Wednesday track and Thursday yoga

The Kapow track routine has changed to a Fartlek session for the next few weeks. Got it done last night:

400m warmup plus full stretching routine

4*
         20s @ 50-60%, 10s @ 85-90%, 30s @50-60%, 15s @ 85-90%,  30s @50-60%, 15s @ 85-90%, 20s @ 50-60%, 10s @ 85-90% + 5 minutes off

400m warmdown plus full stretching routine

Then had Yoga today at lunch. Good poses in this session with lots of cross legged groin and hamstring stretching. Also did quite a lot with wide legged poses and finished with bridge poses as well. I never find Yoga tiring as there's not much in terms of physical exertion, especially in comparison to the Gym, track and training, but the strain and stretching always makes my muscles feel looser and fresher.

Gym again tomorrow, then a weekend of Ultimate!

Tuesday Gym

Wanted to come back strong after a week "off". Started good with a good series of pull up sets and continued throughout with a couple of increases to weights. Felt really good and by the end I could feel my muscles shaking in the last exercises, which just happened to be the loaded press ups! Really enjoying the Kapow! routine.


Warm up:

1 * 15 Internal Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
1 * 15 External Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
2 * 15 Single leg raised Glute Bridge - per leg
1 * 12 Press up holds (4 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats

Main routine:

3 * 8 Squats (70kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Split squats (52.5kg *increase*) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 10kg)
3 * 8 Seated row (55kg *increase*)
4 * Max Pull ups (14, 14, 11, 9)
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
4 * Max  weighted press ups (10kg) (24, 20, 16, 17)

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling


Track tomorrow.

Sunday track

Today was the last day of an off/slow week for fitness, and I was sitting on my sofa watching the six nations, noting the snow falling outside my flat and feeling tired from a great 3 day holiday in Amsterdam. How easy it would have been to finish this week with another day of no fitness.
Instead, I got on my sports kit and headed to the track.
This week the Kapow track regime was still top speed sprints, before it moved to Fartlek sessions from next week, but changed from the previous weeks' sessions.

6 * 50m sprints with 3 minutes rest between.

Had a 400m warmup and warmdown with proper stretching and muscle rolling either side of it.

Back to a full week this week, Gym on Tuesday and Friday, track on Wednesday night and Yoga on Thursday with Kapow training Saturday and Herd training Sunday.

Also, will be cycling 5 miles each weekday from now on, instead of 3 miles. Will be logging weekly cycling total mileage from now rather than daily/whenever I can.

Week (18th Feb-24th Feb): 13 miles cycling

Incidentally, my holiday was in Amsterdam and in a great surprise when I got home, I will be (hopefully) heading back to Amsterdam in June for the second time this year (and the second time in my life) for the awesome Windmill Windup tournament with Kapow!

@windmillwindup you just never receive handwritten letters these days…unless they're really special #can'twait twitter.com/KaPowUltimate/…
— Ka-Pow! (@KaPowUltimate) February 21, 2013

This week

Couple of things this week mean that it's a lighter than usual week for fitness.
Over the weekend I played indoors (boo I know). Had a fantastic time seeing a group of friends who I don't see very often (and one who was over from Canada) and the best part was definitely hanging out with them, rather than playing Ultimate. I played well, and there's nothing like playing indoors to give me a confidence boost. I completed 100% of my passes, made huge grabs over people, got tons of score, through a huge variety of throws and got loads of Ds and 2 layout blocks. But it doesn't half leave you sore. Friction burns, bruised knees and (due to having not bought new indoor shoes for around 3 years) a pretty gigantic blister.
This has meant that I wasn't able to do gym yesterday or Monday.
I am also going on holiday to Amsterdam on Thursday morning, getting back on Saturday night. This means that I won't be able to do any fitness on those days.

It's not like I've been completely idle though, the location of the blister didn't inhibit my ability to use a bike, so I cycled 3 miles on Monday, 5 miles yesterday and 5 miles today. I'll be exploring Amsterdam primarily on foot so I've got three days walking ahead of me, and I'll hit the track on Sunday.

Next week I'll be back in the gym though, as it's not too long until the start of the Mixed season, and the build up to the Open season.

Time to earn the spot at Euros!

Friday gym

Hit the gym today again at lunch.
Interesting session, starting with pull ups meant it was difficult and tiring from start to finish.


Warm up:

1 * 15 Internal Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
1 * 15 External Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
2 * 15 Single leg raised Glute Bridge - per leg
1 * 12 Press up holds (4 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats

Main routine:

3 * 8 Squats (65kg)
3 * 8 Split squats (50kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 7.5kg)
3 * 8 Seated row (50kg)
4 * Max Pull ups (10, 12, 9, 7)
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
4 * Max  weighted press ups (10kg) (20, 16, 16, 18)

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Thought it was strange that I managed to increase my pull ups and weighted press ups rather than having my max decline throughout the sets.

Also, it's quite apparent that during the pre-season my blog is pretty boring (gym, track, yoga, blah).
I don't expect anyone feels cheated by the lack of interesting discussion here (there's quite a lot of other things on the internet), but still I feel like I could add more.

I'm going to continue pitching ideas to Ultiworld after my first article was moderately well received. Got a couple of ideas I've been working on. However, I'm going to start adding more content here as well.

And finally, a nod to @coopstraining for giving me a nice little hamstring exercise. Been doing it a couple of nights this week.

Wednesday Track and Thursday Yoga

Track routine was the same as the last two weeks. Felt pretty quick last night which was nice, and no soreness or stiffness in my hamstrings.

Yoga today was pretty good too. Quite a lot of leg strengthening work, but also quite a bit which focussed on shoulders. During the shoulder exercise parts my left shoulder, which I injured a couple of weeks ago, felt a little stiff, but after it felt better and a little looser, so hopefully it helped it out a little. Had to nip out before the "final relaxation" due to a work meeting.

Tomorrow will be gym again at lunch.

Tuesday Gym

Warm up:

1 * 15 Internal Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
1 * 15 External Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
2 * 15 Single leg raised Glute Bridge - per leg
1 * 12 Press up holds (4 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats

Main routine:

3 * 8 Squats (65kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Split squats (50kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 7.5kg)
3 * 8 Seated row (50kg *increase*)
4 * Max Pull ups (11, 9, 8, 7)
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
4 * Max  weighted press ups (10kg *increase*) (21, 16, 15, 11)

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Had been feeling a bit worn down this morning, and increasing the arm exercises meant that this session really felt tough. But I know it's going to be worth it.

Other things (Saturday Ultimate part 3)

I've felt pretty disappointed with myself for the last few weeks. I've felt slow on defense and like I haven't been truly showing what I'm capable of. Combined with my injury and some annoying lapses in drills and I've not felt particularly pleased with myself.
I've had problems with confidence in the past, and have been known to be highly self critical of myself. Going into this weekend I just thought whatever happened I would play happy. Yes I still made mistakes in drills at Kapow, but I didn't let it get to me and I thought I'd played pretty well during the games both on offense and defense. Then when I headed to Herd training I thought I was able to contribute to the drills and again played well in games. Maybe it was all psychological but I really felt a lot better after this Saturday than I had about the previous weeks. My aim is to be positive at all future trainings and hopefully this will allow me to play looser and with confidence.
On another note, after having sore hamstring for most of the week, and thinking I hadn't done them any good by hitting the gym on Friday, my legs felt the loosest, quickest and strongest they have for a while. My shoulder is also finally feeling back to normal and so this week will be a proper week of fitness again.
The newly formed 'Kapow! Branding Awareness and Fundraising Group' (Me, Jonny and Pringle) had a good discussion after training on the way to the tube station leading to a couple of decisions about improving the online presence of Kapow as a club, and moving towards attempting to secure some funding.

Thundering Herd Training (Saturday Ultimate Part 2)

After finishing Kapow training I headed straight to Herd training. Having the use of a bike now is very useful now that I'm heading from one training to another in one day, considering the Boris bikes don't go out of central London (much). It also means my muscles keep relatively warm between trainings, which is useful in the cold weather.

Herd training had been going for a while and, like Kapow, was teaching open field offense and endzone offense. The two teams have quite different ideas about offense, but it wasn't too difficult to transition between the two trainings. Herd trainings are always well attended due to having two teams at them, which allowed the drills to be split between two groups. The game afterwards was the first team against the second team with the first team gaining a small lead and keeping it throughout. The teams aren't completely selected as of now, and I think it will be quite difficult to make final decisions as there is a set of the players who are established first team players and a set which are clearly second team players, but there is a quite big group who could go either way. The Herd lost quite a few players from last year's first team so I don't really know what to expect from this year, but considering we had quite a few disappointing results last season and we're having a retooling of the teams, combined with the return of the GB players it should be an interesting year in the mixed division.

Kapow! training (Saturday Ultimate part 1)

Despite the fact that Brodie Smith was in town running an Ultimate clinic, the turnout for Kapow training was good.

We have run a drill for the past couple of sessions that aims to teach the principles of our open field offense, adding in more and more elements each week to make it more game realistic each week. The drops that were a bit of a problem last week seemed to be mostly avoided, with a punishment of singing out loud lines from the popular children's song "how much is that doggy in the window" for drops.

We then went over our two offensive endzone variations. It's good that we introduced these early as they were another source of turnovers last season and I think it's good that we've introduced a second look to vary up our arsenal. We finished off with some five pull and some games, with the aims of practicing the things we had worked on. An additional rule was introduced in that, if the team on offense got into the red zone (20 yards (ish) out from the endzone) then they could take a timeout to setup one of the endzone variants. This worked well in the games as a lot of the endzone possessions resulted in goals, even when the defense had time to analyze and set themselves in appropriate defensive looks each time knowing exactly what the offense was going to look for. One problem we had last year though was transitioning from open field offense to endzone offense and we can't call timeouts every time we need to do that during the season so I think this additional rule may have only been for the first this session to help learning the systems. The concentration was good throughout and it was a good session, and the attendance has been much better this early in the season that it was last year.

Friday Gym

Same routine as on Tuesday. Felt better today, but my shoulder started to ache towards the end. I also changed up some of the weights based on Tuesday's session. Also, the pullup bar was in use pretty much the whole time I was there, which was strange because the gym is usually empty on a Friday, so I subbed them for Lat pulldowns

Warm up:

1 * 15 Internal Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
1 * 15 External Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
2 * 15 Single leg raised Glute Bridge - per leg
1 * 12 Press up holds (4 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:

3 * 8 Squats (60kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Split squats (50kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg *increase*) - per leg
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 7.5kg)
3 * 8 Seated row (46kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Lateral Pull downs (36kg)
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
4 * Max  weighted press ups (5kg) (30, 23, 21, 20)

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Thursday Yoga

Went down to the basement for yoga as I usually do on a Thursday.

This weeks routine was a little easier than the previous two weeks, but I think it has benefited my stiff hamstrings. It was a good core workout this week. I had a bit of trouble with the bridge pose this week though, due to my hamstrings, but I managed to make it through the whole routine. No pain in the shoulder either which was good. It seems to have healed pretty well since I hurt it.

Wednesday Track session

First 3 weeks are all the same in the Kapow track program.

Warm up:

400m jog plus stretching and muscle rolling

Main part:

(20m sprint full speed > 1 minute rest > 40m sprint full speed > 1 minute rest > 60m sprint full speed)* 3 with 3 minutes rest

Warm down:

400m jog plus stretching and muscle rolling

It was pretty cold tonight! Felt faster than last week and felt like I was quicker to recover from the sprints, but had an aching hamstring throughout, even after stretching it and using my roller.

Shame winter league has been cancelled this week. Haven't played a competitive game of proper outdoor ultimate since November (though the friendly against DED was plenty competitive).

Tuesday Gym

After two weeks away, nursing a shoulder injury I was itching to get back into the gym. I was also sent a new workout routine by Kapow and so today was a bit tentative. Moreover, I don't know my own strength (regardless of how strong/weak I am) and some of the exercises I used to do but with differing reps/sets to those specified in the new routine, so I was figuring this new routine out a bit today.

Warm up:

1 * 15 Internal Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
1 * 15 External Shoulder rotations (7kg) - per arm
2 * 15 Single leg raised Glute Bridge - per leg
1 * 12 Press up holds (4 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:

3 * 8 Squats (50kg)
3 * 8 Split squats (50kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (7.5kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 * 10kg)
3 * 8 Seated row (41kg)
4 * Max Pull ups (9, 8, 6, 6)
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
4 * Max  weighted press ups (5kg) (20, 15, 13, 11)

All the arm related exercises felt pretty difficult, which is understandable considering I was off 2 weeks with a shoulder injury and I've always had pretty weak arm strength anyway. Still it's only week 1 of the new routine and you've got to start somewhere.

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Awesome weekend!

Saturday Morning:

Kapow training was cold and windy, and it was a smaller turnout than in previous weeks. We were working on our offensive structure and teaching the principles to those who had turned up. It was a learning experience for all with some small adaptations to the offense that we played last year. I made a few mistakes, and had the occassional error along with most of the people there, but generally I was happy with my play at this training. Hoping this is the start of me getting back to how I want to be playing, and I'm looking forward to testing my play next week at Winter League.

Saturday Afternoon:

With a session of high concentration in the morning attempting to get my head around the offense and the drills and the fundementals that Kapow were trying to instill, the afternoon brought a little bit of a less mentally taxing ultimate session. Herd were teaching their plays but they were plays that I had learned before and played with other teams (with a couple of small adaptations which I liked). This meant I could concentrate on other things with my play like throws in the wind and having safe hands and throws, as well as defense. I thought I played well in this session as well and it was fun to get to a Herd session again. I am prioritising Kapow this year, but I still enjoy playing Mixed and playing with the Herd and I did have fun at this session.

Sunday:

My first taste of competitive Flag Football (and my second ever Flag football session) was a blast. Playing with the Basingstoke team (The Zombie Horde) against the Winchester Sharks and the Reading Lions was a lot of fun. I was leant a jersey, some receiver gloves and a playbook wristband to help me keep up with the playcalling on offense and I was ready and eager to get playing. Our first game was against the Sharks and the first Touchdown of the game was scored be me! It was fourth down and about 15 (no punting in Flag) and it was a hail mary play. I was in the slot on the left and managed to pick up the TD off a tip by another WR who had gone up for it in double coverage. We ended up losing in a high scoring close game 45-40 and I was extremely pleased with my play in my first competitive game. I played both offense (Wide Receiver) and Defense switching between man marking the other teams WRs and playing a sort of safety role in a zone. I had an interception to stop a TD in this game and was generally pleased with both my offense and defense.
The second game was against the Lions who apparently started this team this year and so were slightly less experienced compared to the Basingstoke team. We took a lead on our first possession with a TD and then the defense came up with another Interception and we went up two scores. They got one back but we kept scoring and were in control (28-15) by the half. I got another two interceptions in this game and scored another TD. In the end, considering we were in control of the game I even got a chance to play at Quarter back for a few plays. I was awful going 0-3 passing with 1 Int for 0 yards for a QB rating Mark Sanchez would be proud of (0). I managed to stop the TD off the Interception by getting the tackle though, but I definitely did not feel confident playing QB, but appreciated that they were trying to allow me to try it out.
We ended up winning the game comfortably.

I had a great time and if I'm ever available for further training or games then I'd be really up for it. I've got a pretty busy frisbee calendar, but I'd like to squeeze some Football in.

And tonight: It's the Superbowl!!! An old skunks teammate who spent a year in Southampton as part of his Masters, from Canada is coming over to watch it with some other skunks friends and I've got Monday morning off work so it should be a great night to finish off this great fun weekend of sports!

This week

Shoulder recovery is going well. Been cycling 3 miles every day for a bit of cardio.
Got presented with two differing track routines this week. The Herd track routine aims for players to peak over the mixed season and the Kapow track routine aims for players to peak over the open season. Since I'm prioritising Open this year I did the Kapow routine this week (but added a bit on the end from the Herd routine):

Track:
(20m sprint full speed > 1 minute rest > 40m sprint full speed > 1 minute rest > 60m sprint full speed)* 3 with 3 minutes rest

That's week 1 of the Kapow routine. Upon first looking it seemed quite easy, but it's about looking at training at top speed, which I can understand. In previous routines I felt like I was slowing down towards the end, but in this routine it felt like I was maintaining my top speed throughout the workout, and I definitely felt it by the end.

Finished it off with a 100m sprint which is the Herd track workout's end exercise. I didn't have a very precise timepiece, but I did it in around 12-13 seconds which isn't too bad.

Thursday I went to yoga. Was tough and I definitely felt some exercises were straining my shoulder, but I was able to do all of it without any pain. Was a good session and involved quite a lot of crossed leg stretches working hamstrings, which felt good as I've had a little bit of stiffness in them recently.

Making the decision not to hit the gym today (Friday) as I have a full weekend, and I'm planning on going back to my full weekly routine next week if this weekend goes without a setback with my shoulder.

Weekend:
Sat (AM): Kapow
Sat (PM): Herd
Sun : Flag football
Sun (night): SUPERBOWL!!! Gonna be an awesome game and have Monday morning booked off work to watch it.

Also, on a side note, I will be picking up my dad's old bike from my parents this weekend so I will be cycling at the weekends as well!