Thursday, August 11, 2005

Frisbee training schedule

*Frisbee post warning!*
Last night I played in the weekly frisbee scrimmage between the Old Sox and the Flying Circus. Well, it wasn't so much "between" the teams last night as "with", we kinda mixed up the combos for a bit of fun. Anyway, to the point... I was asked by one of the players how much training I do each week, kinda after a point involving some pretty crazy sprinting. So I figured I'd write a bit of a post about my training regime. It isn't a perfect regime. It isn't even that great for frisbee. I know a lot of places where it could be better (especially with running and skills training). I'm also not doing a very serious regime at the moment either because I'm not getting ready for any tournaments any time this year that I'm taking very seriously... But if you want to comment on ways I can improve it would be more than welcome. So here goes.
Loosely, this is what I do in a good week that isn't interrupted by the shear craziness of life:
  1. 3 gym workouts
  2. 3 running sessions, 1 day dedicated to running
  3. 2 frisbee scrimmages/training sessions

Ok, I should explain a lot more.

Gym sessions

I have 3 gym sessions a week, each works out different muscle groups. I do vary the workouts a bit, especially if I've been doing the same thing for a few weeks and I'm bored. For each exercise I normally do 3 sets of 6, 8, 10, or 12, it depends how long I've been doing the exercise. As is typical, when I start a new workout program with new exercises I start doing reps of 12 with a low weight, and then every few weeks I increase the weight and drop the repetitions.

Here are the three different workouts:

Chest and tri's

  • Warm up chest with off-the-wall pushups and stretches (5 mins)
  • dumbbell benchpress (or normal benchpress, I switch between these every now and then)
  • Incline benchpress
  • Tricep exercise 1 (Normally tri-pulldowns with a rope)
  • Tricep exercise 2 (tri-pulldowns with something solid)
  • Tricep extensions alternating with barbell bicep curls
  • Abdominal exercises (2 or 3 different exercises, depending on how tired/bored I feel)

Legs and Shoulders

  • Warm up, probably running or cycling
  • Squats
  • Deadlifts
  • Lunges
  • dumbbell shoulder press
  • 1 arm bent over dumbbell shoulder rows (the ones where you but a knee on a bench and lift the dumbbell up to your side)
  • Lateral raises
  • Abdominal stuff

Back and Biceps

  • Incline bench rows (dumbbell or barbell, depends on my mood)
  • Lateral pull downs
  • Seated row
  • Standing barbell curls (aim for power)
  • Seated dumbbell preacher curls (low weight, aim for better form)
  • Back extensions

Ok, like I've said. I normally do an ab routine when I go to the gym. I vary it all the time, I've found that if I stick to the same thing week-in week-out I get bored and I don't gain that much after a few weeks. Normally I do 2 or 3 different exercises. There are a million different exercises that one could choose...

Running sessions

Ok, this is a little more random than my gym workouts. I try to do 1 day a week where I do nothing but running and stretching. Lately this has taken the form of a 10km or so run along the In river (the river that Innsbruck is built on). I chose this route mainly because it is a really nice run and has nothing to do with trying to train on flat ground vs hills or anything (something that I sometimes do think about).

When I get closer to a big tournament I tend to drop the distance running and spend some time working on sprint training. Normally I either do hill sprints (anyone who's been to Innsbruck or Brisbane would know that you can do this anywhere...) or I do some sort of shuttle run things.

The other running sessions that I do are mixed in with my gym sessions. Sometimes I have some quality time on the treadmill at the gym (normally when the weather is pretty shitty) where I run for 4 or 5 kms and try to do a pretty decent time. Other times I run to the gym, do my workout, and run back. This is actually a pretty good running session. I have a 1 km downhill followed by a 1 km flat on the way to the gym. This gets me nice and warm for my workout. Then I have a 1 km flat and a 1 km uphill home. This is a pretty serious workout on its own. The hill is an absolute bastard...

Frisbee training

Ok, obviously this depends a lot on what the team (Flying Circus) is doing and what season it is etc, but at the moment our team has a training session followed by a scrimmage every Sunday. Every Wednesday people in our team drive to a nearby town to play the Old Sox in a scrimmage. Thursday nights people play beach ultimate, I pretty much always skip this though. At the moment this is pretty light frisbee training for me. Back in Brisbane I'd play at least 2-3 days a week and would do skills training at least 2 days a week. I'm not doing as much here basically because I don't have the time and there aren't so many people here banging down my door asking if I want to o do some skills training with them...

Ok, so that's it. Like I said, it isn't perfect or even that intense. I've taken training much more seriously in times past, especially when training for Australian mixed ulti championships last year with the Lovers. I guess I'll take it more seriously at times in the future as well...