Captain's Corner Special Delivery #4

During this time of rest, I thought it would be good to have a article on exactly the opposite: giving 110% on every point. I turned to Dave on this one, since he seems to gain energy throughout a tournament rather than tire. Ultimate tournaments wear out your body more so than any other physical activity. Think about it, you run around for four hours a day, two days in a row, and laying out breaks down your body worse than football. Hopefully Dave's scintillating article will lead to you pain training your opponent up and down the field.

110%

One of the problems many of us have is not playing at our top level of intensity throughout an entire tournament. I think we can improve on this by changing what we do physically and mentally in preparation for and during each tournament. We want to be in our best physical shape for each of these tough strains on our body. The long term preparation for this is hard work that you need to take care of in the gym, armory, or what have you, but there are some easy things we can do in the short term to increase our performance.

• Tourney week
• Eat healthier
• Save the partying for after the tourney
• Sleep well
• Tourney weekend
• Stretch well during warm-ups and at the hotel
• Take care of injuries (icing, wrapping, ibu-profening, etc.)
• Sleep well

The other half of keeping your intensity up is mental. You need to fire yourself up for each point of every game. Think of how much time, effort, and travel you have put into this sport and how good of a team we can be this year if you need extra motivation on the line. It is not realistic that you are expected to be sprinting and working physically 100% of the time, and if you are, either you will tire quickly or are in far better shape than I am. There are several things we can do to cut down the amount of physical work we need to do while still getting the job done efficiently. One easy way to do this is correct positioning. I have a lot to say about positioning, but I will heavily condense it for this article. On defense, you should be directing where your opponent can go based on what defense you are running and where you are relative to the disc. On offense, you should be in a position to have at least two viable cuts available to you, or a smart opponent will shut you down.

Also, You need to know when you can rest and when you have to be very alert and ready to sprint. An easy example of this is when you are guarding a long on the break side. Often in this situation, you can back him on the force side and see the whole field while resting somewhat physically. Another time I ease up a bit is if my opponent is cutting into a clogged area; he is not likely to get the disc here. However, if you are marking their stud long and are sitting in the force lane, you need to be very alert and ready to run, especially if a handler gets power position. Or, if your opponent is about to catch the disc on the break side (especially on the goal line) you have to sprint to cut off the break throw and then put on a good mark. You will learn with experience when you can rest and when you need to be 110%. If you want to quicken this learning process or want to discuss this at all, I’d be happy to share my thoughts and hear yours. Thanks for reading and have a good break!