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