Friday 29 June 2012

A day off of sorts...

Feeling a slight twinge in my back today so only doing my 3 miles cycling. Don't want to do anything that may impact what I can do at training tomorrow.
Maybe pushed myself a bit too hard at my first yoga session yesterday.

Thursday 28 June 2012

Yoga (First Timer)

To add to the gym yesterday I also did 3 miles cycling and to add to Yoga today I am doing 3 miles cycling as well.

So...Yoga....
I actually quite enjoyed it. I was sceptical at first, and I don't think I really got the "relaxation" part at the end. I didn't feel the relaxation travelling through my toes, up my feet, up my legs etc. but it was a nice excuse for what was pretty much a 10 minute lie down in the middle of the day.
The main part of the session was really good though. Really felt it working through my abs and legs. Didn't build up a sweat, but could feel muscles working in most of the positions. Will try to go every Thursday from now on (seeing as it's in the Basement of my work building). 

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Lunchtime Gym

3 * 5 Squats (80kg)
3 * 10 Bench Press (45kg)
3 * 10 pull ups
3 *10 push ups
3 * 10 sit ups
3 * 10 lunges (25kg)
5 minute jog warm down and stretch.

Friday/Monday/Tuesday

Friday was resting before Tour 2, and Monday was resting after Tour 2, so on both days only did 3 miles cycling as light fitness.
Tuesday: 8.5 miles cycling and went to Regents Park.
No-one else turned up for Ka-Pow training so, not wanting to have the trip go to waste I did the following sprint/shuffle fitness with some Backhand hucking practice afterwards:

Did these three drills three times each at full speed with 10 seconds break between each drill and 30 seconds rest between each set:

Drill 1: Sprint A - B - A - B - C - B - A - B - D - B - A
Drill 2: Sprint A - C, Shuffle C - D - C, Backwards Shuffle C - A, Sprint A - D, Shuffle D - C - D, Backwards Shuffle D - A, Sprint A - B
Drill 3: Sprint A - B, Backwards run B - A, Sprint A - B - C, Backwards run C - A, Sprint A - B - D, Backwards run D - A, Sprint A - B

Cheeky lunchtime gym session today!

Monday 25 June 2012

Open Tour 2 wrapup

My predictions for who would be in the top 12 were all correct with Cambridge in, not Fire 2 (who got relegated to B-Tour eventually), with the exception of Ka-Pow! Just means we've got to work hard between now and Tour 3. Time to get in the gym.

Saturday: 
Game 1 vs JR: We had just seen JR topple Fire 2 in a pretty big upset. JR went on to stay in A-Tour so big props to them. We started fast and ended a little slow. After taking the half 8-3 we went on to win 13-10. Still comfortable, but we definitely slowed up. We were finding it difficult to run our offensive systems against a zone which would be a bit of a theme for the weekend. Our defenses were strong though and consistently got turns. Final score was about 13-9/10

Game 2 vs Fire 2: Tough game in tough conditions against a mentally tough team. They were missing a lot of handlers, but still played strongly against our defenses. Went to sudden death and we came out on top. Good game to allow us to top the group.

Game 3 vs Wessex: To take it to the top 12 we needed to beat Wessex. These boys played the best game against us of the three times we've played them this season and we didn't play well enough to win out. Last tour we had a close but comfortable win against them with 9 players. This time we had more players and they had a stronger squad as well. We had a pretty relaxed warmup and went into the game with confidence and took an early 3-1 lead. This is when our mistakes began to creep in. We needed to be mentally stronger than we were and Wessex began to punish us. It went to 10-10, sudden death, we were on downwind defense. I managed to get a run through D and it the disc was about 12 yards outside their endzone. We didn't run our endzone offense well enough and turned it over on a floaty mixer disc into the endzone. Wessex then hucked it up wind for the final point and the win. A deserved win for the Wessex guys, but it definitely stung our squad to be so close to Top 12 and then miss out, even if we didn't fully deserve it based on this game.

So on Sunday we were playing to hold onto 13th seed all day. We were all pretty disappointed to not be top 12 but knew we still had work to do to get our offense firing all over the field.

Sunday:
Game 1 vs The Brown: Started a little slow to trade to 2-2 then basically stepped up our O and D and they couldn't keep up. Final score 15-4 win.

Game 2 vs EMO: Traded all the way to about 9-9. Took a couple of points lead before EMO managed to bring it back to 12-12, sudden death again. Both teams had a few chances, but our defense really clamped down on all there scoring oppurtunities, whereas our offense was turning itself trying to score upwind (including a pretty poor hammer from me). Eventually we ground out the win to go into our final game against Fusion, playing for 13th.

Game 3 vs Fusion: Fusion are a very strong team and it wasn't all that long ago that they were consistently challenging for Tour championships against Clapham, Chevron and Fire. They had all the throws in the wind and a strong zone that we struggled with into the wind for the first half. The general idea was they would play man on the handlers but mark behind forcing them to cut up the field then have a the upfield defenders who were playing zones coming in to clog the space in front of the disc, which made handler resets particularly difficult, especially on the sidelines. After half we managed to break it slightly more easily, but we never managed to pull back the 3 point lead they had taken in the first half. Final score was 12-9 win to Fusion.

Overall, a bit of an up and down weekend. The wind definitely was a factor in us running our systems as every team we came up against played a zone on defense. Some we were able to run our systems against, others we had to play standard zone offense. Our zones, at times worked, and at other times got broken quickly, but that's the nature of zone. One zone was particularly stifling for the upfield players, allowing endless resets, which resulted in a few mistakes from handlers, and the other put more pressure on and generated a few more turns from upfield defense so I'm happy with the way they were progressing throughout the weekend.

In terms of my play, I think for the most part I was solid, but had a few too many throwaways, mostly coming on mid to long range sidearms. Will be working on that for next time. Other than that, I defended deep passes well, stopping two huck scoring oppurtunities for EMO and a couple in the other games. I also got one layout D against EMO and the run through D in the final point against Wessex. At times I thought I was playing offense well and at others I felt a bit out of place. Will be heading to training to try and sort this out too. But overall, pretty happy with the weekend.
Ka-Pow!

Friday 22 June 2012

Open Tour 2 Preview (Part 2)

With the anticipation that, come Sunday, we will be in the Top 12, here are the teams I anticipate we will be fighting it out with to finish as high as 5th.
DED, Brighton 1, GB Masters, Ranelagh, Fire 1, Tooting and Cambridge/Fire 2.
This is a tough set of teams, but all should be beatable with our squad. Our aim is nationals, so we won't be too down if we don't win all our games, but we should be able to get some wins in this group of teams.

DED: We've had mixed results against them, and are currently at 2 wins and 2 losses against them. With a larger squad at this tour so should be able to avenge our loss against them at Tour 1, but they will be a good side and absolutely stormed tour 1 where they improved their seeding as much as they could, and finished 9th.

Brighton 1: A strong team who gave a good showing at Tour 1. A mix of young and athletic players with older experienced players who have their own style of play which differs from most teams at tour. We've got a couple of players who used to play for Brighton but I don't think either will be playing this weekend (1 is GB Masters, the other is injured). Should be a real tough team to get a result against.

GB Masters: A few of our players will be on this squad. A team of battle hardened veterans looking to take some big results before Worlds next month. 

Ranelagh: I think this team is basically Team Ireland Open, who will also be going to Worlds next month. Irish ultimate has really grown in strength recently. Other than that I don't know much about this team.

Fire 1: Took quite a tumble in rankings after Tour 1 and will be desperate for a better showing this weekend. Always near the top of UK Ultimate and always strong.

Tooting: Had a close loss to my old team at Tour 1, but at times with tired legs we were still able to shut their offense down and play our offense against their D. Very capable of big games and big plays.

Cambridge and Fire 2 I've already talked about.

Should be a good weekend. 
Ka-Pow!

Open Tour 2 Preview (Part 1)

For Tour 2 this weekend we should have more players and a strong squad. Heck, we might even have enough for separate O/D lines. Looking forward to it definitely, just a little worried about the weather not being kind to us for the first game wearing of our brand spanking new, and truly awesome (but hand wash only) kit.

Here's a preview of the matches, and again I will attempt to predict the group finishing positions and anticipate our competition going into crossovers/quarters/semis/finals.

Saturday
Game 1 vs Jest Ridisculous
First game against newly promoted JR who have quite possibly the most ridiculous name on Tour, and, until we got our kit, could also boast the most outrageous kit on tour. This should be a good start to the weekend for us, and we should be aiming to beat them to prepare for the harder games of the weekend. Of course, anything can happen and they did runner up at B-Tour at Tour 1, so they aren't going to be a walkover.

Game 2 vs Fire 2
Should be a tough test of how far we've come so far. Had a shocking loss against them at Fog Lane cup. Don't know what their line up is going to be like, but they suffered a drop in seeding at Tour 1. Due to teams dropping out they are seeded 12th at this tour and are most definitely a top 12 team, however, this is where we are aiming to be, and higher, and if we have to go through Fire 2 to do it then so be it. Bring it on.

I don't see us losing to JR and I think we can beat Fire 2. If we top our group we will be crossing over against 2nd place in a group which has Cambridge, EMO and Wessex in. I underestimated Cambridge for the last tour and they really climbed the rankings, so I would anticipate them winning this group, and then it is really hard to tell who will come second out of EMO and Wessex. Regardless, we should be beating either team, and have done so in all previous encounters, so we should be in the Top 12 going on this. 
If we lose to Fire 2, which is not an impossibility, the cross over against Cambridge should be tough, but I don't really know much about their team. I think either way we can break into the top 12 with the team we will have for this weekend and I'm looking forward to a tough crossover either way.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Wednesday and Thursday

Giving my fitness a little bit of a rest for the rest of the week leading up to Open Tour 2.
Wednesday: 3 miles cycling
Thursday: 3 miles cycling
Friday will depend on rain. Might do 1, 2 or 3 miles cycling.

Will have a Tour 2 preview up though. Schedule's out already! Result.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Tuesday training

6 miles cycling on Tuesday and Kapow training.
Started with some throwing and a warmup.
Then moved on to a sideline offense drill. Thought this went well and am hopeful for using this successfully at the weekend.
Then did a hucking/fitness drill. A shuttle of about 3 metres with 3 press ups in between and then a huck with a force to 6 cutters running deep.
After this we worked on our endzone offense. When it clicked it was working really well, but we had varied success whilst practicing it. Got to get it firing all the time this weekend.
Warmed down and then went home.

Monday 18 June 2012

Monday fitness

3 miles cycling and gym at lunch.

5 minute run warmup
3 * 10 bench press (45kg)
3 * 5 squats (70kg)
3 * 10 lunges (20kg)
3 * 10 pull ups
3 * 10 press ups
3 * 10 sit ups
2 minute run warmdown

Game against clapham

I turned up on Sunday, to a pretty relaxed set of clapham players chatting to a pretty relaxed set of Kapow players. After a nice warmup we got the game under way.
We traded most of the way to half. Our offense was playing well and scored all their points up to about 4-4. The defense was coming up with blocks which was great, and got some good practice of one of our zone defenses, but was unable to score any points. We lost the half 8-6, which I'm sure everyone wasn't too disappointed with, and would definitely be happy about at tour.
In the second half the D line were going to practice our second zone. It started off not going that well, Clapham scored their first point against it in 3 passes, but got better throughout the second half. Our O line started to make a few mistakes which were capitalized on by Clapham and they went on to win the game 15-11 (I think).
Good points about the offense were play in the middle of the field and we didn't get slowed down by Clapham's zone defense too much. Unfortunately, our sideline and endzone offense still weren't firing, which is a shame since we've been working on it at training.
I had a few throwaways which I was pretty disappointed with but thought I played ok apart from that.
Finished the game to 15 and then played a quick game to 3 which we also lost 3-1.
Interestingly enough, we had a numerical advantage in terms of players, which is the first time I can remember this happening in a long time. Good to see lots of people coming out.

Kapow are now on twitter: @kapowultimate
Dunno how much it'll be used, but may be good for a laugh or a tournament update every once in a while.

Friday 15 June 2012

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

Wednesday: 4 miles cycling
Thursday: 1 mile cycling and Ka-pow "training". We met up, did some throwing in the strong wind, did a reading high disc drill, did a break mark drill and then called it a night.
Friday: 3 miles cycling and Gym at lunch.

Gym:
2 minute row warmup
1 * 10 Bench Press (35kg)
3 * 10 Bench Press (45kg)
1 * 5 Squats (60kg)
3 * 5 squats (65kg)
3 * 10 push ups
3 * 5 pull ups
3 * 10 lunges (20kg)
3 * 10 Shoulder Press (80kg)
5 minute treadmill warm down

Good session today.
Game against Clapham on Sunday so expect a match report of sorts Sunday night. It's a GB training weekend which means both teams will be weakened, but the Clapham team without the GB players did beat GB at Tour 1 so it will be a very tough game. Looking forward to it though.
We've decided to keep our super awesome kit fresh until Tour 2 (woop) which means we will be wearing cotton shirts against Clapham (Boo!).
Oh well.
Ka-Pow!

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Tuesday workout

4 miles cycling today to/from work then when I got home I did the following workout:


0.4 mile warmup run
3 * 40 lateral pull downs on the outdoor gym equipment (10 supinated wide, 10 supinated narrow, 10 pronated wide, 10 pronated narrow)
1 mile run
Plyos: 3 sets of the following
10 two footed jumps up and down a curb
10 one footed jumps up and down a curb on each leg
10 Drop jumps (See here under drop jumping)


Three days in a row with some sort of core element to my workout. Abs feeling good/tired!

Monday 11 June 2012

Monday Gym

Nice little workout today with a focus on upper body
Warmup with a 3 mile cycle (as I won't be cycling to/from the station in this awful weather)
Then did the following set 3 times:
10 * pull ups
10 * press ups
10 * shoulder press (80kg)
Finished with a 3 minute run to warm down.

Then had a great post fitness lunch of left over frittata from last night!
Delicious!

Sunday 10 June 2012

Sunday Core

Too much good sport on the tv today so I decided I didn't want to leave the flat and would just do some core work inside.
Did the following set 4 times:
30 seconds elbow plank
30 seconds side plank (both sides)
30 seconds straight arm plank
10 press ups
10 sit ups
10 supermans
10 thoracic spine mobilizers on each side(info here)
10 squats
10 one legged squats on each side

Could feel it working which is good.

Saturday 9 June 2012

Saturday Kapow training

Thursday cycled 1 mile, Friday cycled 1 mile.
Saturday at Ka-Pow training:
Turned up with the longing to get my hands on the kit that had been brought over from Columbia and it hasn't disappointed. Absolutely fantastic shirts and shorts, much respect to Zue Ultimate for their fantastic work on it. We want to keep it secret until tour 2 but here is a sneak preview of part of the white shirt:

On to training wrapup.
We were throwing for a long while to try to get used to a quite strong wind. When we had then warmed up, we started with the sideline plays again. We are still working out the kinks in these plays. Once we get them they should be effective but they are sometimes tough to get right.
Then moved on to playing a little 3 on 3 as numbers again were a little low, but we were playing with a quite wide pitch and the rules were, once you scored a goal you got points equal to the number of times you swung the disc. We played two games to ten and by the end we had established to play as three handlers horizontal across the pitch and ran the sideline plays to advance the disc which was very good practice and definitely built on the practice we had done before.

Thursday 7 June 2012

Summer League last night and the rest of the week

Been pretty busy recently and didn't manage to get around to the Summer League preview, so here's some post game analysis and a short description of our team etc.

I'm playing for Thundering Silverbacks, a team made of a combination of Thundering Herd players (mostly Herd 2) and University College London Silverbacks players.
Just to put it bluntly, the quality is not as high as anything else I've played all year, but the competition is good and Summer league is mostly a bit of fun.
Last night we had a game against a Flump like team (I forget the name) in which we had already been confirmed to be in the second division after losing our other crossovers and they were already in the first division after winning their other crossovers so the game meant very little. We had an ok squad size but I played a large majority of the points. The game was ok, I had a few Ds and a few good offense points but generally played pretty averagely and had a few mistakes. My fitness has also obviously been affected by the two parties and no fitness that occurred over the 4 day weekend.
To try and combat this I ran sprints with one of my team mates afterwards.
3 * 3 pitch width sprints (37m) with 5 seconds recovery between individual sprints and walking the pitch width recovery between the sets.

Also did 1 mile cycling yesterday.
Today: 2 miles cycling (don't anticipate to cycle back from work due to rain) and the yoga was cancelled so I didn't do that either.
Tomorrow, not sure how much cycling I'll do and probably won't go to the gym as I'm going to the O2 for a gig in the evening.
Saturday: Ka-Pow training where I will get my kit!!! Looking forward to this! Will put up pics once I get it home. Will be crisp and clean (you don't wear new kit for the first time at training, you save it for a tournament!)
Sunday: Will try and do some fitness to make up for another slow ish week.

Monday 4 June 2012

Saturday Ka-Pow training!

3 miles cycling on Friday on top of the gym.

Ka-Pow training on Saturday:
Started with a warm up then moved on to force work. 20 quick feet shuttles of about 5 metres. (I think I'll try to do a bit more independent stuff looking at the mark as that's a key focus for our team).
After that we moved on to a quick break mark drill to get people more focused and to introduce a useful tip (watching the non-pivot foot of the thrower) in order to get a better mark.
We then moved on to our sideline plays. This was going well for a while, but with only 7 players focus began to slip so Pichler made us run his favourite punishment.
Once you got a hand block in this drill you finished that set and then were out of the punishments.

5 press ups -> 40 yard sprint -> 5 press ups -> (in groups of three) 3 man break mark drill until someone gets a hand block -> 5 press ups -> 40 yard sprint back to start- > repeat


I managed to get the first hand block, and once a few other people got out, I subbed in to keep the break mark drill going quickly and got another hand block, so I felt ok about this.
Then ran the sideline plays a few more times until we got them at a good level.


Finally moved on to the end zone plays again. These went better and I think we still have a few kinks to work out with them, but they should come with more practice and I see them working and making defense really hard a lot of the time.


It's Monday now and I won't be doing any more fitness until Wednesday. It's been a nice little break for the Jubilee weekend but I'll come back hard after tomorrow.
Wednesday will be cycling (not sure how much yet) and Summer league. I will do an introduction to London Summer league and the team I'm playing for before I play and a short writeup of the game afterwards.
I also intend to go to my first Yoga session on Thursday.

Friday 1 June 2012

Quick lunchtime gym session today

1 km row (4 minutes 2 seconds)
3 * 10 bench press (40kg)
1 * 10 shoulder press (40kg)
3 * 10 shoulder press (60kg)
10 pull ups
3 * 10 bicep curls (5kg per arm)
3 * 10 upright row (5 kg per arm)

Quick gym session. Possibly going to gym again this evening, if not Sunday.
Ka-Pow training tomorrow morning!