Fight Gone Bad

Warm-up:

5:00 @ 8mph (treadmill)
active stretching

Crossfit's "Fight Gone Bad!"

Three rounds of:
Wall-ball, 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (Reps) - 30, 26, 25
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds (Reps) - 17, 13, 14
Box Jump, 20" box (Reps) - 52, 43, 42
Push-press, 75 pounds (Reps) - 15, 10, 9
Row (Calories) - 15, 14, 13
Total Points: 338

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point. Add up your points.

Seven/Thirty (abs only):

30 Standard Crunches
30 Crunches with Legs up
30 Leg Raises
30 Crunches with knees apart/feet flat
30 Crunches with knees apart/feet together
30 Right-side oblique crunches
30 Left-side oblique crunches

Exhibition/Scrimmage

Dave Dillon was kind enough to invite Pike, Wicked, and Amp to a youth tournament at Radnor High School, PA. The idea behind the whole thing was to have some local club players put on an exhibition game for the high schoolers during a bye round. I'm not sure how good of a show we put on, but it was certainly awesome to get involved in high school ultimate (if only superficially) and tighten up the bonds in the local ultimate community.

Workout:

30 minutes of throwing and warming up
~1:30 of Ultimate (game to 13)

It definitely felt good to be out on grass again and it was great to be out running with teammates. This sinus infection I came down this week with really kicked my ass though. It was tough to breathe deeply and I really had trouble staying focused. I also need to get more involved in the offense. Still, it was too nice out to stay home and besides, sick ultimate is better than no ultimate!

Ankle Work:

25 x heel raise, left leg only
25 x heel raise, right leg only
25 x toe raise, both legs
25 x heel raise, feet parallel
25 x toe raise
25 x heel raise, heels together, toes apart
25 x toe raise
25 x heal raise, toes together, heals apart
25 x toe raise

21-15-9 and Suicides

Warm-up:

5:00 at level 10 on the exercise bike
active stretching

21-15-9 for time:

Fingertip Push-ups
Romanian Deadlifts @ 90lbs
Back Extensions
Total Time: 7:31

Tabata Suicides

8 x :20 on, :10 off

21-15-9 for time:

K2Es
Left Oblique Crunch
Right Oblique Crunch
Total Time: 3:33

Ankle Work:

25 x heel raise, left leg only
25 x heel raise, right leg only
25 x toe raise, both legs
25 x heel raise, feet parallel
25 x toe raise
25 x heel raise, heels together, toes apart
25 x toe raise
25 x heal raise, toes together, heals apart
25 x toe raise

For the hell of it:

5 x Fingertip Pull-ups on the doorjamb outside my office

Tabata Workout & Single-Leg Squats

Warm-up:

7:00 at level 5 on the elliptical machine (whatever that means)
active stretching

Tabatas:
Pull-ups/Chin-ups:

13, 11, 5, 2, 3 chin-ups, 2 chin-ups, hold pull-up for :10 & lower slowly, hold chin-up for :10 & slowly lower

Thrusters w/ standard bar:

10, 9, 9, 8, 7, 6, 6, 6

Chuck Kellers w/ 20" box:

11.5, 11, 10.5, 10, 9, 9, 8.5, 10.5

Russian Twists w/ 10lb dumbbell:

19, 20, 20, 20, 18, 14, 13, 14

Leg Strength:

2 sets of:
6 x Negative Single-leg Squats per leg
1:00 rest
10 x Partial Single-leg Sqyats per leg w/ 2 x 5lb dumbell
1:00 rest

(refer to 3/13/2008)

Paga Day 4

The Ninals! Today's the day. The sun is shining, the tank is clean ...

With decent weather and hardened hearts, we fulfilled our desires for a-NINE-alation and won our last game of Paganello 2008, capturing the Ninals.

1 x 35 minute game of 5 on 5 beach ultimate

Additional exercise:
1 x series of unfortunate events on our trip home which involved 3 x 20 minute walks between the hotel and the train station with aforementioned 35lb backpack and 30 minutes of wandering the deserted streets of Bologna at 3:30 AM, also involving the now infamous backpack.

Editor's comments:
First of all, Paganello is once again a great time. Despite our sub-par performance, we had a blast. Great tournament, great town, great food, great drink, AWESOME friends to spend a week with.

And to tie this in to the workout log, the new regimen works great. This was the best I've ever felt in that damn Rimini sand. Felt strong all weekend and was even able to jump high on a couple of occasions. Still didn't feel fast in that sand, but I doubt that has anything to do with conditioning.

Also, all that practice throwing while balancing on only your pivot foot is great training for beach ultimate. With the ground so uneven and downright shifty, it's tough to get balanced and throw. Being able to keep my upper body stable and balanced and to throw comfortably and accurately while my lower body was struggling in the shifting sand was huge.

If you want to improve your throwing in a hurry, you need to practice throwing while balancing on your pivot foot. For more details, check out Idris' blog (Props to Dusty for pointing this out).

Paga Day 3

Bent on a-NINE-alation, we get our early morning game in with no rain and are starting to think maybe we'll escape the weatherman's dire predictions. Alas, nastiness catches up with us and game 2 is cold, wet and rainy. We run back to the hotel to regroup and have to will ourselves back into the storm for game 3 - an out-and-out battle. We go down 6-8, game to 9, but manage to claw our way back into the Ninals after a sweet D by Trey on a swilly, stall 9 hammer.

3 x 35 minute games of 5 on 5 beach ultimate

Paga Day 2

Again, fortune favors us and the the rains pass us by.

3 x 35 minute games of 5 on 5 beach ultimate

2-1 for the day with another tough loss to a Dutch team in a mostly upwind/downwind game. Unfortunately, this knocks us out of the tournament. Best we can hope for now is 9th place.

Paga Day 1

The rain in the forecast held off for the day, though the wind showed up.

3 x 35 minute games of 5 on 5 beach ultimate

Went 2-1 on the day with a tough loss to Brian Stout's squad who somehow were the 3rd seed in our pool. Ouch.

Pre-Paga

20:00 walk to the hotel with 35lbs of gear in my backpack

1:30:00 throwing and practicing in the soft Rimini sand with the Melons.

Short Circuit Workout

I'm trying to go light this week to give myself enough time to recover for Paganello and its punishing sand. As far as that goes, I probably should've rested today, but I just had too much pent up energy.

Circuit Workout:

3 sets of:

10 x ankle hops
5 x dips
20 sec rest

10 x mahlers
20 sec rest

10 x 4-star jumps
5 x pushups
15 sec rest

10 x burpees (fingertips)
15 sec rest

10 x split jump per leg
5 s divebombers
10 sec rest

5 x kangaroo jumps
5 x clap pushups
10 seconds rest

Seven/Thirty

Seven/Thirty:

30 Standard Crunches
30 Push-ups
30 Crunches with Legs up
30 Diamond Push-ups
30 Leg Raises
30 Wide Push-ups
30 Crunches with knees apart/feet flat
30 Push-ups, hands at waist level
30 Crunches with knees apart/feet together
30 Push-ups, right hand high, left hand low
30 Right-side oblique crunches
30 Push-ups, left hand high, right hand low
30 Left-side oblique crunches
30 Push-ups

Single-Leg Squat Training

Single-Leg Squat Training:

2 Sets of:
6 x Negative Squats per leg
10 x Partial Squats per leg

... just a quick leg strength & stability workout requiring only a stable chair on which to stand. Try it. It ain't easy.

Sammy I-V Workout

Warm-up:

5:00 @ 8mph
Active Stretching

Sammy I-V:

3x
50 Richochet Jumps
10 Push-ups
30 sec rest

2x
10 Side-Side Box Jump
5 Divebombers
30 sec rest

2x
10 On Box Jump
5 Pike Push-ups
30 sec rest

3x
5 per leg Low Squat Jump into Jump Lunge
10 one-hand push-ups (x5 each arm)
30 sec rest

3x
5 one-legged jumps with one step walk-up (per leg)
30 sec rest

1/2 Tabata Set of Split Jumps (:20 on, :10 rest)
24, 24, 25, 24
1:30 sec rest

3x
8 Consecutive Kangaroo Jumps
10 clap push-ups
30 sec rest

Abs:

1:00 Forward Plank
30 sec rest
1:00 Right Side Plank
30 sec rest
1:00 Left Side Plank

Single-Leg Squats and more

Warm-up:

5:00 rowing machine
Active Stretching

Single-Leg Squat Training:

2 Sets of:
6 x Negative Squats per leg
10 x Partial Squats per leg w/ 2x5lb dumbbells

This comes from an article recommended by Frostillicus entitled "The Best Exercise You're Not Doing". As it turns out, my right leg is considerably stronger than my left. I easily did 5 single-leg squats on my right leg, whereas I could not perform 1 with good form on the left. I'm going to attribute this gross imbalance to years of pivoting in Ultimate. Whatever the cause, it needs fixin'.

Tabata Chin-ups:

12, 8, 5, 4, 1, 4 w/ 50lbs assistance, 4 w/ 60lbs assistance, 4 w/ 70lbs assistance

Tabata Lateral Step-ups (per leg):

7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6

Tabata Floor Wipers w/ 2x40lb dumbbells:

6, 6, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5

Back Extensions:

1 x 50

Tabata Exercise Bike:

4 x 20 on, 10 off at level 10 of 20

Yoga Yahooie

I was still feeling pretty sore from the weekend, so when Mel invited me to her yoga class, I said 'sure'. It was a bit awkward at first since I was the only guy in the room, but I ended up getting some very good focused active stretching in and felt great afterwards.

1 hour of yoga (upward dogs, angry cats, hooded cobras, and flying vatskys)

21-15-9 plus

Warm-up:

8:00 Elliptical Machine (1st time. Figured I'd see what all the fuss is about.)
Active Stretching

21-15-9 for time:

Romanian Deadlifts w/ 2x25lb Kettlebells
Overhead Squat w/ standard bar
Total Time: 6:18

Tabata Push-ups:

38, 38, 30, 19, 11, 10, 10, 10

Seven/Forty Abs:

40 Standard Crunches
40 Crunches with Legs up
40 Leg Raises
40 Crunches with knees apart/feet flat
40 Crunches with knees apart/feet together
40 Right-side oblique crunches
40 Left-side oblique crunches

Sunday Terminus

Game time on Sunday morning found Pike with 3 guys anxiously pacing the sideline and hoping for their teammates to appear. We did finally get our full roster of 8, but not until after our opponents assessed a point on us. Harsh!

The weather wasn't much warmer this morning, but the wind was mostly gone so it felt downright balmy out there! It also meant we could run some spread and ho and actually play some REAL ultimate! We came up two points short in our first game, but we ran hard, made some sweet plays in the game and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Our opponents were shocked that we were running them the way we were despite having only 8. (big props to Dr. Tabata!!)

This landed us in the B- Semis against Under-Achievers. Ne1l was pretty beaten up at this point, after ruling all weekend, but AMP was done for the day so Ferf and Alex came over to bolster our roster a bit. At this point, the weather was actually starting to turn Southern. Layers came off, shorts came out. Nice nice!

This game was a lot of fun. Plenty of nice plays for both teams, lots of hard running and we won! My consecutive points played streak was broken in this game, however, as I lost out on a last back call and sat 2 straight points. What? We have subs who actually want to play???!!!

Anyway, the workout was 2 more games of ultimate. Even though the number of games was halved, I'd bet we worked harder today than Saturday just because of the bad conditions.

Overall, this was a great tournament for me. I got to work on a lot of things as, over the course of the tournament, I got to fill just about every role at least once. My confidence in my throws is growing, my vision is improving, and I got tons of work on my one-on-one cutting in the center of the ho.

Furthermore, this was an excellent test for this new workout regimen I've adopted. It definitely works. I felt great all weekend. True, I had to pace myself at times, but come on! 3 subs over 6 games!! And I was able to go all out in the last game of the tourney and still felt fast and explosive. Paganello is gonna be awesome!!

6 Dudes ...

Pike showed up at Terminus to 25 degrees, 30-40mph winds with 6 dudes. Awesome! Through some careful conniving, Will Reed managed to guilt Nick off of Love and onto our sideline, and with some dedicated captainly wooing, Dusty managed to get us local Atlanta legend, Schmidt. We've got enough to play and even one sub. Perfect!

The ridiculous wind made for that terrible bastardized version of ultimate that we've all experienced when even the best throwers cannot throw further than 15 yards upwind and teams are punting and zoning and chasing discs that have blown several fields away. Even so, that type of play probably helped our low numbers since it involved little sustained running and ample breaks in play to rest.

As for the workout part, we played four games (1-4 on the day) and, after sitting out the very first point of the tournament, I didn't take a sub all day.

Toothsome Twenty?

What? I didn't to 50 reps, so I couldn't really call it Filthy, now could I?

With 3 days before Terminus and a roster of only10, I went with a very light workout today - just enough to activate all the major muscle groups without taxing anything. Hopefully, that will give my body time to recover from the previous weeks' workouts while keeping my muscles strong and loose for Saturday morning.

Warm-up:

100 x Jumping Jacks
Long Active Stretching Session

Toothsome Twenty for time:

20 Box Jumps w/ 18-inch box
20 Jump Pull-ups
20 Kettleball Swings w/ 16lb ball
20 Lunges per leg (stationary lunges)
20 Knees-to-Elbows
20 Push-Press w/ standard bar
20 Back Extensions
20 Romanian Dead Lift w/ standard bar (replaced Wall Balls to get some more Hammy work)
20 Burpees (w/ a push-up for R-To!)
20 Kangaroo Jumps

Total Time: 7:06.69

Cool-down:

Long Active Stretching Session
Muscle-up Attempts
- I can get my chest over the bar, but not far enough to switch into a dip yet.

Hardest part of this workout was convincing myself to leave the gym. It was basically just a fantastic warm-up and I felt great afterward. I just hope that feeling carries over to Terminus.

Another Monday Workout

Warm-up:

100 x Jumping Jacks
Tabata Lunges (8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 9, 9)
Active Stretching

Muscle-Up Training:

4:00 of 2 Kipping Pull-ups, 2 Dips
16 Total Reps

Tabatas:
Overhead Squat w/ standard bar:

18, 16, 16, 18, 16, 16, 13, 13

Russian Twists w/ 10lb dumbbell:

19, 19, 19, 18, 16, 15, 14, 14

Turkish Get-up:

10 per arm w/ 16lb kettlebell

Princeton Women's Practice

Mellen and I went down to Princeton today to lend a hand at practice along with a few other Pike and Wicked folks. I'm not sure if I actually added much to their practice, but I did get some work in during their scrimmage. Thanks to Mere & Raphe for the invite!

~7:00 mile (guessing on the distance and time based on what it felt like)

12 x 40/40 pick-up sprints (jog 40, sprint 40 w/ no resting)
15:00 of 3-man marking drill
1:00:00 or so of throwing

Pike Pick-up

Headed down to the Bryn Mawr Polo Fields this morning for some pick-up with the Pike crew and assorted guests. It was good to get out and play a little bit before going into Terminus next weekend, though the stiff wind made for some sloppy play. I had no drops, quite a few throw-aways, and more than my fair share of dumb-ass moves. All in all, I was pretty disappointed in my performance, but at least I got in some work; especially after 4 hours of meetings yesterday screwed me out of my gym time.

Workout:

2-2.5 hours of Ultimate