Step-ups w/medicine ball toss (step-up onto a platform while pressing the med. ball up, catch and come down, repeat with opposite leg) 2 sets @ 12 reps

- split-squats w/overhead med. ball tosses (same thing but throw the med. ball like you would soccer-style on an out of bound throw-in) 1 set w/each leg forward. 10-12 reps.

Recovery

Eat. Eat. Eat. You have a 15-minute window from when you finish your workout for maximum amount of absorption of protein and carbs for muscle-building potential. Every 15 minutes after that window passes your body's ability to absorb that food is decreased exponentially. I know you're not hungry, but it doesn't matter. Food is not food anymore, it's fuel. And your body needs it irregardless of what your stomach or head says. So Eat, and eat healthy. Protein and simple carbs are essential right away. Follow with complex carbs and more protein. and Drink a mad grip of water, but you should be doing that anyway.

Rest, stretch, and buy a foam roller. It's like your own personal massage. LOVE those things.