mako pete timae

Boyz,

How we all goin. Now I would like to draw upon my trainin and focus the last few months with an analogy. A 3 way analogy in fact of mako my dog, pete my climbin mates dog and my self. Now these 3 creatures are interelated in that they are all dogs of sorts and have a drive that is unrelenting.
I will not bore you will trainin stats. But i will give you an insight to these 3 DOGS.

Mako: I dont think there is anything out there that loves frisbee more than mako, human or animal. He will froth on the disc for hrs on end givin the oppotunity. He loves the block, he will always bring it back. His actions speak louder than his words. He cares little if he is tired, or its cooking outside, he not fased if blood is pissin out his mouth from the disc. He is an unamotional plastic wanting machine. He also doesnt have any balls.

Pete: Now my climbin mates dog is one of those raggid, matty, two different coloured eyed border collies that loves to root. He has no balls like mako but that doesnt stop him trying to hump everything. He gives it to my mates cats, (one even lets him.) Or any dog or bitch he is into. If you are two leggid with long hair and on the short side he doesnt mind givin to you too. My mates young son laughs, "he is huggin me!" as you try to drag pete off his shoulders. He even tried on another mate of ours who has long dread locks when he was asleep on the couch drunk one night.
Its like he feel into a cauldron of viagra when he was a pup or somethin. He has no fear. Pete will run up to a huge german sheppard, go for the backdoor 'ello boys' only to get savaged , mauled, and pinned to the ground. 5 minutes later he will try again.

Timae: Now much like both these dogs, their drive for various motivations, this dog. A DINGO dog. has trained and focused with an intensity to try and rival the other 2 dogs. If i get a little down, or knocked back, that will not stop me. I will have a primal focus that will fuel me. Nothing else matters for me over the next couple of weeks. I will achieve my goal of never giving up till worlds is done and finished. I dont need motivation, my drive comes from within.

That is how i have trained, that is how i will play for my country.
The lessons to be learnt from 1 or all 3 of these dogs. Do what you love, no matter what. When you start to feel tired, or think of holding back think about the 3 dogs. They will always go hard, even if 2 of them dont have any balls.

Timbo

Lonely San Fran

Hey Guys,
I got to San Fran 2 days ago and have been getting used to the time changes and such. Staying with one of the Fury girls, Team USA, and hung out with a bunch of them today. They talk a lot of frisbee and seem to be fairly confident in their open team to take home the gold. It got me real fired up and keen to get out there and show these chumps the Dingo and Aussie Mongrel! I just want to get out there and slap some seppos around (yes, I see the irony) and mess up every other freaking country! I know sports psych-wise, surely this post is breaking rules, but sometimes there is emotion and it needs to be released.

I did a Kai strength session tonight to release some of the built up desire. I got two pretty decent sized water bottles and filled them up to the brim with water. I then went into it. I took the two couches and put a broom in between and went into the pull ups. I did my set of 15 slow and hard, and then did the one leg butterfly looking thing to 15 on each leg also. I did 3 sets of this and then went forward. Next, 15 Kai push ups with the squat superset of 15 also. Did 3 sets of these. Didn't have the hamstring equipment, so substituted the saw horse and moved onward, pushing forward. I did 16 of the saw horse, then 15 of the extended crunch, and 3 sets of these. Finally, did the wall sits with arm lifts, 15 of course, and the superset of the laying on stomach and extending the arms forward, with 15. 3 sets indeed. I did all of these with the water bottles as weight and it was feeling great. Left shoulder felt good, worked through it hard, and never looked back boys!

I am so freaking fired up to have you guys get here and finally see all this training translate into performance! Just being around the Americans, they exude this arrogance that I want to bash out of them. We have been working hard and I know I am extremely proud, and lucky, to be a part of this team. We can't control the future, others, weather, genetics, the past, accidents, or (there was one more), but with what we can control, lets put it all in and leave it on the field! This is what we have all put it for, sacrificed for, and trained and worked hard towards, so lets look around at our dingo brethren and make sure we each do everything we possibly can to make sure they leave a world champion!

no excuses, no asterisks...just Dingos!

running around

Went for a run on Saturday. A few hill sprints on a cold / cool winter night. It wasn’t quite 3 degrees, maybe closer to 12.

I ran around the corner to the nearby steep hill that leads down to the river. The hill is about 100m long with a steep middle section of about 50m. The first section got the legs working, then I hit a speed bump, after which the incline became steeper. I focussed on leg speed and getting the arms up to keep the momentum going. The last 25m flattened out a bit, but it was the toughest part, as I struggled to keep the same cadence to the end. I used a few cue words at the top to make the jog down a bit easier.

10 runs and 30 minutes later I trundled back home.

Support

G'day boys

Last night Stacy and I went over to the families house for a send off dinner. It was a nice time with some enjoyable stories and classic Neild family giggles going on.

One of the highlights from the night was that my parents has prepared a going away card for Stacy and one for me as well and I enjoyed mine so much I though you boys might take something out of it as well.


















Cheers Dingos

Mike

The life of a injured professional sportsman

8 days to go boys before I take off.

So....thought I would give you an update on all things Matt over the last couple of days and what's in stall for me for the next week (a massive creditcard bill and uni commitments piling up). I spent 3 days on the sideline at eastern uni games, so am eager to get on that field come worlds - so whatever it takes - "suck it up Matt" - no crystal balling.

Day zero was Saturday when injury occured

Day 1 and Day 2 consisted of icing and resting, with a small amount of stretching on day 2

Day 3, I saw Physio number 1 - diagnosed a inflammed / deteoriating tenden. Gave me heaps of strengthening excerises for all other muscles around this hip flexor tendon - couldn't get in too deep to see if tear, cause it hurt too much.

Day 4, I saw Physio number 2 - she said the same thing but I also have a tear associated with the injury which is what I suspected. Gave me immediate rehab using laser / infrared thingy to stimulate repair of muscle fibers. She also reset my back and pelvis to prevent anything else happening when at worlds and also this took a lot of tenderness away. Am currently now on witch doctor drugs, drinking heaps of water and less sugar in the diet. This chick was good - she knew who the Gack was.

Day 5 (thursday). Saw sports physician in the morning (she was recently awarded an "order of Australia", on the queens behalf) - same diagnosis as above but included lots of doctor talk and naming things. Gave me some advise.....get cortisone injection. Called up a place and stressed my urgency about world championships- they got me in this afternoon - yeah baby. Went to movie to wait for 4 hours. Got ultrasound and an ultrasound injected cortisone (obviously with local numb juice). Picked up prescription drugs for anti-inflammatory. Drove home via Kai's place to pick up more drugs and goodies (he's looking after me).

This is where I'm up to - with 1 hour worth of excerises and stretches each night.

Day 6 (tomorrow). See Physio 1 again for update

Day 7-9, will just be resting, excersises and stretching. Also, icing - which is helpfull if I can do it everyday.

Day 10, Physio 2 - for some more laser assisted physiotherapy and make sure pelvis is sorted (i actually have one leg which is true longer than the other and a very stiff lower spine (L4-5)).

Day 11, Sports Physician again for check up regarding cortisone and any other niggles i might have.

Day 12, Physio 2 - last laser assisted physio.

Day 13 - Get on plane for worlds baby. Get another creditcard to abosrb costs

That is as far as I have got (13 days, 8 visits to specialists) - but I'm sure there will be massage and physio visits in San Fran and Denver.

Although I can't physically run at the moment and train with you boys, I'm doing everything I can and my leg is improving everyday. I'm excited. Saw the boys rip out a training session in the cold and rain on wednesday - inspirational to me. People thanked me for turning up and enduring the weather - but I thank them - that is my inspiration and drive.

"I am a Dingo"

Matty D

A Rare Tuesday Night in Newcastle

Dingos,

Last night the Newcastle Dingos made the most of a rare Tuesday where we didn't have to drive 4 hours on the F3, and went and did a sprint session in leui of joining Sydney training.

The first thing we did was get the curry simmering on the stove at my place.

We then headed to the fields for our session:
- Warm up jog
- Plyos (A's, B's, high knees, heel kicks, bounds, power hops, power skips)

- 40 x 40m sprints
We did these on a 30 sec interval timed with a beep on Tats's watch, with a 2 min rest in between each set of 10.
The first 10 was just sprints.
The next 2 sets of 10 we started on a centre line and took turns to call "left" or "right" on the 30s beep - the others having to react and sprint the 40m in the right direction. The next sprint would be a normal sprint back to the centre line. I only got my left/right mixed up once.
The last 10 we did with a beach start on each sprint.

The 3 of us are pretty evenly matched over 40m so there was some good competition to push us all the way.

Then we did 100 throws with a pivot and/or give go, with consequences (we had to get 10 in a row of each throw or start that throw again). We had no turnovers.

Then we did 3 sets of 6 in-out kill drill. Cutter runs in and receives the throw, dumps it straight back to the thrower then cuts long for the huck - attacking it as much as possible, getting it at the top of jump. These were bloody hard - had to dig deep for the 6th out cut of each set.


Then back to my place for the curry, which had simmered nicely. Chicken Tikka Masala with eggplant, sweet potato and cauliflower. Basmati rice. Condiments of banana, yogurt, mango chutney and beetroot. I offered the boys a beer, but they opted for the brekky juice instead. Much better than our usual Tuesday night Maccas stop on the F3.

Newcastle's "Hour of Power"

I'm too excited with thoughts about worlds today to do any actual work, so I figured I'd write something about our Newcastle sessions.

Since a couple of weeks before Nationals we've been doing a Power and Agility session on Friday evenings with a personal trainer up here in Newcastle. Friday evening is not the most ideal time, but with all the other training going on there weren't too many alternatives, and it has the additional benefit of reducing Tats's drinking opportunities.

The guy who runs our sessions is Marc, I met him some time ago as he is a trainer at the gym I go to and he drew up a training plan for me before world clubs in Perth. He has represented Australia at "Floor Ball", which I think is something like hockey on an indoor court. So he knows what it's like to be an elite athlete playing an obscure sport, and he took me seriously from the start when I told him I wanted to train for elite level ultimate frisbee.

Marc is not your typical "drill sergeant" type trainer. He's more like Kai - quiet, knowledgeable, authoritative and ruthless...you know, a sadist basically.

Before Nationals we had 12-14 people at each session, mostly the I-Beam guys. After nationals the numbers droped off a bit, but we've generally been getting around 8-10 people at each. There's the 3 Newcastle Dingos, Greenie and Graig from the Masters, Leanne from the Barramundis and Ellie Sparke from the Junior Women. Not all of them come to every session, but there's usually a few other Newcastle frisbee people who come along too. Their support has been gold.

Anyway, Marc runs similar sessions for other teams like soccer, rugby and afl teams in Newcastle, and although he doesn't know much about ultimate he's tailored the sessions based on what I've told him we need to work on. The sessions are held on an indoor netball court and are different each week, but last Friday's went something like this:

- 5 lap warmup on the 250m upstairs running track in the gym;
- 5 mins sprinting through a marker cone course - side to side between cones, sprint up to next cones, side to side etc
- One lap race on the running track.
- 1 minute rest
- 5 mins through the marker cone course, this time focussing on keeping low the whole time (working the quads)
- one lap race on the running track
- 1 minute rest
- 5 mins sprinting through a zig zag course, doing 1 standing vertical jump at each cone down the court, reaching down and touching the cones on the way back
- One lap race on the running track.
- 1 minute rest
- 5 mins of "suicides". This is not just a name, and it's one of Marc's favourites. Sprinting through the same zig zag course, but at each cone drop to the floor like a push up and jump back up again. There's about 12 cones in the course so you probably do about 60 of these. After about 3 mins its pretty hard to explode back up sprinting, you're just trying to survive it without Marc adding another minute if he sees you slacking off. They suck, but good for developing the strength and stamina required to continually lay out and get back up sprinting again in a game.
- One lap race on the running track.
- 1 minute rest
- In pairs, get down in the bottom of the push up position, one person with their feet on the wall of the court, the other in front of them. The back person jumps up and runs to the front and gets back into the pushup position, then the next person gets up does the same (kinda like leap frog). Do this as fast as you can till you get to the other end of the court. Then back.
- One lap race on the running track.
- 1 minute rest
- Same pushup thing again.
- One lap race on the running track.
- 1 minute rest
- Last exercise, get into squat position at one end of the court. 10 pulses of the squat, then sprint to the end of the court and back. Do this 3 times, no rest in between.

It was a good tough session. Tim won most of the 250m races, but I got him on the ones after the upper body things. Leanne was also looking strong, she'd usually be the first to get from the court to the track and we had to work hard to chase her down. Craig is also very fit, he was up there with me and Tim most times.

Other sessions have followed a similar format - a few mins of an exercise followed by a lap on the track. Exercises we have done in other sessions include:
- Starting lying flat on the ground, on Marc's call get up and sprint 25m then lie down again. x 30 (with no rest in between, maybe 5 secs if you're quick while he waits for everyone to get down - brutal)
- sprinting from one end of the court to the other, but when Marc claps you have to hit the ground, roll to the right and get up again (he starts this easy, but on the last few laps he's a real bastard).
- sprinting down the court holding a medicine ball above your head (works your core)
- sprinting up the hill outside the gym holding a medicine ball above your head
- Working up the hill as a group in single file, everyone close together holding a squat, the back person runs to the front of the line and gets into squat position, then the new back person runs to the front etc.
- boxing - not real sparring, just fast punching pads held by your partner. This was the one where me and Tim couldn't lift our arms above our heads for a few days.

You get the idea. Most sessions get me close to vomiting at some point.

This Friday is the last one before we leave, can't wait!

Chris

Exciting times

Lads,

In the eloquent words of Mikey Neild we are currently entering some "Very Exciting Times" ... personally, I'm currently counting down the days like this: "After today I only have one more Wednesday for hillsprints on Federation Mall". Just got back from my second last one.

Federation Mall is the long strip of grass extending up the hill from the back of Old Parliament House to the front of Parliament House. It's very close to where I work and it's where I've been basing my lunch time plyo and hillsprint sessions for the past couple of months. Today's session was a bit of a kick in the teeth - the current apparent temperature at 1:15pm is 1.7 degrees centigrade - but it feels good to have smashed it out and I'm sitting here in a post running glow avoiding doing any actual work.

Gareth's comments about cue words really struck home with me on the weekend. I started using a four word phrase some time after Nationals when we really started turning up the training and I've been using it more and more in recent weeks. During a game I'll think it before the pull. When I'm riding to work through freezing Canberra rain/sleet I'll think it and crank the pedels and suck it up. When it's a shitty training session here in Canberra and I need some motivation, I think about these four words. They mean a lot to me. They are simple, they make me run faster and focus more intensely. They remind me of the past, they inspire me for the future and they anchor me to the present.

The four words: "I am a dingo"

Frisbee chicks are (relatively) hot

Yo,

So, Marty called me up Monday night and offered me tickets to State of Origin. I was already considering whether I was ready for my first Kai session and had my doubts, so it just forced the issue a bit sooner than Wednesday afternoon. No regrets - it was a great game and the best state won.

To make up for it, I committed to a sprint session last night (Thursday).

Put out the email for some company at ES Marks but didn’t get any response. Sad. Messaged Abra who is always up for a sprint session but he gave me the cold shoulder and a rebuke for not having a life outside Frisbee and work, but inspired me with his closing remarks “solo sessions at es marks are fun. You will be great”

Unfortunately, it was getting pretty late at work and I was missing my 7pm nominated start time for the track session. A long public transport ride home, stopping off to buy some screwdrivers to fix my computer and got to my car at 8pm and it wasn’t looking good since the track closed at 8:30pm. The temptation to pull the plug was strong my friends.

Backup plan: drive around and find a lit field and do track on the side. This would also mean less impact on my ankle by avoiding the tartan. I drove past Waverley Oval and the lights were on, a couple of gaelic football teams were training there.

Ground very dodgy, strapping tape on, pop a pill.

Did a quick lap of the field. Warmed up with a set of ABCs and some dynamic stretching.

Measured out about 40m in the in-goal area of the field, some undulating ground but not too bad, actually better than the field itself. Navigated a path with no major divots. It was slightly uphill-downhill, so I was kind of doing resistance work in one direction and overspeed in the other.

Between sprints, I had about a 30m runoff area and then walk back to start the next.

After about 6 sprints, my right shoulder really started hurting, it had been annoying me all day, but now I thought I was starting to do damage. Note: this is a remnant sand-boarding injury. Solution: bit of a stretch and suck up the pain and keep going.

Now, beside me on the field were a bunch of girls attempting to play gaelic football. Oh my god we have it good in Frisbee - not just looks, these girls were so uncoordinated they could neither catch nor kick. No wonder a bunch of Frisbee players joined gaelic in Brisbane and became stars. No distractions at the Waverley Oval track tonight.

40 sprints is a lot on your own. After each sprint I was still breathing extremely heavily before I started the next one. Many thoughts of finishing at 20. But I wasn’t dying, I could keep going.

When running in one direction, the floodlighting projected my shadow in front of me. I looked at myself and became increasingly aware of my loping gait, especially as I got more tired. After about sprint #24 I decided to take action.

“Jonathan,“ I said to myself, “you know how you did those ABCs at the start of the session? Maybe you could incorporate some of that into your sprinting?”

“Hmmm, good idea”, I responded, “perhaps concentrate on driving down more quickly and a slightly shorter stride.”

Oh baby, I am a genius. A new lease of life and a bit of extra speed through the late 20s.

Harder work though, and by about #30 I was starting to feel it in my calves, probably from the increased stress of driving down into the ground. By 32 I decided to quit to avoid any niggle.

Short warmdown and long ice when I got home. Ready for the weekend, and Kai next week! See you out there boys.

Turf Trackin' it!

Dings,

So, my time in the states has been somewhat of a roller-coaster ride of emotion. From the lows of losing ALL my checked luggage (including roughly $10,000 in camera equipment) to the highs of finding Vapor TDs online and putting a smile on my teammate's faces.

My first training session was at approximately 9,500 feet in colorado. After my 38 hours of Thursday that ended in driving up the rockies to a resort at 11pm, I awoke on friday at 6am. Shook off the cobwebs, left the king size bed and headed to the first field i could find. I proceeded to do the hard plyos workout plus some of the cutting drills kai has done with us recently. It was fucking tough. I couldn't do more than a set of 3 before i needed to take a break. After about an hour and ten minutes, i was beat. It was so beautiful up there that I thought I'd go to the back of the SUV we rented, pull out a camera and take a shot to put on the blog. That was when I first realized that I had been relieved of a pelican case full of cameras.

I threw twice in the next couple days and attempted a fartlek at altitude. . . that was short lived and not much fun. I felt like Tats's stomach at the sydney uni indoor session, but probably looked more like bretty at kai's session two weeks ago.

In answer to your question, ken. . . No, I have not yet hit the Stanford track.

We were at the Redwood City High School track facilities last night, they have that super plush surface on their football field. The ground up tires in synthetic grass. It felt so good on my still bruised cartilage. Luckily Patrick Hard came with us, jo wasn't so good at resisting me using the harness.

I've been staying with my mate Turtle, he lives about 2 blocks from the College of San Mateo, that also has a very plush synthetic field, so i'll be up there tonight for another plyos session that will end in 20x25s and a bunch of throwing as per Mike's last spreadsheet entry.

Anyway, both the case of cameras and the pack frontier airlines lost in denver found their way back to me. I'm not sure how, but i have them both in my possession, and with that sorted, I'm fired up to have some cleats to throw on and run around in.

That's about it, glad to see our VC running on the track.

Frank Hugenaard will be attending our game against Jam, and will be setting up a dischoops court if anyone's interested.

Tonight's training

Did 90 mins of drills at Albert Park with 12 other Worlds folk.

Then 80 throws with Mama: 40 throw and go, 20 hucks, 20 attack-a-random-floating-pass

Home to do strength session. Had some complex components: strength work followed by plyo set.
1. 10 x single leg squats, 10 x ponies, repeat
2. 10 x pushups with 1 leg on fitball, 10 x quick clap pushies against couch, repeat
3. 10 x Russian twists on fitball with toolbox as weight, 10 x superman with cans of chopped tomatoes, repeat
4. 10 x kneeling, slow roll fitball fwd and back w/ forearms
5. 45 sec wall squat with back against fitball, 12 x max vert leap, repeat
6. 10 x inverted flies on fitball, repeat, with toolbox in one hand, bag of tins in other. The tins were: 3 x chopped tomatoes, 1 x coconut milk, 1 x cannelini beans, 1 x beetroot, 1 x champignons (small), 1 x condensed milk.

Stretch for 20 minutes, then ate the chopped tomatoes as part of a pasta meal, while watching the 2004 dvd and scouting.

carn Dingos!

homebush track

Tubs is writing a bit of a report from yesterday. Just thought I'd put in a couple of pics and video clips.

(Steve, have you hit the stanford track yet?)

Applying my feedback discussion in training

Dingos,
I had a really productive individual feedback session that I want to thank the leadership for producing for all of us. Its always good to hear about your game specifics from others opinions. The information was really practical and applicable which I appreciated, they weren't there to tickle my balls. The final month was to primarily be focussed on shorter faster sessions for me, with less quantity and more top speed work and agility. I have another notch of top speed to develop was the jist of the communication. That is the path to blockgetting (My mission statemnet for the month). So I took that on this week in my training. Had a killer plyo session on tuesday with Steve. When you hit those sessions hard, your legs are fucking axed. Thats how you know its working. Today I hit the track alone in rocky style,. It was cold and windy but some burning motivation to churn out some speed work in a sexy red thong shirt kept me focussed..
Did shuttle runs 5 reps no rest (7m-15m-23m-30m).
Then did 5 100m dashs, heaps of chicks around so I was determined and feeling light as a feather.
followed this up with 10X50m dashs with walk backs and a variety of plyometric starts focussing on balance and quickness off the mark.
from there I hit the stairs for some more plyo inspired speed work.
every step 5 reps
every other step 3 reps
left leg 2 reps
right leg 2 reps
two foot hops 5 reps
two foot hops every other step super frog jump mega balance explosion jumps! new for me
3 reps
left leg 1 rep
right leg 1 rep

after this I finished with 10 more 50m dashs with plyometric takeoff stuff like pushies and burpies an such. A sweet session.

Tomorrow is the future, after work I am gonna hit the gym to do some power based upper body work as well as some squats and clean jerk manly shit. Then weekend madness begins. word.
I wake up and go to bed proud to play with dingos and stolked for the brutal battle ahead. lets make out short insignificant time on this planet a little more meaningful by conquering everyone!
Love
Bra

Pretty boys, smelly towels and god fillets

So, I didn’t make it to Kai’s session last night, but I’m hoping to be there ready to rock and roll next week.

Instead, Gus and I headed to Fitness First Darlinghurst to pump some iron. After a slightly awkward greeting where we almost kissed (which is not an uncommon greeting between males in a Darlinghurst gym), I started off with a five minute row for a warmup. Then we went straight into the bench press (Arnie’s favourite - all hail Arnie!).

Pushed out a couple of sets of 60kgs and then a final set of 65kgs (possibly assist from my partner on the final rep – I dunno I couldn’t open my eyes at that stage). Wanna get that up to 80kgs by the time I step onto a plane. "Does the bench press bear any relationship to ultimate performance?", I hear you say. It does when you've ordered a sleeveless playing shirt.

We moved onto leg press (except gus couldn’t do that due to knee), cable flys, abba dabba work on swiss ball, tricep dips and chin-ups with 5kg assist (I could only do one set of each), single leg hamstring curls (25kgs), shoulder/military press (35kgs), inside and outside cunt muscles (abductors and adductors), calf extensions, lat pull-downs.

After 8pm, it seems like the all the cute women desert fitness first and it becomes the domain of the gay boys. There was one fit babe there though and it seemed like she was following us around, but then she went to use the hamstring curl machine that Gus had been using and very thoroughly disinfected the whole machine. Twice. Yuck - boy sweat. I wondered if she showers straight after sex. Need to think about that one some more.

So then Gus had to finish his last hamstring set with his face in my stinky towel that I haven't washed in about 4 weeks... he'll bring his own towel next time.

At 10pm they kicked us out, probably because we were making all the gay boys look puny and unattractive in the mirror.

We then retired to the BBQ King for some “god fillets” and ginger, bbq pork and bbq duck and a little sip of tsing tao. Oh baby!

Overspeed

G'day boys

Early on in this blog Checking line posted a link to an article about specificity of training and 'over-speed' work. I expect most of you blokes have had a read of this, it was a great article. I've been attempting to work on the specificity principle with the running that i've been doing (top speed, sprint endurance, 25 - 100m efforts mainly) and i've been thinking about the over-speed concept a bit. I understand the idea to be that if you can work your system (running ability in our case) harder or faster than you are going to need it in a competition situation you will gain benefits when you have to compete due the adaptations your body will make.

Difficult to do for our sport as our speed is as fast as we can run and how do you go about training at over that speed. Well tonight I got onto it, I ran down hill boys! Get that into ya.

So I have a street close to my home which has a saddle shape to it. High at one end, 70m of down hill at maybe 25-30 degrees (thats a guess - pretty steep though), then a brief flat bit 3-4m followed by a 25m rise back up before it flattens out again. Saddle shape with 1 side being twice as high as the other.

After about 25mins of running drill plyos i got onto 10 modified hill sprints. I started at the lower of the 2 high sides, ran down the 25m as fast as I could and then pushed up the opposite 70m to the top of the rise. It was a pretty tough little hit. The great thing was that over the last 4 or 5 steps of the down hill, the 2-3 steps of the bottom and 3-5 steps of the incline my legs and feet were having to go faster than they would normally have to in order to keep up with my body which was rocking down through this gully shape - over-speed.

On all of the runs I found myself right up on my toes in full sprint mode going down a hill - high knees, high heal recovery under the body and snappy fast put down and rake action with my toes. I was going full on as a fast as I could to stay upright. It felt really fast and the first section of the uphill was equally fast.

The 2 main positives that i see from this situation are:
- I was training my running system, motor unit recruitment firing patterns, reflexes and other neuromuscular systems to work at a faster speed that they have in the past.
- I was running really fast and working extremely hard while running by myself without a team mate to push me or a trainer to crack the whip.

It was massive.

I'm a little disappointed I've only discovered the saddle of speed this late, however I reckon i'll get on it a few more times before we head over in 3 weeks. I reckon its worth a try boys. I think the down hill bit shouldn't be much more that 20-30m at the start as I don't know if i could have kept up the speed to say upright over a longer distance at this stage. It is also great to have an uphill to blast out of it with.


Looking forward to hearing how you guys are all going. Lets get that average up to 9 sessions this week, its a great short term goal to be chasing. Lets run for each other this week boys, I need you guys to be reading and writing on here so i know that i'm running for more than just myself.
It keeps me going when i'm hurting and only part way through my sessions.

See you soon

Mike

Go dingo go!

My fellow dingo pack,

This fitness blog is the sh%t. Anyone who needs inspiration need only go back through some of the old posts here – they fire me up. Anyone who prefaces it with negative sh%t like Brett did, though, should get a slapping. F#ck that sh%t. Inspire.

So, both my doctor and my physio told me to rest for a day after running on my ankle. Sounds like sage advice; implementation is an entirely different matter.

After two days of running on it (and dancing on it Friday night :-), the ankle felt pretty gosh darn good. So I met up with Pete yesterday lunchtime for a throw and then we did some “light” plyos – As, Bs and Cs.

We did them as A1, A2, A3 etc, so 9 drills in all. The three progressions are march, skip and run. Check out the info on the dingos site:

http://sites.google.com/site/dingos/fitness/demonstrations-of-plyos

We then went through the section of the plyos book called “Bounds”, starting with the early stuff that was similar to ABCs – “prancing” and “galloping”, through to some reasonable intensity bounding, but no box or stair work. It took us a while to work out what each exercise was, but if you read it and look at the pictures you can work it out, and then you’ll be able to teach others…

Not content with a single session in a day, I accompanied Brett to league, he having assured me that I would be able to pick up with his Div 2 team. Of course, once we arrived it was apparent that this wasn’t going to happen. No matter, I was mentally prepared for that eventuality.

Had a bit of a throw with Phil White, captain of the U19 men’s team. He is having a sh%t time with injuries, lower back pain has kept him out of action since regionals I think. The quacks say it’s because he has loose ligaments. Hmmm, methinks too many 400s on the juniors fitness programme… Anyway, you gotta play through that lower back pain hey Wavy!!! Just develop your high backhand, bladey flick and hammer.

Then I did my second set of ABCs for the day, and then Brett joined me while subbing off his Div 2 game and we did another set. Then we did some run-throughs – push-up and then sprint 20m. Brett stayed for 4 but then had to rejoin the game. I continued to do another 10 or so, pausing often to heckle Brett whenever he got involved in a turnover. Often.

Then we trundled off to Div 1. This time, thanks to the graciousness of the Hammerheads, I was allowed to pick up with Hills. The ground was a bit dodgy underfoot, but ankle stood up to it OK. The most remarkable thing about Div 1 is that there are 3 divisions below it.

During one set of subs I went across and joined the masters for a drill. I played D on their deep cuts. Happy to say that I overtook Charlie, decimated Jens and was slightly slower than Duncan Macintosh.

During my other breaks I went up and said g’day to the U19 boys. Heckled Tullett when he didn’t lay out for a disc. Chatted with the legendary Dave Noble as well. Since I was in non-Dingos company we paid out on some non-Barefoot clubs. Got to keep my eye in.

Rejoined my league game and it was quite a tussle, point for point from about 6-5 to 16-15. I had them for speed, but my sprint endurance needs some work, not surprisingly.

After a third day of punishment, my ankle still felt great. Much better than it did before the three days of play.

After tonight’s training it will be four pretty solid days in a row of hard work. I think I need to take a day off the ankle and will do gym work, I don’t think I’m ready for one of Kai’s sessions yet, will aim to join next week.

We all need to do more sprints/plyos/fartlek/throwing/gym sessions. I am aiming for 10 sessions this week, I want to see the team averaging 9 this week, so start scheduling two sessions some days. They only have to be half an hour long to be worthwhile…

Go dingo go!

running training, many sprints

Sydney training was pretty grouse last night.

- Found a spot out the back and threw with Gus for half an hour. Really happy with improved vertical jump. Can get better though.

- 10 of us warmed up with plyos, stretching, then got into pushup–sprints. x 30.

- Next were the box jumps. We didn’t have any boxes so we just did 2 vertical jumps in succession. Sprints were then added to this.

- Divided into 2 groups, and did 25m sprints with staggered / handicapped starts. x 20.

- Kept same groups and sprinted 25m to a cone and back with staggered starts. x 12.

- Next were run throughs, turning 90 degrees, sharply at a cone. This developed into chasing someone in front, grabbing a t-shirt from their shorts after the cone.

- Last was dead man carry. 2 people carry a person hanging onto 2 metal poles - 100m. This was a competitive relay so everyone had to be carried once. x 3.

Great work lads.

Lonesome afternoon in Homebush

Preface: I am not a huge fan of these things, but will do my best to encourage and entertain.

Howdy All!

Spending the morning and early afternoon on the computer, I figured I would get out and do a plyos session as I have yet to partake. I went to the website, which is well constructed, and printed out Owen's session and was on my way. Got dressed into my Philipines jersey from Beach Worlds and was pretty pumped to remember the highlights of a successful campaign. Put some tunes on and headed on my way, yogging to the field. I set up the session with a 10 meter mark and 15 meter mark, as all the plyos distance on owen's session said to do for 10m and run out the last 5m, and it looked way too easy, so decided to overhaul the distances and improv them. I believe it turned into a 25 meter and 35 meter, respectively. I ran around and did some dynamic warming up, high knees, butt kicks, side to side, grapevine, and so forth, and then got into it. Before we get into the nuts and bolts, I figured I would make my Advanced English lit teacher proud and remember SOAPS (Setting, Occasion, Audience, Perspective, I forget the last S) and therefore enlighten you to my surroundings.

I was next to the beautiful lake, dreary due to rain and the sunless sky, invaded by precipitous creatures looking to occupy all that is blue, but nonetheless magnificent for its serenity and fortitude. The park was damp and lackluster without the rays penetrating the once illustrious sky. A man was flying a kite giving a calm, warm feel to the whole event. Trees surrounding the land, occupying the perimeter of the park, giving me a terrestrial island paradise with which to train.

So onto the workout. It went as follows:
A1 X 2 for 25m, run through 10m, jog back
A2 X 2 for 25m, run through 10m, jog back
B1 X 2 for 25m, run through 10m, jog back
B2 X 2 for 25m, run through 10m, jog back

Motorbike X 2 for 35m, twice with each leg
Bunny hops X 2 for 25m, jog back
Ponies X 5 - 15 reps

Zig Zag bounds X 2 for 35m, jog back

Burpies X 3 - 10 reps with 25m run out

Cool down - stretch, then jog the perimeter of the park, repeat till all stretching was done.

It was good...

East Perth Plyo Pad

Dingos,

Haven't had a report from out west so thought I might pencil in a recent discovery last night. I left work a little early with the intention of doing some fartlek running around the river.

Cali Steve's been going on about box jumps for ages and I have been keen as to get into them but have struggled to find anywhere suitable to do it. My gym crappy stadium seating isn't really ideal.

Anyway low an behold about 500m into my run I come across some nice sandstone fencing which built on a hill varies in height from about 30 cm to 100cm. Score ..... I found box!!! Did three sets of 10 at about 50-60 cm. I then started jogging again noticing some hills that would be good to run a few circuits around. I felt inspired by Matt's metal workouts out Macquarie Uni so I ran down to the Swan river foreshore and sprinted up this hill and began a 800m circuit that I was going to do. As I jogged around some swanky houses attempting to recovery from the hill sprint I came back down to the foreshore and was amping up for my next attempt about 200m away when I looked to my right and found this beautiful patch of grass leading up the Swan's banks to the aforementioned swanky houses. 20 m flat section, then 70 m hill @ 10% incline, meant for hill sprints so up I went, it gets tough towards the end but felt good, so I thought I' d knock over 10. As a jogged back down the slope about halfway along and slighty to the left I noticed a nice park bench where I decided to do some split jump things that Kai had us do the other week. Knocked over a cheeky 20 then ran back down for my second sprint. Again not to bad and another 20 jumps for good luck. Third time up ...... has the hill got steeper?? starting to feel a little slow. Anyway I kept up with the 20 jumps after each sprint until I reached my seventh sprint at which point I decided to reduce the times between sprints. The last four sprints were a struggle, as I did them I was thinking of Gladiators the night before and how I was laughing at the poor buggers that fell down on the travellator. I'd be going backwards on that thing. I gritted the teeth though and got through them until I reached my last one. Alright, leave nothing in the tank this time. What can I do to inspire me this last sprint? and I immediately thought of chasing Chase SB deep for the disc. I hate these guys, and any other mofos that want to take gold from the Dingos!!! ...... and it really drove me in the absence of someone else pushing you. Not really sure if it was fast as I wasn't timing but it felt like I flew up that hill for the last one.

I then strode back down the hill sucking in the air and the rain that started falling was a nice little cool down. I then began a series of plyo excercises, or at least the ones I could remember.

Anyway despite being buggered at the end of the session, I was utterly stoked to find this place. Perfect for some sprints and plyo work and just on a 1km from my place.

Bring it on for the next four weeks!

Denyer

monday evening throw

Lads,
Went out for a throw this evening down the road. There was a bit of rain around which meant I had to focus on catching and a firm release on the throw.
I then did 12 x 40m sprints with 60m recovery, concentrating on leg drive and then arm drive on acceleration.
Looking forward to training tomorrow.

Here are some pics from TC4 to change it up a bit.

Melb fitness

Did a session tonight at Albert Park.

Doug L and Al Moroney joined me.

10x50m with jog backs. First 5 were handicapped, so we could all aim to win the sprint. Then I shortened my recovery time for the last 5, jogging back faster. Last sprint was still strong.

Then a set of plyos (plus burpies). I credit the plyos and strength work with my best vertical in years (yeah, I know, that doesn't mean I will sky anyone. its all relative).

Then 8 sprints: combinations of 15m and 30m sprints out and back with 30 sec recovery between.

Cool down.

Tomorrow is a rest day, then a tourney on Sat, Worlds scrimmage on Sunday morning, and more fitness on Sun arvo.

fitness at sydney uni

Training last night was excellent.

Steve and I rocked up to a dark oval so we headed out the back to a busy St Johns oval and threw for about 20 in wet conditions until others arrived. Pete Liddicoat again pulled some strings for us and we found a nice spot to start training in the Square. Kai brought a car load of equipment and proceeded to show us the new range of activities we can do in our own time. These included crouch/pushup/bring feet in/explosive acceleration for 10-15m; wall/chair drop off/jumps; and another that I seem to have forgotten. There will be an email explaining them shortly. They complement the plyo work we’ve been looking at. It is not really tiring, instead it’s more focussed on power.

We then looked at change of direction, turning 90 degrees at a cone. Braking power and preparing for the turn while disguising it are important things to consider. 2 people were attached with the Velcro belt and the first person took off with the second trying to keep up. The first runner could choose to turn left or right at the cone, so the second person had to stay close and react quickly to stay connected. Waz’s acceleration was very quick and Gav was very hard to get away from.

Kai then brought out the bungee cords. I like this exercise. 2 people are tied at the waist, joined by a bungee cord. The front person takes off, pulling the back runner along, creating overspeed running. I was tied to Glover and I couldn’t overtake him. Nice work Glover.

Last of all was everyone’s favourite, the resistance harness running. We did 10m resistance then sprints with one of the gimps throwing us a disc. This was tough but manageable. The lights went out at this stage, so Kai had to adapt the drill and of course make life more difficult for us. We had to go 20m, turn around, go 10m, be released and sprint to the next cone within 2 seconds. Very tough. I was finding it a very hard day at the office, the lungs were definitely struggling. We did this 3 or 4 more times and then took a break. To complete the evening we did another 3 sets.

These sessions are invaluable. I strongly recommend attending if you can.

The anklegina report

Part 1 - Hyde Park

Met up with Andrew at lunchtime today in Hyde Park. He ran there from UTS, I strolled down from Goulburn St, wolfing down my lunch on the way. When I arrived, he was chatting up this very cute young girl who was telling him a bit about the lord's work. Actually she was old and ugly and he was glad to have me arrive and strip off in front of him.

We threw a bunch, including:

• short wristy backhands
• short slow forehands
• wide and low
• pivot and throw
• high grabs
• throw and go

I have to say Andrew's throws were technically excellent. If he can do that in a game at worlds against a tough mark he'll be hitting people all over the field.

Next, we did 20 x 40m run-throughs at about 80%, with a little walk recovery between each one. This was reasonably tough, and I know I went lactic, but I am obviously not very running fit. He was generally a good 3m in front by the end, but I sort of kept up in the very last one. Total time taken = 7 minutes.

It was a pretty quick workout, about 40 minutes, but definitely worthwhile, and it’s much easier to find field space for this sort of thing in the middle of the day than at night or even in the morning. I’m going to try to do something most days, especially once my ankle is sweet again.

Part 2 – Nick the Physio’s office

I headed straight from the park to my physio appointment. He was a bit surprised to see me in running gear and I told him what I’d been doing, and again he was a bit surprised but my range of motion is still good, so he’s happy for me to keep progressing.

So I have the all clear to do some more running and hopping and light plyometric work. I told him I wanted to play Saturday week, he adjusted his thinking to possibly accommodate that. I might only be able to turn off my right foot when it comes to that, but I’m sure I can play in some capacity.

Only problem is, I’m supposed to do 1 day on, 1 day off, which doesn’t give me a lot of training days till next Saturday.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I can jump in and correctly implement all of the playing structure that I’ve been expounding. I will be a hungry man, who wants to be my first victim of a layout point block?

es marks

Tubby, Abra and I went to ES Marks last night. After a bit of a throw we hit the track, aiming for 3 sets of 3 x 400m. Our first one was a bit too easy, so we aimed at lowering them to 75 seconds. This was a decent time to aim for and tough. We had a 45 second break between laps, and a 3 minute break between sets. After the second set we went up to the stands for some stair work. We ran up, hopped up, jumped up, took every second step (had to use arms to gain momentum), and did 3 up-down, 2 up to finish it off. We went back down and completed our last set of 400's. Abra sped away on the last 400 and must have come close to the minute mark.

We then did a square drill, throwing into space, using wristy backhands and forehands that sat up. After some quality stretching we did a bit of core work, 3 sets of pushups and 3 sets of situps.

Great work lads.

Yeah boys!!!

Awesome weekend boys!!!

Secondly......I'm back, yeah baby

Matt

Melbourne training

So what does a week in Melbourne look like, training for Worlds?

Monday
Play Div 1. Do 100 throws or a run/fartlek afterwards. Actually had an icebath this week and my legs felt tops the next day.

Tuesday
Rest day

Wednesday
Worlds training at Albert Park at 7pm. Players from all 6 teams attend (so there are Masters, Juniors, etc there). Weeks alternate between skill sessions and scrimmages (with extras invited). The first scrimmage was last week. We were short on numbers - only 14 - but had a high quality game. 2 minutes of esky for the winners, 2 minutes of exercise for the losing team. My personal focus has been tight guarding, and making layout bids.

After this 90 min session, I do a throwing or fitness session.

Thursday
Fitness session at Albert Park. Has been a HoS session til now, with some women joining in.

Friday
Usually a rest day with travel to Sydney.

Saturday
NUFL, Camp or fitness.

Sunday
NUFL, Camp or team training.

3rd time around - Brisbane track work

G'day boys

Yesterday was the beginning of the 3rd cycle of 10 x 200m, 20 x 100m, 40 x 50m and plyo and 20m sprints.

In week one we ran 200m sprints in 37 to 41 seconds
In week five we ran 200m sprints in 31 to 34 seconds
Yesterday we ran 200m sprints in 28 to 32 seconds

I understand they call that progressive overload, and its pretty cool to see it all mapped out in numbers like that. It was pretty tough yesterday as these sprints are now being completed at 'as fast as you can go' speed and 1 min 50secs isn't all that long to get your breath back. Interestingly I could clearly feel it get difficult around the 100m mark in each run. I think the last 3 weeks (100s, 50s and plyo's) have lead to by body adapting to shorter on/off type running and the 200m was difficult as a result.

After number 7 Al had to cut across the oval on the recovery as he had had an interaction with his lunch, but he sucked it up and ran 8, 9 and 10 like a champion.

Pretty happy with the session boys, happy to get the times down and hold them down somewhat. Excited to see what we will do next time.

Mike

Fire up dingos

My fellow dingos,

Fueled by the frothing email from Mr Booth, the gym experience of Abra and the email masterpiece of Wavy Dave O'Brien I've knocked up another little training video diary to let you know that just because it's ball-crackingly cold down here in Canberra doesn't mean that your southern highlands brother isn't hitting the track.

http://www.vimeo.com/1070234

This shows you some of the ridge loop I do as either a longer run or a shorter loop of it that I do with sprints on the uphills.
See you all on the weekend.

The 40 fifties, week 7

G'day boys

On Thursday Al and I completed week 7 of our 16 week progressive track program.

40 x 50m runs with 50m recovery.

As this is the second time through we are running the 'on' sections as fast as we can and although there may be some limited increase in running speed its the recovery that we will hope to see significant gains in.

My progress from week 1 (10x 200s) was pretty exciting so we set the bar pretty high for Thursdays session. We were aiming to start our next 50ms sprint 25 seconds after we finished the previous 1.

For the first 10 runs we hit our targets really well, the 'on' 50s were all mid 7secs or low 8 secs and we started each new run on either 25 or 26. Hard work! I was doing o.k. and could have held that together for a few more at least however Al was hurting so we backed off the recovery time to maintain the sprint speed. For the next 30 I held my 'on' times to low 8 secs and threw in a few (maybe 30%) 7 second efforts. The recovery time went out to 35secs after a while and even up to 45secs during the last 10-12.

This session is the hardest for me, both from an acceleration perspective and from a mental point of view in that 40 efforts seams like a lot compared to 10 efforts when you are running the 200s. In terms of acceleration it always took me between 4 and 8 meters to get away from Al, after that I would extend and open up large gaps 5 to 10m over the 50m, however in the first few steps he was always with me. We spoke about this after the run and I guess it makes sense given the different playing roles that we fill.

The fourth week of the rotation is a recovery and speed week. The total amount of work is brought right down and we do some technique based plyometrics and some short distance explosive power stuff. We decided this would be good for both of us to increase the speed of our reaction time and acceleration.

Another good session boys, looking forward to seeing you all next weekend, is it the first time we will have all 24 dusty dogs together? Shoulder feels great by the way. You all have a good week and don't attempt anything Abra tells you about from his Bruce Lee gym experience.

Status

Hey boyz,
So I thought I should update you on my status. My ankle seems to be back to normal, but am going to confirm that with my physio who I am seeing on Tuesday. But my new niggle is what I would guess are just bruised ribs which happened at NUFL sometime on Saturday. I didn't notice it at all at the time, but I noticed it on Sunday but just played through the discomfort, which I also did at training on Tuesday. I talked to Tom B on Thursday about it, and he said (from his rib experience) that it could also a bunch of things and that if it hadn't got better that I shouldn't keep hurting it, but should see a physio, which I am doing. So I am going to see my physio on Tuesday, and try and see if I can ride my bike on the weekend for fitness without hurting it. Seems soft I know, and it is, but just really annoying.
Pete

Update on Quad

Hey boys, in light of those passionate and inspiring emails, here is an update on my quad status. I’m itching to run and preparing the fire

I went to see the Sydney Pelvic and Spine Physiotherapy Centre on Tuesday (this was an expensive ordeal and will be each week). Good news first – is that my muscle is healing really well and should be ready for real sprint work at the 6 week mark from when I did my injury. Tough decision though as this falls on the NUFL2, so whether to play or not might be made just before the tournament with specialist approval. Bad news is; that I have to hold off on the running for another week as these guys put my pelvis back in the right spot and get it moving smoothly. I have to train the right muscles to fire at the right time so others like my quad don’t compensate and get ground down over time. Just took 3 weeks for first available appointment – but I was actually doing 60-70% running on Monday night for 20mins, so the pleasing thing is I can run – yeah baby. So in the meantime I’m doing a lot of work on my pelvic floor, with other pelvic and leg exercises prescribed by Lisi, Kai and the specialists. This takes almost an hour every night if I complete everything (not everything is compulsory). My pelvic floor exercises involve very exciting tasks like trying to pee at 50% pressure constantly and lifting my testicles up without engaging my glutes…….how did you go? I know you just tried it –haha.

So now I ask for your help. As the desire to get back out on the Frisbee field increases!!! I’m itching to join you boys again. I need you to help remind me to be patient, as this is the hardest and riskiest time – which is when the leg is feeling fine and the temptation to extend myself is high. So boys, just tell me to cool it and work on my testicles:).

Matt

Pulling

OK, so I have started to work on my pulling.

The quality of the pulling left a lot of room for improvement on the weekend at NUFL, and I think good pulling is worth 3 points a game, all other things being equal, so it's important that we dedicate a bit of effort to this.

I hope to see at least 4 of us putting some time into it, but the more the merrier - it will only improve other aspects of your throwing.

So, I'm a bit restricted at the moment, can't really do a proper run up and certainly not at pace, so I guess I'm losing as much as 10m from my pulling distance, but that doesn't mean I can't practise technique within those restrictions.

The ideal pull is one that reverse curves, it starts off as a slightly outside-in backhand, reasonably high in the air and then as it's coming down it stalls and turns into an inside out. Does anyone know what I mean?

I just did a search on the web, and there's _zero_ high level information about pulling, just chump musings. Disappointing.

Anyhow, I think the secret to getting that reverse curve pull is to impart extra wrist snap on the disc. A forehand pull is much more likely to go into reverse curve, and I speculate that that's because of the extra spin on a forehand pull. Anyway, I'll check it out next time I practise.

Also, although I'm practising pulling, I also see myself as marking a handler, not a receiver, at worlds, so I don't feel like I'm the ideal person to be pulling at worlds. I'd rather be a backup puller. The kind of people I see as our primary pullers are Matt, Jonno, Mike, Joel.

Also, I think the upper body work I am doing is going to help my pulling. When I'm fully fit, I'll take on you boys...

Love, Pottsy.

20 x 100m

I'll be brief because i don't want to move Malibu too far down the list.

I ran week 6 of the program today. 20 x 100m with 100m jogging recovery. I did it by myself as Al was on his way down to Sydney, and i missed our regular time on Thursday so i could smash it up in the BPL final last night.

The session was very tough. I went almost as fast as I could on the 100s. The fast ones were low to mid 13 secs, the slowest was 15 mid. The majority were 14sec (maybe 80%). The recovery times ranged from 40 to 52 seconds, it was tough. See you blokes again soon.

Mike

Kai's Strength Program Ep. 1

6 of us were there on Wednesday night for Kai’s strength session: Ant, Ken, Matt, Brett, Pottsy and myself. We warmed up with a medium pace jog along the bay, with a steep uphill in the middle. After the main lights on the oval went out just as we were about to start, we settled by a streetlight for the workout.

We got straight into pull ups on a metal bar, focusing on a wide grip and holding for longer than normal. Then into a T-Stance Fly, taking our rubber bands like a skipping rope, in each hand, treading on the middle, then raising our arms out and up from our sides. Throw in a few hamstring curls with rubber ankle bands, ab crunches with leg extends, wall sits with more rubber band work, and a few sets of star fish arm extensions with optional dumbbell, and you’ve got the first week of a world’s conquering strength and conditioning regime.
We’re going to go over the specifics of each exercise on the weekend, so come prepared with a towel, since a lot of them involve lying on the ground.

Highlights were Brett keeping us honest with his brutally slow push-up speed (slower than even Kai wanted to count), and ‘buns of steel’ Ken making the invisible chair look easy. Top work guys.

This session really made me realize the importance of full body conditioning. I didn’t have so much trouble with pull ups, but the invisible chair did me over in a big way.

Anyway, get into this strength work, so we’re all absolute units once we’re playing at the big show. Get strong so you can take hits, and not get hurt. Just like Malibu.

Some research for Gimps

Boys,

After timmy's session on imagery and visualization I remembered an article I had read about using visualization to increase the rate of recovery from injury. This isn't just meant for the gimps either, I'm sure there isn't a single dingo out there without a niggle of some kind that won't benefit from this kind of thing. Following are some excerpts from a couple articles and some points on the process I'm using to visualize my recovery.

First, this from the Journal of Sports Science, Driediger et al, 2006 Mar;24(3):261-71.

It was concluded that the implementation of imagery alongside physical rehabilitation should enhance the rehabilitation experience and, therefore, facilitate the recovery rates of injured athletes. Moreover, it was recommended that those responsible for the treatment of injured athletes (e.g. medical doctors, physiotherapists) should understand the benefits of imagery in athletic injury rehabilitation, since it is these practitioners who are in the best position to encourage injured athletes to use imagery

The key points to be taken from the articles were neatly summarized by Elizabeth Quinn, excercise physiologist:

Those who healed faster had the following characteristics:

• Took personal responsibility for their recovery process
• Had high motivation, desire and determination
• Had more social support
• Maintained a positive attitude
• Frequently used imagery and other visualization techniques
• Expected a full and successful return to sports

Research on imagery use by injured athletes, cancer patients, and those undergoing physical rehabilitation has shown that using imagery has many positive outcomes including:

• Increased feelings of control
• Increased rate of healing
• Increased ability to cope with therapy
• Increased motivation to participate in self-care
• Improved mood
• Improved quality of life
• Decreased post-operative pain
• Decreased post-operative anxiety
• Reduced length of time in the hospital
• Decreased amount of pain medication taken

Imagery for Healing
Just as people use imagery for reducing pain, individuals have reported that similar techniques work for promoting healing and recovery. Examples of healing imagery include imaging a broken bone being glued back together or torn muscles woven back together. Some people use warm, healing colors to promote a feeling of warmth over a body part. Even silly images of strength and power found in comic books have been used successfully to aid healing.

HOW TO IMPLEMENT

There's a lot of info on how to implement these self healing strategies, but I think the best is to adapt what we already have. Cuni talked us through a great visualization session, we each just need to tweak it to suit our individual injuries. In addition to visualizing our on-field exploits, we need to focus our attention on the injured areas. While visualizing the movements you're going to make on the field, focus on how the joint feels under the strain. Feel the pull of the joint against the your muscles, and how strong the joint/bone/muscle feels. For me, that's turning and cutting off my left leg, feeling my quads grip my knee as a i'm accelerating out of the turn. I continue all the way through the cut, sometimes i get the 'bee, sometimes I don't, but it's always a sharp, strong cut.

Flash in and out of a number of scenarios as we did with tim, each time zooming from the field and your actions on it to the part of your body that is causing the pain/injury.

After a few of those scenarios focus on your heart rate and the way that there is a flow of blood all around the injury, adding nutrients and healing it. Visualize the healing. Basically create an image of how your body is healing itself. Watch the blood flow around the joint/muscle, feel the thuymp of the pulse, smell the blood, watch the strain on the joint during movement and the healing process. as it takes place before your eyes.

It's important to create a scene in each flash, pay attention to all your senses to create a more realistic scene. When we were in Vancouver we smelled the maple, felt the grass and heard the crowd. The more thorough and realistic an image you create, the easier it will be to hold in your mind.

That's it, there's plenty of stuff online about self healing, and it is a little wishy washy, but there are a lot of positive aspects to this exercise even if you don't believe it's healing your injury. It doesn't take long, and like Timmy said on the weekend, the least you and your injury get out of it is some stress free down-time, which is helpful in itself.

ES Marks track

Abra and I did a track session at ES Marks last week. He’s been doing it for a number of weeks now, so we did one of his sessions. After a warm up we set up shoes on the grass in the middle and did shuttle runs. This meant running 5m and back, 10m back, 15m back and 20m back. We walked to the last shoe and back for recovery. We did 6 shuttles.

Then we moved up to the stands and took on the stairs. They were pretty big, not vertically, but horizontally. We went up in a number of ways, each 3 times in a row. There were hops, jumps, and other combinations, but the last was a killer. Feet together, jumping up a step and back down 3 times before you could go up to the next one. Endurance and gross motor skills are seriously tested. I stumbled a few times near the top.

We then went down and did 6 more shuttles on the paddock.

Last of all were some sprints. We owned the straight, doing 10 x 50m sprints. I haven’t run on tartan for quite a while, but it felt good. During each 50 it was possible to focus on different parts of your running, as there is no unpredictability in the surface.

Runing and eating

G'day boys.

Things are going pretty well up here in Brisbane, my shoulder is feeling pretty good and I have range of motion back now.

I've been for a couple of runs this week so far. Both have been about 3km and i've been running them 'fartlek' style. Fartlek is a Swedish word meaning speed play, so if you are in the speedster playing group then i've got you started with some good post goal conversation when we play those blue and yellow vikings up in Vancouver.

Anyway I was pushing hard up hills and slowing down for other stretches in order to recover and go again. The sessions felt pretty good and i'm also implementing a new dietary tactic that i picked up on the weekend. I'll let you know how i pull up.

Cheers yellow dogs

Mike

Brisbane Interval report

So Al and I are back to the start of our repeating 4 week cycle of track sessions. This afternoon we completed session 1, week 5 - 10 x 200m sprints with 200m jog recovery. 4km, 22 mins or so.

Here is what happened a month ago:
Alistair and I completed session 1 on Wednesday. It was a good session. The first 200m run was completed in 37sec, sprints 2 through 10 were completed in 39, 40 or 41 seconds. The first 5 full laps (sprint and recovery) were completed in about 1 min 50sec, the last 5 were completed on 2 mins.

Today we upped the intensity of the 'on' 200m sets. The first 200 was run in 30 seconds, the other 9 ranged from 31 to 34 seconds. Most were low 33 or high 32s. The recovery was a little longer than last time in that we started the next sprint 1min 40 after we finished the previous one. This session felt very hard, however we were really happy to be consistent with the times of both the 'on' 200s and the recovery 200s over the duration of the 10 laps. A good session to have under the belt.

Al and I actually faced each other in a BPL final tonight as well. The semi started about 12 hours after the end of the track session - it was a good bit of worlds type training.

It is great to be able to easily compare times and efforts from last month. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this months sessions stack up, and how much stronger i'll be by the time we complete round 4 of this in July. I fully encourage everyone to get some details posted up on the Blog so you can compare your progress.

Train on boys, train on.

Mike

Dry May / August harvest?

It was 5 a.m. on the first of May. It is unusual for me to stir before my 7:15 alarm, but perhaps it was because I knew that my beloved Chelsea were doing battle against Liverpool in the Champions’ League semi final 2nd leg that suddenly I was wide awake. It still took a bit of effort to drag myself out of bed, but I was treated to thrilling win over the scouser scum. Chelsea had got past the semi final stage for the first time at the fourth time of asking in the last 5 years. I knew that May was going to be a good month, but also a chance for a fresh start.

During the game I got to thinking about my own goals. In all honesty, April hadn’t been a great month for me. After making a good push on the training front in March, my effort levels had dropped a little. I was still happy with by fitness levels and how I played at Nats, but I had failed to reach my goals of regular Pilates sessions and increased running sessions. I started to think: if I could make the effort to get out of bed to watch the football, surely I should be making a bigger effort for Worlds? So for starters I decided to give up alcohol for May (giving up crap late night television would have been too hard!). Not that I have been drinking much these past few months, but it more about the change of mindset that this commitment might help support. The first test came when I rocked up to the Fakulti/Wildcard ball, not realising that my ticket price had covered all alcohol for the evening. You Fakulti boys owe me some beers come June – or whenever else this madness ends!

The more thought I gave to my effort levels, the more I started thinking about why am I even here. Why did Di and I quit our jobs in London and, after years of flat-sharing, move out of the flat we had bought only 5 months earlier, to go back to flat-sharing here in Sydney? OK – so the snorkelling is a bit better here, but the real reason is that 2004 was the most fulfilling experience of my life. The effort and sacrifice of all those involved was immense. The results were a nice reward, but it was the journey that was the most satisfying. I wanted one more chance at that journey – even though I knew it would require a massive effort. So this is my last chance. My last chance to be the best Frisbee player I can be. My last chance to be the fittest I have ever been, when I step on that plane in less than 3 months. Last chance to put in the effort required to contribute to this team being the best Australian ultimate team ever.

I’ve been to 7 Worlds & Clubs. Each time I have probably been fitter than the previous one, but still, I’ve never stepped onto the plane thinking ‘I’ve done all I could’. In reality of course, we are an amateur / part-time sport, so I am never going to be as fit as is humanly possible, BUT there is a big difference between being inhibited by circumstance (such as having to work full-time) and being held back by a lack of effort.

So that is my goal: Maximise my effort over these final 3 months, so that when I get on that plane I will know that I will never look back on the 08 campaign and think, ‘I could have done more’.

One good week down… less than 11 more to go!

Hey Boys

Just thought a few of you might like to hear an update from myself especially those of you who saw me hit the ground like a sack of potatoes in the nationals final. Bascially I felt something in my quad and lost control of that leg so went straight down in a bit of pain - very disappointed because all I could think of was my fellow dingo mates so it may have looked worse.

Physio (thanks Lisi) says its not as bad as last time, but still need 6 weeks to recover fully, or if I'm lucky 4 weeks. I managed to ride to training in Sydney last night (35mins with some hills) and all that went fine, so Lisi says that's great. Still can't get past a fast walk / jog but its still early days. It will be tough on the sideline this weekend but I know it will be good in the long run.

At the moment I'm working on maintaining my cardio fitness via swimming, riding and cross-trainer in the gym (low impact). Also I can still work on upper body and core strength which I'm working on getting a program together now which avoids pressure on the quads.

So that is all good news boys!!! Also, I have booked myself in to the Spine and Pelvic Centre on the 20th May (that was the earlist a new patient could get in - so they must be good), to work on any long time problems.

In the meantime dingos - bring it on - get strong and fire up!!!! Yeah baby

Matt

ADELAIDE Antics

Hey guys,

Just a quick update on what's happening down here.

I've got a bit of a running group going with the other Worlds players. In particular, Brett Middleton (from mixed) and I are planning to attempt 4-5 sessions a week together, 2-3x running and 2x gym sessions. The others (Huy and junior boys) are going to join in where they can.

We did our first session together last night, stealing Mikeys session plan, and running 10x 200m. Brett ran them all in around 40s, but said he probably should have pushed harder. I ran them in the low 40s, but was having a bit of pain in both knees, so wasn't pushing hard. It was my first running sessions in a long time so I was puffing a little. Was feeling good this morning though, so super keen to run again.

I also talked to the Flinders Athletic Coach while I was out there and I reckon I might start running with their Sprinters 2 or 3 times a week. This is a high quality club which produces Australian Champions regularly, so their coaching on my running style and how to reach peak fitness / speed will be invaluable.

Apart from that, Brett and I both won scholarships (basically gym memberships + extras) from the uni so we're going to be hitting the gym with a fair bit of regularity from now on.

I'm pretty disappointed about Nationals results, I really thought the team would push up into the top 8 and it sucked not being able to do something about it. I handled a little but couldn't really cut successfully and I reckon I could have helped the team make top 8 if I was at full strength. There's a lot of depth in SA these days, which you'll all find out before too long.

Anywho, hope you're all well and training hard.

Joel

Creswick update

Hey boys.
My training has been going sweet out here in the sticks. Thought I'd write a quick post to let ya know what I've been up to.

This year I deferred my final year of HM to make enough money and train hard enough to play dingos. So now I have a crap telemarketing job in the mornings and spend my afternoons training each day.

Early on in the piece I was doing 2 to 3 weights sessions a week, which over the last 4 weeks were substituted for more sprints sessions leading up to nats. My sprint sessions were the same as Owen wrote up in the post a couple below. I have also been getting great benefit from doing cold recovery sessions in the lake down the road after hard sessions. I always pull up well the following day.

As nationals are now over I'm taking a few days to rest up. I got cleaned up in the last point of the first day in a game against FU. Ended up getting along to hospital to check if my ribs were broken as I was having a little trouble breathing. Despite the fact they didn't even xray me (???) I was told the treatment for a small fracture and just general bruising is the same and they said I could play the next day if it wasn't feeling too bad. So I played on for the rest of tournament (a little short of breath) and didn't do any more damage. Other than that I was still feeling fresh on day 4 which was awesome.

Soooo pumped to be a DINGO. See you all at the next camp.

Dan

Euro Tourney Update

Hey Fellas,

I played Wonderful Copenhagen last weekend. 3 day tourney, 7 matches all up. I was pretty sore warming up on day 3, but that may have had to do with the fact that it was about 5 degrees in the mornings.  Still, once the matches got going I kept running hard till the end. 

We played the Italian national team first up. They had a fair bit of national pride going, but so did I, taking it upon myself to avenge our loss to Italy at the world cup in 06. I think we scored first, and they were a bit worried, but then we got down by 2. After that we traded until the last few points, eventually going down by 4. They moved the disc pretty well, but were pretty reluctant to huck it, and didn’t have any great receivers anyway.

I was chatting to their captain, who was telling me about previous encounters with Aussies at last worlds: “You’re captain, he make handblock on me. But also, at da party, he dance without any pants….”

In between games I got a chance to check out some of our other opposition for Vancouver.

I only saw bits and pieces of Germany, but they had one guy who made a lot of their play happen, their captain ‘No-Neck’. Seriously, he has no neck whatsoever, and would make a great prop for a rugby scrum. They ran feldrunner occasionally, but mostly just a standard offence. They lost in the quarters to a Danish club team, Ragnarok.

The Poms had split their worlds team into offence and defence lines, playing as separate teams with about 12 on each. Their O line won the final over Skogs (Sweden). Their D line lost the semi to Skogs, but they were all still moving well in the final matches, so they’re definitely fit. I’ve got a fair bit of an idea about their default play, something to practice defending against at the next training camp.

I didn’t get much useful info on the Swedes, since they were missing a few key players to injury and despite having a big squad, only seemed to play the final with only 9 or 10 players, one of which was a star French pick up. GB played zone against them to good effect.

Out of all the countries there, the Poms seemed to have the deepest and most capable squad, but then again, others like Sweden and Denmark weren’t there as their national team. I should be able to get my hands on the Euros DVD, so I’ll have a look at that this weekend.

See you all in May

Andrew