Torture

Torture gets a bad rap these days, with the UN generally being wussy girlymen about the issue, there's so much talk about it but very little scientific analysis of the benefits it can bring to your ultimate game.

Recently I've been working long days (12+ hours) and then hitting up club training. For this sort of day, I get up at 5.30am and stay up all day. Last week as I was meandering around the field finding it tough to mark even the most inexperienced of players through the haze in my brain, I realised this feeling was familiar- it's the feeling most players usually experience on day 3 or 4 of Nationals, when the mind is exhausted and mental focus becomes that much more important, and tougher to achieve.

Mental endurance, or focus, is a key skill in ultimate, but most people are vague about how to practice it. While I wouldn't advocate sleep deprivation due to its ill health effects, if you are finding your weekly league games or beach pick up a little too easy, try running sprints beforehand and then staying switched on.

Do you ever get that feeling?

You stand there poised on the line waiting, your body is warm, ready and willing.

You have been preparing for this moment for the past 4 months, and it has been on your mind every day since.

You think back to the past week. The strained strength sessions, the drawn out burning feeling in your lungs as you push through the last minutes of that cardio session legs screaming at you to stop. Then the cool pool sessions as you gently pulled your body through the water.

The past few minutes a slow jog to get your body moving, those familiar stretches you have done witout thinking, done so many times before. The encouragment and warm words from your friends.

You know its time, you lunge out with your first step the soft grass below your feet as you reach out with your next bound.

The flashes of the past dash across your memory, the throws, the dives, the hucks, the drops, the time you thought you werne't going to qualify for natioanals and your whole team wanted to cry, and that sweet time you pulled down a huge grab from the lofty heights of the sky.

You get into your rhythm and breathing.

Your team mates shout out words of encouragment as a smile crosses your face.

I did my first straight line run today since april 26th around 1pm, it was an amazing feeling.

Alex Semfel's Training Report Week Ending Thurs 8th Jan

Went to the gym, had a good session with some painful cardio at the end followed by the crappy uphill bike ride.

Went to the gym on the wednesday for a last spew session with the PT that came with the gym membership, learnt how to do a bench press and a few other weird exercises that involved the bar bell, some chinups and did all my normal leg exercises with some added core exercises (crunches, knee raises, lower back extensions, plank) the pt yelled make me try some chin ups (the last few assisted) and I am currently in a lot of pain unable to lift my left arm up.

Thursday was interesting, went and saw the physio.
In about a week I can finally officially start my straight line running at the moment for the next week i have to do some impact/agility exercises which are forwards and backwards bouncing on my feet, side to side stepping (jumping) side to side stepping with a block in the middle to stand on and 2 legged jumps 4small 1big as well as 1 legged hops. i also have to do plenty of quad stretches.

after a week of that time to hit the park do 2 laps warmup (soccer field I guess) then a full warm up of the legs then about 8-10 30-40m runthroughs at 60% speed.

it sounds like nothing, but im beyond excited about getting to do this.

physio also gave me a physical bruising of my itb? through his painful massage. feels good now though, a lot looser.

Alex Semfels Training Report Week Ending Thurs 1st Jan 2009

So christmas is over. I am now 10 kilos above my april weight and I'm pretty sure with a lot less muscle to go with it. My rehab has been going reasonably well, my quads are a lot bigger and my hamstring that was grafted is now existant which it wasn't a few days ago.

At the moment my training program at the gym:

10mins warm up on cross country machichine
3x10 sets on 8 plates (not sure weight)
3x10 sets 40kgs on leg press
3x10 squats with 2x20 pound dumbells
3x10 lunges as above
3x20 steps as above
15minutes cyclying alternating each minute between sprints and easy riding.

for upper body
3x10 on each side 30pounds bent over something idontk now what its called
3x10 25 pounsd dumbell benchpress with back and neck on a bosu ball (or whatever they're called)
3x10 30 pound bicep curls.
3x10 on each side wood chop 4 plates (not sure weight)

the 27th had a good spew session, cyclced to dee why, then home then gym, did all exercises as above except woodchop and cycling, then being speaking about waterpolo tried to do one of my old training swims, i am extremely out of shape aimed to do:
400m warm up
4x100m on the 1:30
4x50m on the 40
4x25m on 20s
400m cool down.

what i actaully did was
200m warm up
2x100 on the 1:45 15 second rest
4x50m on the 50 20 second rest
4x25m on the 20 30 second rest.
200m cooldown

i tried to have as much focus on a good strong, even stroke (I used to be a lot weaker on the left) and the same for my kicking, also having my head up and a few changes in my stroke i spoke to a friend abotu who used to swim a lot and still plays waterpolo about getting the most power out of each pull back of your arm which involved facing my palm towards me earlier than i usually would.

also really focused on reaching out as far as i could with each stroke.

i was pretty disappointed about how far my performance has dropped since i was training a lot for waterpolo

showered, changed and rode to freshwater beach, and back home over a giant hill that hurt.

felt really good afterwards, i havent pushed myself like that for ages.
hopefully it wont be long till i can start posting improvments.

i had a chat with a friend who used to be quite the swimmer who just reckons first get to the point of comfortably swimming 20 minutes freestyle with perfect technique then start to mix it up as you see fit and expand on that, but do it 4-5 times a week.
im not sure i can be that dedicated.

Suggested Improvements To AFDA's Rotational Policy- or, how everything is better with UNO

This is one of Max's ideas:

The AFDA rotational policy is good, but it could be fleshed out and improved upon if it was played with UNO rules.

Skip - self explanatory, could mean an end to the 'Nationals? Nah, it's in Perth...' years.

Reverse - remember that time you just wish Mixed Nats could be in Brisbane again?

Draw 2 - the region must field two competive Nationals-standard teams at in a single division at Regionals before they can host Nationals. Could put regions other than East in a spot of trouble (that's a blatant lie, and I retract my previous statement)

Wild - the party?

Has It Really Been Two Weeks?

Gosh!

My excuse: Melbourne Hat, staying in Melbourne a week afterwards and Christmas have really caught up with me.

Alex, on the other hand, is now a successful investment banker, whose super is making positive returns in a time of economic crisis - all that is keeping him busy.

So anyway, wishing you all a very merry SIFultimate silly season.

Stay tuned for many belated '08 In Review' updates.

Love,

SIF

Interrupting Set Plays

There are two times in my playing time where I've worked out, as a defender, a set play.

Once was the Youth Nationals final in 07. Any word called out starting with 'J' meant an up the line dump cut, usually to score. The other time was at league, where the line call was set so the person I was guarding downfield was only ever trying to cut openside then breakside, never deep.

This is one of the easiest times in ultimate there ever is to get a D. And it's not because knowing what they want to do you can shut it down completely- the opposite in fact. Once you've figured out a set play and it is called, your defence is in the unique position of knowing exactly what the offence is going to do for the next disc movement or two. 

For the first example (the up the line dump cut) you could bait the up-the-line through body positioning, but be prepared to sprint at a dime up the line because you know that's what they are looking for. If all goes according to plan, the thrower is left on a high stall count with his dump taken away from him. If it was a dump cut to score, you now have a defender right in the cutting lane taking away most of the openside options.

In the second example (recognising the line-call/the pattern your mark is cutting at) some things I experimented with: 

• guarding the openside cut completely but leaving the breakside cut relatively open - this caused a turnover because the person with the disc was a weaker thrower who cannot consistently break the mark but attempted it anyway because that was the set play.
  
• guarding the cutter openside and poaching in the lane - disrupted a fair amount of flow.
• sticking with the cutter openside, positioning myself behind him by a few inches so he still has to run at 100% and could not slow down onto the disc. For the defence, this is a good situation: a thrower who would not normally throw to a semi-guarded cutter has a much greater chance of throwing to him now, even if he's guarded well, just because that's what the line call was. Doing this I caused two turns.

There is a lot of known unknowns in the game for a defender. Recognising a set play is one of the few times that you will know beyond a reasonable doubt what the offence is going to do and, rather than defend against exactly that possibility and return to the world of unknown factors (where is my person cutting, where does the thrower want to throw) I think it could be helpful to instead insert yourself into their set play as the dude who gets the D because somehow, miraculously? he knew what the offence wanted and denied it.