Worked out yesterday for the first time since getting injured.  It was awesome.

Tried a 6-down of chin-ups/DB bench press @35#...it did not work.  My back started losing power quickly, but I could push through the presses just fine, which worked for me.  After that, 5x5 Bicep curl @ 25#.  Left arm lost power around the fourth and a half set, but righty pulled through, so hooray righty!

After that was the killer: 8-set tabata on a spinning bike at medium-high resistance.  It was deadly, but I felt so good when I got off that bike...

Back to doing work,
~#28

Yep, torn ligaments.  Including some ligament which holds the bones in my leg together, so I'm in a cast for up to 6 weeks, then PT etc, so....OUT FOR THE SEASON

As you can tell, my spirits have improved.

Welp, that'll put a damper on things.

Serious ankle injury at Mixed Easterns.  Suspected torn ligaments.  Really dumb.  Just...just dumb.  Orthopedist on Wednesday, hopefully swelling down by next weekend, hopefully PT to rehab starting immediately.  I will get this ankle back.

Time to do some work,
~#28

Bif ol' fail of a day yesterday.  Ginie and I drove 20 minutes to get her cleats and go to the gym.  Both places were closed, so we licked our wounds and headed home.  Ended up doing the following:
 AMRAP 10 minutes:
20 Mtn Climbers (where each leg counts as 1)
10 Pushups
5 Squat jumps

I completed 7 rounds + 9 push ups.  The pushups were INCREDIBLY difficult after round 2 and I think after round 3, I started doing them from my knees.  Still hard.  The mountain climbers, I really focused on pushing my tempo, especially while tired.

Tonight is summer club against our former team.  Here's hoping we win...

Doing work,
~#28

Yesterday- a nice solid arm/back day.  DB Rows, DB bench press, lat pull down of sort, bicep curls and then some KB swings for shits.

Today- Did a slightly truncated/altered version of Lou Burruss' Kung Fu Throwing with Corey and Ginie.  Felt pretty good through it.  Hitting good distance with moderate accuracy on a regular basis.

Tomorrow- Ginie's got Slow White, then it's Vermont with the KToads.

Doin' Work,
~#28

Reeeeeally bad track workout.  Showed up planning to run 400,2x200,4x100,8x50 with rest of 3,1.5,.75,.5 minutes for each distance.  Given how I've been running the past few times, this should have been very doable.

When I got there, my hamstring was aching from yesterday (Mixed Nuts tryout...more to be said on that, but not here), it was cold enough out that I couldn't loosen my leg, hip or back and I just generally felt shitty.  I ended up getting in a 400 at 1:10, which is a) slow and b) slower than a 400 I ran at the END of a workout by 8 seconds.  Ridiculous.  Anyway, the run overall was

400, 3 min
200, 1.5 min, 200, 3 min
110,45s,110, 3 min, 110, ~2 min, 110

I overall felt terrible today, with poor form on the back swing of my leg (tightness in my hip flexors and back), bad traction (a sprinkling of rain had slipperied up the track) and bad breathing (my chest hurt early and often).  That said, the last two 110 felt really good, I could feel myself lift up onto my calves and bring my whole lower kinetic chain into play and I thought I had good speed coming through them.  My turnover rate improved when I paid attention to it, as well.

More work to do,
~#28

Welp, that's that.  Cut from both Slow White and Wild Card in the first round.  Pretty pissed about that.  Slow is one thing, Wild Card is all the more frustrating because of how little I did wrong.  And yet, here I am.  I'll be seeing what I can do as far as finding another team.  I refuse to not play this summer.

Back to doin' work,
~#28

One more week, this time Slow White tryouts again.  Today was...not nearly as good as last week.  I just felt slow the entire time, partly because my hamstring was aching, partly because the ground kept slipping and partly because I'm just not that fast.  Like I was telling Corey: One-on-one defense is one thing and trying to keep up with a dude as we just bust deep is something else.  I am only good at one of those and it's not the one we spent today doing.

That said, I felt good a couple times today and played well against a really good player (ex-ISide).  Apparently I acquired a nickname too- Twitchy.  Whoops.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully one where I will play better.  I don't intend to make Slow, but playing poorly is just such a downer.  It makes me feel like all the hard work is for nothing.  Even when I have a bad day, I have to be better than this...

Doin' work, even when it's hard,
~#28

EDIT: Day Two was MUCH better.  I played well against higher level competition.  Much more enjoyable.

Oh damn, it's been forever.  Oops?

What have I been doing?  Lots of explosive work, a little track work, a bit of strength work, not enough arm work.

I'm trying to get my Clean form good, because I'm leaning forward badly and not catching the weight forward, instead catching it with my hands, which hurts after a few.  I've really got to fix that.  Ironically, snatches may be better for that, since I catch the weight better, despite them being harder.

I'm trying to lift heavy Sumo Deadlifts, since lifting 225 in a normal deadlift has been jacking up my back in a bad way.  I'm concerned about that.

My core work seems to be paying off, so that's nice.  I can tell my core is getting stronger, so hopefully I'll be able to bring that to bear on the field.

My arms are...meh, though my back is getting stronger, which is awesome.  I can tell my lats are getting stronger but I don't see the results I would expect in my backhand.  When I went out with Ginie, I was hitting 60 yds (unmarked) with some reasonable accuracy.  Forehand...much less accuracy, a little bit shorter (50something?).

I can run with Corey, perhaps a step behind on the long stuff (over 50yds).  I'm pretty okay with that.  Honestly, I take some solace in the fact that he talks about the ISide guys telling him he played well and having a solid shot at Slow, so if I can just be as good as Corey, maybe I can pull this off.  Maybe.

Goin' out to do more work,
~#28

Quick update:

Winter League continues, with our team in the one seed moving into the semis next week.  Pretty excited about that.  Lots to complain about, but more to be happy about, so...I'll take it.  Tonight's game was pretty average for me.  A couple of good plays, a couple of bad decisions, generally a hard worker and nothing too spectacular.  Muffin DID tell me I had nice throws, which felt good.

Gym continues, with the paces a little weird.  I'm going to be moving almost entirely into power for the rest of the time until tryouts.  That'll be fun.  I've been trying to get hang power cleans rather than hang snatches, since they're simpler and we'll see how that works out.  I'm also moving back into the hammy lean and the most functional abs I can find.  Keeping my mind on flexibility and I'll see what happens.  Excited.

Workouts continue at the pace of about 2-3/week.  On top of that, I'm now in the midst of winter league.  As always, I have fallen into a handler role, but with 5s indoors, it isn't so bad that I can't pop out pretty much whenever I feel like it.

I've been trying to get one leg power day, one leg strength day, one arm strength day and a cardio (ultimate) day in regularly.  My new PR for deadlifting is 245#, but with such atrocious form that I'm not sure I can count it.  I'm able to DL 185 without any real problems.  I still need work on my hang snatch form, since I feel like if I cleared that up, I'd be able to add 5-10# without too much worry.

Towards that, I've been trying to work hip drive and explosive glute firing.  On Tuesday, I created a nice little tabata workout- 16 minutes, got some good stuff in:
tabata 4-sets:
BW Squats (average about 22 every round)
Mountain climbers (focused on really pushing my natural tempo, since I think I can go faster than the 1/s I naturally maintain)
Squat jumps (started out getting at least 14, probably ended around 10/rd)
Leg raises (had to really focus to get through this, the lungs and hip flexors were burning)

Powered through, was relatively pleased with how I did.  I'd like to take another crack at 100 burpees later this year to see if I can improve my time (I expect to do so).  I really did a number on my hip flexors, and they're still sore today, but I'll try to keep proteining and see if that all works out.  I'd really like to turn them into some quick-firing sons of guns.

Ultimate last night against some old teammates/rivals.  Blew them away (finished up 8), with a couple of scores to my name and a fair number of assists.
Offensively: My deep shots had an unfortunate tendency to be caught just short of the end zone, but they were completed at high percentage, which felt good.  I threw 1 hammer, which was in-and-out of my receiver's hands.  I'll take that one on myself, though, since I probably shouldn't have given it to who I did.  I took over a couple of points, where I just totally got past my guy up and down the field.

Defensively, I did a good job covering people I HAD to cover (old guys, inexperienced guys) and shutting them down completely, either downfield or on the mark.  Got a few D's in the air that I felt good with as well.  The other team wasn't particularly skilled, though I did get the shit skied out of me by some old dude, which was a bit humbling.  Overall, I came out of it very tired, but feeling pretty good.

Doing work,
~#28

Bruised up my left foot pretty badly on Wednesday doing sprints.  What a dumb injury.

Otherwise, Wednesday was a leg strength day, Friday was SUPPOSED to be a skills day in the warm weather but i shat the bed pretty hard and never got off my ass.

Today was better, got some good arm work in.  Hooray.

Doin' work,
~#28

Had a pretty solid workout today.  Back in Boston now, using my old gym on my parents membership:

The concept here was to warm up the legs, then move to lighter and lighter weights and faster and faster muscle firings
DL: 3x5x185
Thruster: 3x10x65(?)
Hang Snatch: 3x3x65

Then added some cardio, plyos and core, stealing from a Yuk workout I creeped on in Pittsburgh.  I set up a box, 20x5m:
3x[
3x(frog hops to 13m, then lunges to 20m, side shuffle to next cone, backpedal to third cone, walk final face)
30s Swiss ball plank
]

Walked out really feeling this workout.  I'm pretty happy with how hard it was, but my form on all the LKC stuff was pretty poor.  I'm really not sure how to fix that.

Doin' Work,
~#28

Did the 100 burpee challenge.  I like it as a midwinter benchmark.

Finished in 9:50...maybe.  Looking at my times, I think it likely that I dropped a set and only did 90, but I honestly couldn't count, so I'll just say I did a lot of them and my legs were wobbly afterward.

Doing potentially less work than I thought,
~#28

1RM'd a deadlift at 225, which is 1.5 BW.  It's kinda impressive, but not really.

Tried some thrusters, first at 95 which was WAAAY too much, then at 65, which was much better.  Did a triple set of 10 and that felt good.  Gonna do it again and try increasing the weight.  3x10 was good though.  Not too much, not too little.

Overall, my work has been pretty sporadic.  Work has been really tough on me recently, which has been a problem.  I've been trying, but it's tough.

Doing work when I can,
~#28

Another update:

I've had a pretty solid routine for the past month or so.  Two days a week lifting, plus two days a week winter league.

Sundays: Leg day
Deadlifts (5x185,185,185,185,195 current PR)
Front Squats (5x5x100something current PR)
Kettle Bell swings (10x70,79,79 current PR)
Then I head upstairs and work on my footwork and my vertical.  I love rope ladders...
Sunday nights I head to winter league so I can play on tired legs.  So far, I can see the benefits of being healthy again and I think I'm seeing the lifting as well.  I skyed rob once (though I missed the disc), and have gotten nice D's in the air.

Wednesdays: Arm day
[Pull ups (around 15 in 5 sets, different ways)
Standing/seated DB military press (5x25,25,25,25,30 current PR)
DB press (5x35,35,35,35,40 current PR)
Some sort of shoulder/back work (a row, back fly, etc.)
Core (They have an ab roller wheel which was something that really worked for me in Boston)


Thursdays: Winter league
See above.




Other than that, my nutrition is....eh.  I've been doing a shit job of getting enough protein, but I've also been doing a shit job of eating enough in general so....one thing at a time, i guess.




Today's Thursday so tonight is Winter league.  Doin' work,
~#28

Not that it's been forever or anything, but...

I've been working out.  Intermittently at least. 

It's strange how everything changes in just one year.  Two years ago, I was kinda doing stuff with Toad maybe sorta.  One year ago, I was working 40 hours a week and enjoying my gym.  Now, I'm struggling to find time during 50-70 hour work weeks and thinking as much about how to make my team successful as how to make myself successful.

Work is crushing and I've been traveling, which means it's even harder to find the time to work out.  When the hotel has the facilities, I try to use them.  I don't always remember to pack stuff for it though, and that means working out in my own room so it's not that weird that I'm not wearing pants (better than the alternative of jeans or khakis).

I set myself new goals today, so I want to write them down.  I'd like to be able to touch the air ducting in my gym.  It's probably something like a 30+ inch jump, so that's gonna be....a lotta work.  Welp, might as well get to it.

I rebenchmarked as best I could these past two gym sessions, trying to get a feel for what the season had left me with:

Legs:
[Barefoot DL: 10x95,115,115(?)
Chin Up: 3,1, 3(pull up grip)]
TRX 1-L Squats: 5/Lx3 (These were really good.  I think I'm going to do them more.  The TRX bands definitely helped stabilize.  I pulled myself up more as the sets wore on, though.
1-L Quad Extend: 10x25,37.5,45
TRX Roll-out: 4x10s hold, 1x 15s

Arms:
Wide Lat pulldown:10x84,84,86.5
Bench press: 3x10x85 (last set was actually 7)
Decline press: 2x10x45/arm (iso), 10x50/arm (bilateral)
Tricep pulldown: 3x10x60
Run 1 mile, 8 mph, 2%

Doing this left me with a decent idea of what's going to need doing for the next months.  Time to go back to work.
~#28

I stopped posting a few months ago, not because I stopped working out, but because I just didn't find the time.  I did stop working out though, due to injuries and constant ultimate tournaments, I never thought I was in a good place.  That said, Udderburn just failed to qualify for Regionals this weekend and now begins the long, hard winter.  I will be ramping down my ultimate and ramping up, significantly, my training.  Lessons learned:

1) It matters.  Training for just 1 winter made me a VASTLY better player.  I turned myself from a player considered 100% O-line to a player who plays nearly all the D points when the pressure is on.  This is an accomplishment I am beyond proud of.
2) It isn't hard.  Not that it doesn't require hard work.  I mean, 150 pounds of anything is hard to pick up.  I mean it wasn't hard making the time, making the plans, making the choice again and again to hit the gym.  The hard part was flipping that mental switch.  In many ways, I didn't do it actively, it just happened.  If there is something I think was key to my improvement, however, it was that switch.  I wish I could tell people how to do it.  Getting a trainer didn't work quite how I wanted, but it did teach me quite a bit about training and many different lifts.
3) There is a wealth of information out there, go and find it and you will be rewarded.  I used so many different workout regimens in the past few months.  I had two different trainers (with two different styles), I used Toad's tabata-fanatacism to fuel a few workouts, I ran, I didn't run, I stole Ironside's workouts.  All that I had to do was figure out where to look and things just...work.
4) Losing fucking sucks.  I took the losses at Sectionals here at least as hard as the losses at College Sectionals.  And all I could think was "This is right.  I _should_ be upset.  Losing should hurt because you should care so much about yourself, your team, and your game that losing is a punch in the gut."
5) You can't be too proactive.  There were lots of problems with how Udderburn was run, but that was lots of inexperience.  Keep the pressure on captains, make sure they know what to do, push for your ideas.  Captainship is full of politics, especially when you start adding captains (Udderburn ended up with 4!) and it pays to navigate those waters.  I feel very much that I acted like Corey when he first arrived at Yuk- full of knowledge that only half the important people were listening to.  There are lessons to learn from that, too.

Speaking of which, Corey and Gail might be coming up to Madison in October and that would be amazing.  I'd absolutely love to see them again, especially if I got to show them around.  Ginie and I are both excited.

The work begins again,
~#28

Day 2 of the Ironside July.  Harder.  Much harder than Day 1.

[Pre-lift: 4x6 box jumps
scapular mobility 3x10]

[DL:5x115,135,155,165,175

Wall ankle mobs 4x 8/s]

[Pronated DB Row: 3x8x25
Walking DB Lunge: 3x8x25]

[TRX Elevated Pushups:3x10
Pull throughs: 8x40,10x40,60]

[Pallof Press: 3x3/s x10s
External Rotator Cuff Rotation: 2x12/s x 10]