Tuesday Gym

Felt pretty tired yesterday. Legs were active and didn't have a chance to ache post tournament with 6 miles cycling over Monday, and today I hit the gym. Still felt a bit mentally tired, but wasn't about to let my body slow down.

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 (3 seconds)

1 * 12 Body weight squats

Foam rolling

Main routine:

{4 * 5 Pull ups (hands forward/shoulder width)

4 * 5  Pull ups (hands forward/wide grip)

3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 10 kg)}

{3 * 8 Seated row (64kg)

3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (10kg) - per leg}

{3 * 8 Squats (85 kg)

3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (20 kg) - per leg}

{4 * Max weighted press ups (5kg) (30, 30, 30, 26)

4 * 30s Dynamic Plank

3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching

Hamstring stretching

Hip flexors stretching

Foam rolling

Felt like a good session!

Mixed Tour 2 - Recap

Was playing for Herd 1 again over the weekend at Mixed Tour 2. Going in, I knew we had a slightly different squad with a big addition to it. I didn't expect to be doing too much better and after the first game I thought we were in for a long weekend.

Game 1: loss vs Happy Shiny Meeple (13-11 I think)

A bad start to the weekend, going down 8-3 or 8-2 at the half due to an absolutely mental amount of drops from the Herd. We fought back in the second half, but it wasn't enough. Was pretty disappointed with the end of this game. Despite my throws being pinpoint for much of the match (I threw at least 7 assists in the game) one ill advised scoober in the wind against a zone gave Meeple the disc near our endzone and they punched it in for the win.

Game 2: win vs Scarecrew

Can't really remember this game, other than we turned ourselves over a lot again, which would be a theme for our group games. I think it was close, and certainly deserved to be considering how we played. The whole group was made up of Clapham teams and at times it felt like we weren't playing to our potential because we thought that we knew these teams well enough not to have to play our hardest. This was especially true in our third game.

Game 3: win vs Golden Ants

Again, this game felt like a struggle against ourselves more than our opponents. We ground out a win after going down, but again this was closer than it probably should have been. Considering Golden Ants dropped seeding as much as they did, we should have been in more control than we were. But a win is a win is a win.

Game 4: win vs Bear Cavalry

Thundering Herd have a habit of putting in big games versus Bear Cavalry. The bears are, without any doubt, the strongest Mixed program from the last two years. Two years ago at Mixed Tour 1 we were able to get a win against them in the groups and it was the only time they were beaten all season, and despite the loss they went on to win all the tours. Last year, they only lost once through the season and that was to Brighton at Mixed Tour 3, and again they still completed the season sweep. This year, they have players out through GB World Games and Open/Women's club commitments, and at Mixed Tour 2 they had a small squad through last minute dropouts. You could see it in their play that they weren't fully in the game against us. They had come off a tough grind of a game against DED to play us back to back and we were up for it, striking early and often. Bears made some plays and put points on the board, but as we were coming into our stride for the day, they were physically and mentally drained and made errors that no-one would expect of them. Really, it's a shame because that team at full strength is a great mixed ultimate force. In the second half we let them into it a little with some sloppy play of our own, but I think after starting strong the result was never in doubt.

At this point, I thought we were lucky to have played Bears in the crossover and that we would probably struggle on Sunday based on the other games we had played on Saturday.

Sunday:

Game 4: loss vs Royal Goaltimate Society

RGS would go on to make the final against the GB World Games squad, and so can be considered quality opponents with strong players from Open and Women's clubs, but (in what could be considered par for the course for the weekend) we didn't play well in one half of the game. We handed them the first half, and despite stepping it up in the second half, they walked away with the game. Personally, I enjoyed this game getting to match up against some quality players who I'll be hopefully matching up against during the open season as well, and I felt vindicated from Game 1 by throwing a beautiful cross pitch zone breaking scoober (and picking up a layout score that I thought I was nowhere near).

Game 5; win vs Brighton

In this game, like the Bears game, we came into it feeling like this would be the latest in a great rivalry that has spanned a couple of seasons. Again, like in the Bears game, we came out firing early and often, and also like the Bears game, we let it slip in the second half. Brighton came back to take it to sudden death, but we managed to hold on. Brighton were missing one of their bigger players from Saturday and had a small squad as well which definitely contributed to, what to me was, a pleasantly surprising victory.

Game 6: win vs DED

DED have been a rival for Ka-Pow in our inaugural seasons, and have had great matchups against the Herd in our past two seasons as well. DED have been contenders in the mixed game for a while, and going in, with both teams coming off close wins, we knew it would be a battle.

Once again, we only played one good half of ultimate. We took a good lead in the first half and managed to grind the win despite DED coming back at us. The wind made this not the prettiest game, and I got two assists by throwing upwind blade-y forehand hucks to our tall receivers, and in the end that may have decided it. Both teams scored up wind and down wind, but with the Herd on offense going down wind to close the game, though it took a couple of turnovers, we were always in the position to win and finished the game with a great layout from one of our girls.

All in all, 5th is a great result for us considering how poorly the Saturday group games went. I was pleasantly surprised with the wins against Brighton and DED and, though the quality of play at times was incredibly frustrating, I still had a good time and felt I generally played pretty well. I was especially happy to have made two backhand huck assists and was close to a third. With my backhand huck still progressing to a state where I'd be happy with it all the time I was pleased with these, especially one which was upwind. It still needs work I'd say, but I'm now happy with it as an option for me.

Thursday Yoga

Went to Yoga last Thursday after 3 weeks off. Went in with slightly tight hamstrings from track the night before and the first 15-20 minutes were all hamstring stretching/strengthening poses. Felt a little sore after that. It definitely was tough after a couple of weeks off, but also really beneficial as, by the end of the day, my hamstrings felt loose, and they felt good all weekend.
Didn't get round to a Mixed Tour 2 preview before the weekend, but the recap is coming today.

Wednesday night track

Track regime ramping up towards the Open tour! Not so much wind last night which was nice, and actually made the set feel roughly the same as last week even though there was one more rep.

Warm up:

400m jog and full stretching routine

Main session:

4 * 300m sprint with 5 minutes rest

Warm down:

400m jog and full stretching routine.


Got Yoga today and then will be working at home on Friday which will be nice as I will be able to get a day's rest from exercise before Mixed Tour this weekend.

Tuesday Gym and evening Ultimate

Hit the gym at lunch. Went early and not as hard as usual as (a) I had to give a very important presentation that afternoon and (b) it's Mixed Tour this weekend. Still put in a good session.

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 (3 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:

{3 * 8 Squats (85 kg)
3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (15 kg) - per leg}


{4 * 5 Pull ups (hands forward/shoulder width)
4 * 5  Pull ups (hands forward/wide grip)}

{3 * 8 Seated row (64kg)
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 10 kg)
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (10kg) - per leg}

{4 * Max weighted press ups (5kg) (30, 30, 30, 30)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank
3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling


And then, in the evening I headed over to Hyde park for a bit of ultimate with the Ka-Pow lads.
Turned up and they were playing pickup with ABH whilst waiting for others to turn up. They started arriving and joining in. By the time there were enough of the Ka-Pow boys to do something, I needed to head off. Got a bit of Ultimate practice in before the weekend, but the ground was awful and the quality of play wasn't the highest.

Saturday Training

Gorgeous weather for Saturday training.
It was the last training that we have booked on 3G so hopefully the weather will hold up for future trainings. The 3G sessions have been massively beneficial and we've already booked sessions for the 2013/2014 Winter pre-season.

Due to varying reasons, training on Saturday was a little under attended, but again, compared to last year, it was still a good attendance and we had plenty of players there to get stuff done.

We started with a little tactical recap on the various elements which make up the fundamentals of our offense, and then proceeded to move onto drills focussing on defending cutters, hucking and the movements that define our offense in flow.

I was surprisingly happy with my performance in the huck drill. Sidearm hucks have always been a strength of mine, and I'm also pretty happy with my hammers, but I've thought for a long while that my backhand hucks aren't up to scratch, but I was pretty happy with them on Saturday. It was completely still with no wind, but it's a start.
On the other hand, I was pretty disappointed with my performance in the defending cutters drill and set up myself badly a couple of times. I will try and work on this at Mixed Tour 2 this weekend (preview coming).

UKU University Outdoor Nationals was also run this weekend, hosting the Division 1 and Division 2 championships as well as the Alumni Championships (which I attended last year) and it was one of the reasons for non-attendance at trainings. Skunks qualified 2nd in the West region and by all accounts performed very well at the weekend. The Skunks Alumni team didn't attend this year, but it's something I'd quite like to do again in the future.

Friday 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 (3 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:


{3 * 8 Squats (85 kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (15 kg *increase*) - per leg}

4 * Max weighted press ups (10kg) (30, 30, 24, 20)

{4 * 5 Pull ups (hands forward/shoulder width)
4 * 5  Pull ups (hands forward/wide grip)}


{3 * 8 Seated row (68kg)
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 12.5 kg)
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12.5kg) - per leg}

{3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Strange order for me not doing pull ups first, but the availability of the equipment meant the order got moved around. Really interesting how even though my Back Squat weight has gone up by only 5KG this week it's made such a difference to the effort and especially in today's session when the squats were put first it made everything else harder.

Ka-Pow training tomorrow!

Wednesday Track

Kapow track regime changing up again.

Sprinting 300m is hard enough but when the last 100m is into a really strong headwind it just makes it that much harder.

Warm up:

400m jog and full stretching session

Main session:

3 * 300m sprint with 5 minute rest

Warm down:

400m jog and full stretching


This was the toughest track session yet in my opinion, at least in terms of the single reps, and it only gets tougher next week!

Was out of the office today (Thursday) so no Yoga for a second week, but I was cycling round London after attending a training course today so I racked up 10 miles cycling. 4 miles more than my usual daily amount.

Gym tomorrow and training Saturday morning.

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 (3 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:


{4 * 5 Pull ups (hands forward/shoulder width)
4 * 5  Pull ups (hands forward/wide grip)
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 12.5 kg)}


{3 * 8 Seated row (68kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12.5kg) - per leg}


4 * Max weighted press ups (10kg) (30, 22, 20, 20)


{3 * 8 Squats (82.5 kg *increase*)
3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (12 kg) - per leg}


{3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Felt tired during this session, especially my arms, but got through it. Thinking wide arm pull ups are the culprits but if it improves my shoulder strength I'm all for them.

Saturday kapow training and DED warmup tournament

Good turnout for Saturday training with spirits high for some sun and generally favourable conditions for ultimate. Another really high intensity session lead to good drills and high quality games. Or focuses were on defensive drills teaching dump and up field cutter making, with a secondary focus on decisive offensive cutting. We also worked on one of our zone defenses which we would use to great effect on the Sunday at the DED warmup tournament.
We finished with a high quality game before heading out that evening to eat some authentic fire baked pizzas.
On Sunday we headed to st Albans. The atmosphere was quietly optimistic as, though we were missing some of our big names, the players there knew they'd put in the work and were confident in the systems we'd been installing.

Game 1: Kapow win vs tooting tigers (13-3):

This game was a good way to get our eyes in. Both teams had been warming up with the immediate aim of adjusting to the gale that was blowing. Kapow started the game off converting an upwind break and didn't look back from there. We had a much larger team, tooting only had 9 players for the game and were introducing more new players than they had returning players from last year. I also think the amount of time we've had as a roster playing on the high quality 3g pitches has benefited us no end. We comfortably took the game by employing the defensive principles we had practiced the day before, but we know Tigers will be stronger when they have the core if their team back.

Game 2: Kapow win vs Burro Electrico (15-4)

Another London rival game against a team trying to build themselves, with offensive systems that seem well installed (mostly) and new players. Much like Tooting, this game was won by us probably due to all the time we have already been training. We continued to build on the defensive systems we had practiced the day before and, much like Tooting, Burro tried to break our marks with frequency.

Game 3: Kapow win vs DED (12-7)

DED were probably our biggest rivals from last season as we played them the most and split our games last season. We knew they would also probably be the toughest game of the day as they look to build on their strong Tour season last year with the aim to be able to capitalise at Nationals. We held to the defensive systems we had been running all day and practicing the day before and tried to be calm going up wind whilst allowing them to take punts going downwind, on which we generated a lot more turns than we allowed completions. We started to pull away and took the half with a considerable lead. After that DED played it more conservative with less huck and D but couldn't close the gap Kapow had opened and we finished the game with a comfortable win.

Game 4: Kapow win vs Cambridge CUlt (9-3)

We shortened this game as previous games had overrun, but Kapow wanted to finish strong and we converted our first point and then got a break and continued to run out our lead. Taking half at 5-1 (I think) allowed us to take stock but keep momentum in the shortened game and we continued to score on O and get turns on D. Cambridge had some strong players and didn't look sharp, but will definitely be better going into the season.

All in all a great start for Kapow, with this being the second year that we attend the DED warmup and the second year that we remain undefeated and win the trophy.

Friday Gym and UTalkRaw

Another gym session this week. Been listening to almost all of Barry O'Kane's UTalkRaw ultimate podcast and have been most interested in those by Jools Murray. Decided to slightly adapt my gym session today based on one of the newest podcasts focussing on fitness for laying out as readers of this blog will know, I have injured my shoulder laying out before and have had shoulder twinges in the past.

Will be re-listening and adjusting my gym sessions again if I notice any further tips which I can use.

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 (3 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:


{4 * 5 Pull ups (hands forward/shoulder width)
4 * 5  Pull ups (hands forward/wide grip)
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 12.5kg)}


{3 * 8 Squats (80kg)
3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (12 kg) - per leg
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg) - per leg}


4 * Max weighted press ups (10kg) (30, 30, 26, 20)

3 * 8 Seated row (64kg)

{3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Unsurprisingly, I found the wide grip pull ups more difficult since it's the first time I've done them and I've historically had weak-ish shoulders. Think I'll stick with them and the regular pull ups as well.

Really enjoying UTalkRaw and it's always great to have another Ultimate resource available through the passion of people in our sport, especially a British one!

Wednesday Track

Hit the track in the rain on Wednesday night. Not pleasant out so shortened the recovery period to shorten the session. Don't think it really affected me as, due to the wet track, I wasn't going at true 100% pace. Obviously I put in 100% effort for the conditions, but I didn't see any negative effects with reducing the recovery time.

Warm up:
400m jog with full stretching routine

Main session:
6 * 50m sprints (recovery: 2 minutes)

Warm down:
400m jog with full stretching routine

Track routine changes up again next week as we build towards the Open tours.
Didn't go to Yoga yesterday as I had the afternoon off. Going to the gym today and got a full Ka-Pow! weekend this weekend with training on Saturday and the DED 1 day invitational on Sunday. Will do a Sunday preview at some point hopefully. Looking forward to the first real competitive outing for Ka-Pow! in the 2013 season.

Mixed Tour 1:Recap

Herd 1

 We had a mixed weekend. We won 2 and lost 4, dropping 4 seeds from 6th to 10th. We beat Meeple and Scarecrew; teams who we have beaten relatively consistently in past games, but who have the players to push us into tough fought contests. We lost to one of the GB world games teams, which I predicted we would lose to, however we did go 5-2 up against. We also lost to Bristol who were my underdog of the tournament, and who, after a very strong first three games lost a tough contest to the eventual highest finishing club team Black Eagles to drop out of the top 4. We also lost twice to Cambridge; in the first game I feel they started stronger than us and we weren't able to close the gap on the lead they gained and in the second game we should have won but personal errors cost us throughout and we couldn't close it out.
Personal errors seemed to be a theme for the weekend for our team and I have no doubt that it cost us a lot of points and probably some games as well. These errors meant that, whilst we might have had runs of good points in games, we weren't ever able to put together that one consistent game where we played to the best of our abilities throughout, that could have been a turning point on the weekend or a statement of intent for the season. Even when we went 8-0 up against Shiny Happy Meeple, we allowed them to get themselves back in the game and when you give teams like the GB world games team, Bristol and Cambridge the disc over and over they are going to take games from you.

The top 10 (and an observation on each team):

1. GB World Games B: won the final 15-5 and from those I spoke to looked the stronger team of the two all weekend
2. GB World Games A:
3. Black Eagles: After losing to DED in their group, Black Eagles went on a great run started by beating Bristol in a tight quarter final and finishing with them taking the top club spot behind the two GB teams by outlasting Brighton in the 3v4.
4. Brighton: Coming into the tournament with only 13(ish) players and also notching 1 win and 2 losses in their group were able to come top of a 3 way tie and beat DED to grab a top 4 spot. After Brighton lost their first two games they went into the rest of the weekend with a relaxed attitude and a "give it our best shot and see how it goes" outlook, which completely complemented their players and play style. Brighton and the two GB squads show that Quality will top quantity a lot of the time, however they did run out of legs in the 3v4 against Black Eagles.
5. Bear Cavalry 1: Bear Cavalry went into this season having lost 2 games in the Mixed Tour in the last 2 seasons, and had not entered a Mixed Tour or National competition that they didn't win. They were without two of their best players and three games into Saturday they had lost as many games as they had in the last two seasons. Coming second in a three way tie means that they weren't able to cross back into the top 4 but they finished as highly as they could by the end of the tournament and will be looking to get back to winning ways in their goal of winning Europeans and competing at Worlds.
6. Royal Goaltimate Society: They came 3rd in their group behind DED and Black Eagles, only losing in Sudden death to DED. But they got their revenge by absolutely spanking them in the 5-8 bracket semi final. This team doesn't train but features strong players of both gender and they appeared to have found their rhythm after their first tournament.
7. DED: Won their group with their only close game coming against RGS, but couldn't contain Brighton in the quarter final. Beat [PEEPS/SCARECREW] to stay top 8 and Bristol to finish 7th, but like Bear Cavalry, DED will be looking to rebound in Mixed Tours 2 and 3.
8. Bristol 1: Climbing from 13th to 1st after 3 games was a great achievement, unfortunately for Bristol they couldn't stop Black Eagles in their Quarter and, after beating the Herd to stay in the top 8, couldn't notch any more wins. Climbing 5 places is still a strong start to the season for Bristol 1.
9. Cambridge 1: A strong team who had to face GB World games A in the group and the stronger GB world games B team to break into the top 4 and couldn't manage a win in either game. They also lost to a RGS team on their way to 5th place, but finished top of the 9-12 bracket.
10. Herd 1: Rounding out the top ten with a slightly disappointing weekend that could've been dramatically altered by a couple less drops.

Good/Bad Personal points:

+ I had no aching legs on Monday after running hard all weekend and this being the first two day tournament of the year.
- I did, however, have a slightly aching throwing shoulder (feeling fine on Wednesday).
+ I thought I personally had a good weekend playing wise, and had serious fun shredding a couple of teams zones throughout the weekend.
- I did however throw a couple of turnovers against zones showing that, whilst most of the time my zone offense is solid, I occasionally make mistakes against it. I have confidence in my zone offense abilities but can still be better.
+ My defense was pretty strong all weekend, I don't recall getting scored on at all, I created turnovers on defense and even got 2 point blocks
- However, I didn't get any layout blocks despite getting close a couple of times. Still something to work on with defense then.

Tuesday Gym

Felt pretty good at the gym today coming off the first major tournament of the year. No soreness at all in my legs which I think is due to all the fitness I've been doing, combined with rigorous stretching and warming up/down before and after games at the weekend, and the cycling I did yesterday and today which have kept my muscles supple.

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 (3 seconds)
1 * 12 Body weight squats
Foam rolling

Main routine:


{4 * Max Pull ups (18, 16, 12, 10
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 10kg)}


{3 * 8 Seated row (64kg)
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (12kg) - per leg}

4 * Max weighted press ups (10kg) (30, 24, 24, 20

{3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank}


{3 * 8 Squats (75kg)
3 * 8 Split squats (70 kg) - per leg}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Full Mixed Tour 1 recap will be coming later this week.

Mixed Tour 1 Preview

This weekend is the first major tournament of the 2013 season.

I'll be playing with Thundering Herd 1, and we go into the tournament seeded in 6th out of 52 teams.
We start in group D with the GB World Games triallist team A, Cambridge 1 and Shiny Happy Meeple.

Game 1: vs Shiny Happy Meeple

I don't really know too much about this team, though when I played against them at the only winter league I attended this year we finished the game with a win, with what was a triallist team. They look like they're a mixture of ex-flump players with others and I know a couple of players on their team but not what they're squad will look like. In a warmup game against them a couple of weeks ago, Herd 1 beat them again. Though I missed this game, all this combined with the fact that they are the lowest seed in our group means we should win this. But it could be an edgy and tentative start to the season. Hopefully we should be using this game to get ourselves organised for the rest of the season though.

Game 2: vs Cambridge 1

Again, don't know too much about this team. Cambridge have a strong core of both guys and girls though. They finished in the top 8 overall last season and had their highest finish of 5th at Tour 2, which was above Herd 1. We should be aiming to win this as we will have no break between this game and the final game in the group stage against the GB World Games team.

Game 3: vs GB World Games A

This will be the toughest game of the day for us. However, the world games team shouldn't be looked at as unbeatable. The world games rules state that only 13 players are on the final squad so I don't know how large the team sizes of the two GB world games will be, but there can't be too many triallists left.
In all actuality though, we probably won't beat the stacked GB world games team but hopefully based on our first two results we should be safely in second place in the group before this game begins.

If all goes as above, it means we will have set up a top 4 crossover for the end of the day. This will be against the top finisher in the group of Peeps, GB World Games B, Golden Ants and Scarecrew. Though Peeps start that group seeded highest I can see that group being won by the other World games team, which will be another tough game.


My prediction for the final:
I think it's probably going to be a GB vs GB world games final with Bear Cavalry and DED pushing them hard in the semi finals.

Underdog of the tournament:

Bristol ultimate 1 start the tournament down in 13th place, but at Mixed tour 1 last year almost knocked Bear Cavalry out of contention in the quarter finals. Over the three tours their final ranking was 8th and though they never finished higher than 8th over all three tours they have a good chance to do well this year. They probably have the strongest contingent of women of any of the Mixed tour teams with Bristol's womens team qualifying for the European championships last year for the first time. If their men have kept up then they could see a large jump in the rankings by the end of this weekend.

Wednesday Gym

Hit the gym today. This will be the last fitness session I do before Mixed Tour 1 this weekend, though I will probably do a short stretching/muscle rolling session tomorrow and Friday. Also, lowered the weights and reps to lower the intensity slightly. Still felt tired after the workout, but maybe that's because I've generally not been going to the gym the day after going to the track or the day after another session.

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:


{4 * 8 Pull ups
3 * 8 Standing Dumbell Push Press (2 x 10kg)}

{3 * 8 Squats (75kg)
3 * 8 Bulgarian Split squats (15 kg) - per leg}

4 * 20 weighted press ups (10kg)

{3 * 8 Seated row (50kg)
3 * 8 Lateral Step ups (10kg) - per leg}

{3 * 8 Single Leg Swiss Ball Hamstring curls (55cm swiss ball)
4 * 30s Dynamic Plank}

Warm down:

Hip abductor stretching
Hamstring stretching
Hip flexors stretching
Foam rolling

Tuesday Track

Hit the track last night and it was lovely and sunny even though it was a little windy and a little cold. Managed to get through the session and get some more throwing done afterwards. Really enjoying having the light in the evenings and should be able to work on my throws even more in the coming weeks.

Warm up:

400m jog and stretching routine

Main session:

50m sprint followed by 3 minutes rest 6 times

20 minutes throwing session.

Warm down:

400m jog and stretching routine

The Ka-Pow! track regime is starting to ramp up as the open season draws close.
This weekend however, is the start of the mixed season as Herd look to compete for spots at Europeans and Worlds through the Tour and Nationals. My priority this year is open with Ka-Pow! but I've always enjoyed playing with the Herd and even disappointing play/games/tournaments have been enjoyable because of the team I've been playing with and we're usually competitive.

The first major tournament also gives me a chance to write one of my previews, which I will hopefully get a chance to do once I've seen the schedule.

Monday Fitness

After a nice three day weekend, I felt I ought to get some fitness done yesterday.
I thought about hitting the track, but felt it may be a bit more beneficial to do some fitness on a grass field, seeing as up until now almost all the training I've been doing has been on 3G, a track or in the gym. With Mixed Tour 1, the first big tournament of the season, coming up this weekend I definitely felt like running on a (not very well maintained) grass field was beneficial in reminding me how uneven the ground can be.

I ran a session from the Ka-Pow! cardio regime which I haven't looked at before, but hopefully now that evenings are lighter I can look to do a session a week on top of track/gym/yoga/training. I cycled over to the fields and back as a warmup and did about 20 minutes throwing in some pretty strong (and cold) winds to finish it off which was also useful. I remembered the session incorrectly which resulted in me doing one more set than listed, but it wasn't too difficult at the end so it wasn't the end of the world.

Warm up:

1 mile cycling and a short jogging and stretching routine

Main session:

(30 seconds running (85%), 15 seconds rest * 10 reps then 5 minutes rest) * 3 sets

20 minutes hucking in strong wind conditions practice

Warm down:

Short stretching routine and 1 mile cycle

At work today and tomorrow, but off Thursday and Friday this week, so will be a short week in the office. Means less cycling, but I will be in the gym tomorrow and will hit the track tonight as well so this week will be shortened with a short rest before Mixed Tour this weekend, but I won't be as idle as I was in the weeks before tournaments last year. Last year I aimed to not do anything too strenuous in the build up week before a tournament, but this year I am just going to power through. It's how I've been training and in the long run should be beneficial to me as long as I don't push myself too hard.