This is not a blog about my streamlined process. This is just going to be me rambling about all the different things I did and whether or not I feel like they contributed to my development. Obviously I can flesh this out a ton, and if provoked I can go on tirades. Basically I'm using this post so that the Rookies can see how someone goes from C-team to Captain, and so that no mystery remains.
So down to business. I came into my freshmen year with only one advantage, I knew I wanted to play with this team. A lot of rookies first need to be convinced that they want to play/are feeling things out freshmen year/are just trying new things. Forget that garbage, I knew I wanted to play and I was going to go to practice.
Fall of 2008, I attended about 75% of the practices. I went a lot during the outdoor season, taking a few days off as "mental health days" (this is a lie I tell myself when I want to be lazy). I would skip bad weather days too, and I always bounced early because Newman hall stopped feeding people at 7:00pm. I went to all the tournaments, usually I would have one good moment at a tournament that made me feel good about myself and that is all that mattered.
When the team went indoors there were 4 practices a week. The monday night practices I totally just skipped. Mondays were only an hour and a half, and it was straight conditioning. The emails always said these were optional, but apparently if you planned on making the A-team they were not (a good lesson to learn, "optional" only means "optional" if you don't want to make the A-team). I think I had decent attendance tuesday/thursday and saturday.
Outside of practice I did pretty much nothing. I went to the gym a few times, did some bi's and tri's, and some presses, nothing with more than about 25 pounds though. I really liked the jumping boxes because they were fun, so I did a whole bunch of those freshmen year. I would do some quality 3 throwing with friends outside, but I bet I only averaged about 2 hours per week.
I'm going to use this moment to define a Quality of Throwing variable. So obviously there is a difference between throwing with some girl that you're hitting on, and throwing with another ultimate player who is way more dominant than you. So I'm going to use a base ten scale to score Quality of Throwing. E.g. a 1 is being bare foot with a drink in hand throwing to impress the ladies, and 10 would be cleating up and throwing 10 break marks against the best player you know and then switch and letting him break you 10 times. To flesh this out a bit more, in practice we do break marks and there is some variance in the quality based on how hard people are trying. Let's say we just did a cross fit, quality will probably be at a 5, however if we are all focused and going hard we can get to a 7. There is no variance in throwing with a good player, because if you start to check out they will foot block you ten straight times and then you just cry as you walk home.
During tryouts I got cut right away, which was way upsetting because fat little Adam Wright made it further than me. Throughout the spring I continued to go to practice, and continued to take "mental health days." I went to 3 out of the four tournaments, and remember getting super upset about being cut to the C team, but it didn't matter because PBear was my captain so it was exciting.
The summer of 2009 I had a rough job. I worked about 65 hour weeks, and had a long commute. So I did nothing to help myself improve. I worked the job with a friend of mine and during our hour lunch breaks we got in some quality 3 throwing. I did manage to squat 2x a week, with no lifting plan at all. I would do some calves and sit ups and push ups and squats, but the weight was just like whatever felt fine I would do.
Fall of 2009: I went to almost every single practice in the fall. A kid who lived on my floor was also going to practices so we would throw quite often. I did the elliptical the entire fall (I had convinced myself it was a good idea because I could turn up the resistance and it wouldn't "stress my joints", just another lie on the list of lies i tell myself).
After making the A-team I started lifting with Rabuck and Kennedy. I'm pretty sure I said "Now that I made the A-team I guess I should start acting like an A-teamer." During the winter and the fall I didn't pay attention to the method or anything behind lifting, I just followed Rabuck and Kennedy (Kennedy eventually abandoned us so it was just me an Rabuck with occasional visits by Papa Bear). We squatted, did some belgian squats, some assisted pull ups, some abs, free weight shoulder things. It was just me going through the motions.
The remainder of that year I would throw a lot with my floor mate, lift with Rabuck and go to practice.
By Nationals of that year I think I was maybe the 12th long on the D-Line. After Natties I got some ideas from Walden, and I had a job downtown which required no manual labor, and only worked me about 35 hours and paid me for 40. I was able to get up and lift 3x a week. So MWF I would squat, calves, bench and abs. My squatting technique was load really heavy and then get as much motion as a I could, inevitably I sacrificed a ton in my range of motion, this is not a good idea. Fortunately I never injured myself, and I think I got a little stronger.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would pull out an old mattress in my basement, set it up against the wall, get down on my knees and throw 100 forehands and 100 backhands at the mattress. I used a mattress because it was usually about 5:30 am and I didn't want my dog to start barking when he heard frisbees landing and effectively wake up my entire family. I credit this as helping me improve more than anything I have ever done.
Throughout that Fall I would lift 3x a week, just squatting and benching, all the while convincing myself that Rabuck (who was in Australia that semester) would come back stronger than me and I couldn't look myself in the mirror if that happened. Went to every single practice, tried to guard Papi every time I was in and tried to play as many points as possible each practice.
I got to practice early and would do hill sprints in the southwest area of the complex. I would also throw in cross fits of squatting/crunches/push ups.
When Rabuck got back in the fall my lifting shizz started to get real. It was the first time I paid attention to the lifting plan and it all made sense. We have 5 lifts, squat, bench, overhead press, dead lift, bent over row. 3x a week we lift and each time we do Squat plus two of the four lifts. The plus two are in groups, bench/bent over row and ohp/dead lift. The numbers also mattered. There are always 3 sets. On monday we do 3 sets of 5 reps, on the bar is 65% of your max, then 75%, then 85%. On wednesday we do 3 sets of 3 reps, on the bars is 70%, 80% and 90% of your max respectively. On Friday are 3 sets, first is 5 reps, then 3 reps and then 1 rep of 75%, 85% and 95% of you max. This holds for all your lifts and you just rotate through it all. At the end of 2 weeks, you should have completed the cycle twice for squatting and once for the other four.
Goose also got me, Papi, Rabuck, Sidrys and Sul doing some track workouts. The always consisted of 2, 1000 yard runs as a warmup, and then we would do either 4 400's or 6 200's or something in that range of difficulty.
This summer I went to a bunch of chicago club tryouts, which definitely helped me see how good people can be at ultimate. I had a job that required me to live on the road for about 8 weeks. I was in a hotel monday through friday and hanging with Rob in champaign on the weekends. MWF I would take my speed ladder outside and do a bunch of those, and then a bunch of 40's. During two weeks I was working up north and was able to get I think 4 workouts in with Waldo.
I'm pretty sure this is the bulk of it, these hours really build up, but there is no way I can add how up the hours I have spent just thinking about ultimate, which is also a valuable activity when trying to improve.
I'm done, that was me just spitballing so if anything is unclear people should totes talk to me.
KB
