Many times, discussions about training degenerate into basic boasting about the most difficult workouts that folks have heard about. This has never interested me as a) it seems pretty easy to conceive of very difficult workouts, and b) one particular workout represents, for the most part, less than 1% of my training plan for the year. I think my training posts made it clear that I believe that acclimating your body in a steady way is the best way to put yourself into the position of doing intense training sessions.
Having said that, I have spent some time thinking about speed workouts that are good for Ultimate. I came up with one several years ago that I call "3 Points of Ultimate". I think this drill does a good job of simulating Ultimate-type movements, and, if the macho folks will indulge me in a little boast, I can frankly say that "3 Points of Ultimate" is met by my Wellesley girls with a particularly unique sense of dread. I think the only way that they can reconcile my subjecting them to this is by fabricating that I must be in a really bad mood that day. While this bragging is an obvious lapse on my part, I only do this drill when I am at or near my peak of speed work (usually 6-7 months into my training year), and when I am focused on developing specific Ultimate tasks.
For this drill, you will need 5 markers. Cones work well. The course should be set up as follows:
The 5 cones will be a straight line that is 70 yards long.
The first cone (A) is the starting point.
The 2nd(B) is placed 40 yards from the start.
The 3rd(C) is placed 50 yards from the start.
The 4th(D) is 60 yards from the start.
The 5th(E) is 70 yards from the start.
After a REAL AND PROPER WARM-UP (no less than 15 minutes), you are ready for the drill:
Start with the Pull- Sprint from A to E
10 second rest
Play some D-Shuttle run(E-D-E-C-E-B-E)
20 second rest
Play some downfield O (not Al O)-Shuttle run (same as before)
30 second rest
Score the goal-Sprint from E to A
Celebrate-90 Second rest (the time between points)
Repeat two more times
Cool Down
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
3 Points of Ultimate
Sunday, February 12, 2006
E-mail Feedback on the Training Program Posts
I have received several e-mails about the training program posts. Good feedback. I will address two of the general themes.
1) I received some inquiries about my experience and credentials. These are valid and resonable questions. I think pretty much anything above "Go out and run some 400's" deserves some scrutiny. I have no formal training other than my personal experience, reading books, working with Bryan Doo (strength coach for the Celtics), and several e-mails with Rob Sleamaker. I do not make any suggestions about strength training, as I think lifting heavy weights needs to be advised by a professional. I do feel comfortable essentially recommending that people run slowly in the off-season.
2) Concerns about developing fast twitch muscles
Some folks have concerns that focusing on slow twitch muscles in the off-season will come at the expense of developing fast twitch muscles when it counts. I understand this, and I think it comes down to scheduling. You need to answer for yourself when you need to begin doing speed work. My opinion is that 3-4 months is plenty of time to get your fast twitch muscles firing as you need. If your peak is in Sept, that means starting speed work in mid April-beginning of May. This leaves plenty of time (roughly Dec-April) to do beneficial aerobic work that does not come at the expense of when you would normally begin your speed work.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Physiology of the Four Training Levels
It is important to understand the benefits of dividing your workouts into specific heart rate ranges(levels). Working in specific levels results in your body adapting to the challenges you provide. This tunes the body to perform better as you have increased your bodies ability to perform certain physiological actions. Overall, this gives a sense of purpose and focus to your workouts and training plan.
LEVEL 1:
As I have said before, it is pretty much impossible to do level1 workouts without a heart rate monitor. This is because they feel, as Sleamaker says, "ridiculously easy". I had one person write me at the beginning of the week and say that they would not have considered this an actual workout. It just feels too easy.
Basically, training in this heart rate range improves your body's ability to process oxygen and its ability to use its energy sources.. The primary physiological are: it increases your aerobic energy sources and pathways, increased capillary density, increased mitochondria density, and free fatty acid mobilization.
You will notice, however, that these workouts become quite tiring after you begin to deplete your energy sources.
LEVEL 2:
Most people run in this range most of the time when they "go for a run". While it is important to increase your pace and intensity, this level should not be allocated as much time as Level 1 because the physiological benefits do not include things like increased capillary density.
LEVEL 3:
Intervals increase your bodies ability to transport oxygen, remove metabolic waste, and shorten lactic acid clearance time. It is important to do these slightly below your Anerobic Threshold (the point at which your body can no longer clear away lactic acid) Your AT should be around the top end of this level.
LEVEL 4:
Speed work benefits your fast twitch muscles and develops your reserve energy sources.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Developing a Training Plan-Part 2
As requested, I uploaded a sample of a training plan spreadsheet to my webpage. It should be pretty easy to follow as I tried to make sure the nomenclature follows these posts. I only filled out through the first peak, and it is important to remember that this example plan does not include strength training.
Now that we have established the number of hours per week for our training period, we need to step back an examine the types of workouts we are going to do. This plan uses heart rate as its metric, so it is necessary to purchase a heart rate monitor. This section is straight out of the Sleamaker book. The plan is divided up into four intensity levels. Intensity levels are defined by a heart rate range and by type of exercises. There are physiological benefits to each range, but I am going to save that for another post.
To calculate your heart rate ranges, you need to know your Measured Resting Heart Rate(MRHR), and your Estimated Maximum Heart Rate(EMHR). Your MRHR should be measured first thing in the morning after you go to the bathroom. The simple way to calculate your EMHR is to subtract your age from 220. Once you know these, you can calculate your Heart Rate Reserve(HRR), which is EMHR-MRHR. All the limits of the intensity levels are calculated as HRRx(x%)+MRHR.
Level 1:
Lower Limit=HRRx.6+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx.7+MRHR
Exercises: Long, slow distance runs. They are called Overdistance(OD) runs. Strength workouts.
Level 2:
Lower Limit=HRRx.71+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx.75+MRHR
Exercises: Long runs. They are called Endurance (EN) runs. Strength workouts.
Level 3:
Lower Limit=HRRx.81+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx.9+MRHR (This number should be close to your AT)
Exercises: Intervals, hill runs, most stadium runs, plyos. In my spreadsheet, I split up these exercises into separate workouts.
Level 4:
Lower Limit=HRRx.91+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx1.0+MRHR
Exercises: Sprints (less than 400m), some stadium runs, some plyos, agility work such as shuttle runs.
Up until this point, this plan is just the same as a plan for training for a 10k or a marathon. When I first read Sleamaker's book, I was concerned that the focus on endurance was inappropriate for Ultimate. I decided to contact Sleamaker, and he graciously helped me tweak his plan. So, what follows next is your opportunity to customize the plan to suit your needs, and make it a plan for Ultimate.
For each phase of the training period, we need to assign a % for each intensity level. There are some typical rules of thumb, but, as I said, it is customizable. I put out percentages for all the phases through the first peak on my spreadsheet. Typically, for the first couple of base phases, the focus is on increasing your bodies ability to process oxygen as you develop a foundation. So, for my plan, I assign 66% of phase 1 to OD, and 33% to EN. To take it back to the example from the first post, we figured out that for the first week of the plan, the total week hours is 2.78. Therefore, your OD total for week 1 will be (in minutes): 2.78(total week hours)x.66(OD %)*60(to convert it to minutes)=110 minutes. EN will be: 2.78 x .33 x 60=55 minutes. As you apply these percentages to each week, the times of the workouts will increase as the phase percentages increase (from 23% to 26% to 29%) to the peak in week 3. Your total OD workout for week 3 will be:
110(total year hours) x .11(phase %) x .29(week %) x.66(OD %) x 60(minutes)=139 minutes.
In terms of doing the workouts, I try to do the OD and EN work in as few workouts as possible. In other words, I prefer doing one 139 minute workout rather than 3-4 shorter workouts. For the INT work, there are a lot of variables in terms of length of each rep as well as the time of recovery. For my first INT workouts of the year, I do 2 minute reps with 2 minute recover. I ramp this up during the year, so that by the summer my reps are 6 minutes long (or more) and the recovery time is about 3 minutes. When you run the numbers for your spreadsheet, you might feel, at first, that the time allocated for your speed work is too short. Remember that these are very intense workouts. I will sometimes combine a stadium workout (INT) with my speed workouts(Speed) in order to get a full 45 minute workout. Lastly, remember that you are also weight lifting and probably starting up your Ultimate practices, so while it seems like it is not enough.....things get very busy.
The idea is to slowly decrease your intensity level 1 and 2 workouts as you mix in your level 3 and 4 workouts. By Intensity Phase #1, my balance is about 70% levels 3 and 4 to 30% levels 1 and 2. By Peak Phase #1, I am no longer doing intensity level 1 and 2 workouts.
The main suggestions I received from Sleamaker about making the plan appropriate for Ultimate were:
1) increase overall percentages of level 3 and 4 workouts as compared to the typical endurance sport. In Sleamaker's templates, he usually allocates a max of 25% to level 3 workouts. For my plan this year, my level 3 allocation for Intensity Phase #1 is 65%.
2) start the level 3 and 4 workouts a bit earlier than endurance sports. We need to keep tabs on our bodies to make sure we don't get worn down, but it is a good idea to get those fast twitch muscles firing. I begin mixing in my intervals at the beginning of Base Phase #3 (roughly mid to late January).
I am going to get into some additional aspects of this training plan is later posts. Some of the topics will be:
-integrating strength into the plan
-physiological benefits of the intensity levels
-fast twitch vs slow twitch issues
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Developing a Training Plan-Part 1
I have been working on this post for a few days, so it should sit well with Gwen's post about conditioning for Ultimate.
I have found that having a good training plan keeps me motivated and on track. It adds focus and reminds me of why I am doing what I am doing during each particular phase. This post will go into the basics about developing a training plan. Part 2 will add some specifics.
A good plan begins with good goals. Gwen quickly got to what I think are the two primary goals of a good plan for Ultimate:
1) Increase aerobic capacity- This means develop a solid base. It also means testing yourself close to your Anaerobic Threshold(AT). Some aspects of strength are here as well.
2) Increase speed, power, and explosiveness- Mostly anaerobic work, but some strength.
Once you have identified your goals, you need to look at the time period in which you have to work, and where your peak(s) will be. This is your training period. If you are in college right now and don't have a plan, this means that your training period begins today and your peak will be somewhere in late April. For me, my training plan begins on Dec 1 of each year, and concludes on Nov 30 of the next year. I have two training peaks, one in May and one in October. I do the double peak because I want to be ready to compete in tournaments in the summer. I found that without the early peak, I was susceptible to injuries because my body was not ready for the rigors of early season tournaments.
The next step is to divide your training period into phases. I identify my phases as follows:
1) Base- The focus is on increasing aerobic capacity and strength.
2) Intensity- Works on AT, speed, and strength.
3) Peak- Speed, power, agility.
4) Season- Focus is on supporting playing Ultimate
5) Rest
I find it convenient to allocate 4 weeks to a phase, but this can be tweaked if you are crunched for time. So beginning on roughly Dec 1, my phases are: Base1, Base2, Base3, Base4, Intensity1, Intensity2, Peak1, Intensity3, Intensity4, Peak2, Season1, Season2, Rest.
Now it is time to figure out how much time you want to spend training. Rob Sleamaker, author of "Serious Training for Endurance Athletes", calls this your Year Hours. Apparently, Olympic Nordic skiers can spend 700-1000 hours per year training. I found my peak (not including time spent playing Ultimate) to be about 250 hours per year. I have tweaked this metric now so that it does not include strength training. I only map out my aerobic and anaerobic work with my year hours, and for this year I am planning on 110 hours.
We now need to combine year hours and the phases. We need to allocate percentages to each phase. This is the first acknowledgement that our metrics are intensity and time (not distance and rate). Base periods will receive more time than peaks, for example, but the intensity of peak phases will be much greater. Each phase is given a percentage of the total year hours. My allocation is as follows: Base1(11%), Base2(12), Base3(12), Base4(11), Intensity1(9), Intensity2(9), Peak1(6), Intensity3(7), Intensity4(7), Peak2(6), Season1(5), Season2(5), Rest(0).
Next comes monthly periodization, which is important. This can be tweaked during your training period or phase to accommodate unanticipated changes in your schedule. In general, though, you want to maintain consistency with periodization. Each week of a phase receives a percentage of total workload of the phase. A common and effective allocation is: Week 1 (23%), Week 2(26%), Week 3(29%), and Week 4(22%). As you can see, periodization increases your workload as you proceed through each phase, and then gives you an "easy" week to rest up for the next phase. Building your capacity is achieved through slow and steady change.
I find it helpful to organize my plan with a spreadsheet. After entering a few formulas, I type in my year hours and all of the above numbers are calculated. So, at this point we have:
-A defined Training Period broken up into phases
-Total Year Hours
-Each phase is allocated a percentage of the Total Year Hours
-Each phase is periodized
If you have actually followed along, you should be able to calculate how much time you will spend for each week of your training period.
For example, to calculate the amount of time for my first week of my training period: (Total Year Hours(110) x Base1 %(.12)xWeek1 % of Base1(.23))= 2.78 hours. Just a reminder, for me, this number does not include strength training.
The next post will go into intensity levels and how to allocate specific workouts to specific parts of the training period.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
2 Hour30minute Tour/Off To UPA Board Meeting
Like last month, today was long run day. Much nicer than a month ago. 50 degrees and sunny. Awesome. I wore shorts. As it was not as cold, I was able to keep my pace down to around 134bpm for most of the run. The interesting thing is that my calorie total was almost identical to last month, even though the run was 13 minutes longer.
Getting all my workouts done by today means a nice break while I head out to the UPA Board Meeting. Should be fun. I enjoy the ND meetings very much and we seem to get a lot done. Thanks to everyone for sending in your porkbarrel requests....I will try to get to them all......
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Training: Base 1 review
Base 1: 11/28/05-12/25/05
Strength Goal-3x/week. Basic Foundational Program
Cardio Goals:
11% of total year hours=12.1 month hours
OD=8.1 hours
EN=4 hours
Results:
Strength: 12 sessions over 4 weeks
Cardio:
OD=7.88 hours
EN=3.85 hours
10.4% of total year hours
12510 calories
Overall, not too bad. A bit off for my cardio totals. Most of that came during my last "easy" week, which was quite busy with family and the holidays. My motivation is much higher this year due to, I think, three factors:
1) wanting to challenge myself more than last year
2) feeling a sense of accountability to this blog
3) my new Patagonia gear
So....not a bad start.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
2 Hour Tour
As this is week 3 of this month long training period, it is the "hard" week and I allocated 29% of the month hours to it (week 1: 23%, Week 2: 26%, week 4: 22%). After crunching the numbers, this meant that my OD allocation was 139 minutes for the week. I have noticed that I get more benefit from long OD runs than breaking up the allocation over several running sessions. As it is a good idea to do one really long run each month, I decided that yesterday was the day to run for the full 139 minutes.
I knew it was going to be cold, and, indeed, when I checked, the temp was 15 degrees when I left the house. I bundled myself up in all my new Patagonia gear (sidenote: I am very grateful for 6TM's Pro Player discount. Awesome gear. Somewhat affordable with the discount. Yesterday I wore the Axuwool top, the cool weather top, mid-weight socks, and the R1 tights). As soon as I stepped outside it was COLD. I spent the first 5-6 minutes of the run well above my heart rate target (132-143bpm) in an effort to warm up. I was pretty concerned about being able to keep warm for 2 hours while running so slow.
By about 11 minutes, I was warm and my heart was at 141 bpm. Pretty nice. I cruised along like this for a while, and then at about an hour, my iPod battery ran out( I set the thing on shuffle songs. Weird little section at one point: "By the Time I get to Arizona" followed by "The Sound Of Music" followed by "You're Cheating Heart"). I reached the Charles River at the Needham/Dover line at 1 hour 7 minutes, and I turned around. I spent the next 15 minutes battling the cold. My hands got quite cold, but in order to keep my heart rate down, I had to pretty much shuffle along. I started to get concerned about frostbite, and wondered if I had picked the wrong day to challenge my endurance limits and battle the weather.
I decided to do some OD sprints to warm up. This is basically about a 30 second sprint every 15 to 20 minutes. Just a chance to move your legs fast, but in my case, very helpful to get my temp back up.
Pretty soon I passed some landmarks close to home and I felt confident I would make it. By 2 hours, my joints were very tired and I was barely running. I made it home in 2 hours 21 minutes. I burned 1700 calories and I believe I ran about 11 miles.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Focus During Weight Training
This week was a clear reminder that strength training is very challenging when it comes to maintaining focus. Not only is maintaining focus a way to dramatically increase the quality of a strength workout, but I view strength training as a means to increase my ability to focus over long periods of time, specifically Ultimate games. When I am tired or distracted, there are consistent signs when I am losing focus during strength training:
1) I rush through my reps.
2) I "bounce" my reps. For example, if I am doing pull-ups, I will use my momentum on both the up and down points of the rep.
I think taking a passive approach, mentally, to strength training is very common. We do our bit, show up at the gym, get into a machine, and let it do the work. I am as guilty as the next person of mailing it in during strength training, but being passive basically wastes the time spent in the gym. So use strength training as chance to increase your focus and mindfulness. Your Ultimate game will get a lot out of it.
Training: Week 1
Note: This week went from Sunday, Nov 27-Sunday, Dec 4. All other weeks will be from Mon-Sun.
Goals:
Strength(STR)- 4 workouts.
Cardio-165 minutes. This is calculated as follows: Total planned year hours(TPYH)=110, First Month(Base 1)= 11% of TPYH, First week=23% of Base 1
Cardio is broken into:
Overdistance(OD-heart rate range is 132-142bpm)=110 minutes(60% of week's total)
Endurance(EN-heart rate range is 142-147bpm)=55 minutes(40% of week's total)
Results:
Sun-STR(55m, 395kcal)
Mon-OD(76m, 904kcal)
Tues-STR(52m, 394kcal)
Weds-Off
Thurs-EN(44m,537kcal)
Fri-STR(51m, 288kcal)
Sat-OD/EN(45m:35 OD, 10 EN, 500kcal)
Sun-STR(62m,435kcal)
STR=220m, 1512kcal
Strength notes: Same workout each week. Very clear example that focus, especially around slowing down reps, helps to increase the overall workload. On Thurs, I felt distracted and I rushed through the workout.
Cardio:
OD=111m, 1304kcal
EN=55m, 637kcal
Total cardio=166m, 1941kcal
WEEK TOTAL=386m, 3453kcal
Monday, November 28, 2005
Training: Day 1, plans for Day 2
Just a quick announcement that I am sure everyone was waiting to hear: my training program for 2006 began yesterday.
I started my year out with the basic strength training routine given to me by Bryan Doo. Lots of balance stuff mingled in with lunges, low rows, presses on a swiss ball, etc.
55 minutes, 395 calories. I noticed my head being much more into it than last year, and I am a bit sore today.
The plan for today is a 60 minute Overdistance run.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Training: The Year in Review
My training period actually ends on December 1, but as I take the month of November off, it is a good time to review the prior year and evaluate how it went.
First, the metrics for 12/1/04-12/1/05:
This year, I added in Ultimate games and practices. This was probably a sorry attempt to bump my numbers up, but I thought it might be interesting.
Total Year Hours: 334
Total Calories: 149,763
Total Weight Training Hours: 47 (roughly 20%)
Total Aerobic/Anaerobic training hours: 142(roughly 40%)
Total Ultimate Hours: 145(roughly 40%)
My total non-Ultimate hours: 189
This is down from a high of about 250 hours several years ago, but only 16 hours off of my goal for the year. I think the major loss came from weight training as my focus and commitment were not there this year.
So the numbers are interesting, but do not tell the whole story. In general, I felt this was an off year, and I did not have the confidence in my conditioning that I have had in prior years. I think was due to several factors:
1) Lack of defined and focused personal goals:
I felt very comfortable in the 03-04 year as my conditioning resulted in an appropriate role on 6TM, and we had a great year on and off the field. Entering this year, I had very little resolve to improve on that model. However, as we added more depth on the team, specifically in the areas in which I contribute, and, my overall focus was off, my role and contribution diminished this year. I need to evaluate how to proceed, but I think a possible set of goals for 04-05 could be higher volume and more focused work in an effort to try to bump myself up on the depth chart. Or retire....but more on that later.
I rely heavily on my foundation work in Dec-March to get me to the place where I can benefit from quick twitch work in the late spring/summer. I think if I proceed with the above goals, then I am going to have to train "for real" this December.
2) Injuries:
Chronic Achilles tendinitis, small hamstring tweaks, and chronic tight hip flexors were omnipresent. I think I need to make a commitment to stretching as I have no interest in it at all.
3) Nutrition/Weight:
I love to eat and cook. When I started training seriously, I weighed 164 pounds. With real weight training and conditioning, I was able to get up to about 180 pounds at about 11% body fat. Some folks have questioned whether this extra weight was beneficial, but I felt that I had more power and spring at that time. In the past few years, my weight has been getting close to 185 and I am higher in my body fat count. I think that 05-06 will require greater attention to nutrition if I am going to train seriously.
