Ultimate Frisbee Workout Guide Intro Why You Need This Guide Many ultimate players aren’t getting the best results from their workouts. Often simply because they’ve gotten stuck doing the same things they did in high school. Or perhaps they’ve bought into a popular general fitness plan because the marketing makes it seem reasonable enough. If you think that might be you, then the great news is you’ve likely got loads of untapped athletic potential waiting to be unleashed on the frisbee field. Even if you’re already pretty experienced in working out, even if you’re experienced in the weight room, there is still more potential in you to become faster and jump higher than you realize. I know this is true because I’ve seen it happen for hundreds of ultimate players, and I’d like it to happen for you too. That’s what this guide is all about. I’m going to help you understand the principles behind athletic adaptation so that you design an ultimate frisbee training schedule that WORKS. Best of all, this does not require hours and hours of running. In fact, some of the ultimate frisbee workouts you’ll be doing are likely easier than what you’re doing now. If you like the idea of training smarter so you can get more results in less training time, then this guide is for you. www.TheUAP.com Who am I? I’m Melissa Witmer, creator of The Ultimate Athlete Project’s Strength and Conditioning program. I’ve traveled all over the world coaching players on how to train more efficiently for ultimate. But before all of that, I used to be like a lot of you. I played a lot of frisbee. I trained a LOT, with sprint workouts, and lots of conditioning. I had an edge because I was also experienced in strength training. I knew a lot about being strong and being in shape. I even had a de- gree in Kinesiology. But despite all of that - even though I was fit in college. Even though I had a ton of experi- ence in the weight room, I became a much, much better athlete in my thirties than I ever was in my twenties. Why? Because I finally got FOCUSED on training specifically for the results I wanted. This guide is about helping YOU to get the results you want. Don’t settle for getting the same results as everyone else by doing the same workouts as everybody else. You CAN do better and you can perform better. I know these principles work for more than just me. I’ve used these principles to help hundreds of athletes from ages 16-52. Just like my clients and UAP members, you can also become more durable, play full tournaments without soreness, stop being afraid of getting beat deep, be able to cover or BE the uncoverable squirrelly handler, and in general have more fun on the field by being able to athletically outmatch your opponents. That’s what this guide is all about. So let’s get started! www.TheUAP.com Why Your Ultimate Frisbee Workouts Aren’t Working 1 Are you going to be an athlete? Or are you simply trying to get in shape? This is the first and most important decision. Choosing General Fitness Many ultimate frisbee players settle for using the knowledge they get from fitness blogs or YouTube channels. Or they simply continue to adapt what they learned from their high school or college sports experience. The problem with a lot of popular fitness fads is that they are designed to help the general public. Sometimes with vague goals like “‘staying in shape.” Or they are designed to help an overweight populace lose weight. A trainer working with general fitness clients has the goal of keeping their clients. They can most easily do this by…. Making workouts fun by using a lot of variety Making workouts feel hard so that people feel like they are accomplishing something and “getting what they’re paying for” Choosing to be an Athlete- vs. - For Strength and Conditioning coaches who work with athletes, there is a different approach. Athletes are committed, so we don’t need to worry as much about the above concerns. We can actually make a long term plan and focus on specific results. www.TheUAP.com Athletic performance training will have qualities like…. What do you choose? I have no issue with people choosing general fitness workouts. If you play frisbee to stay in shape, then frisbee is also a general fitness workout for you. That’s great! Be healthy, and be happy. But if you are training to play frisbee, then I want you to understand how to do it properly or how to evaluate if a plan you’ve been given makes some sense. Training specifically for frisbee is what I recommend for you if.... You are trying to get to level 100% in their frisbee game You are trying to be efficient with their workout/training time You are focused on injury prevention, especially if you are getting older.(hey, it happens!) In the rest of this guide I’ll be explaining the fundamental principles of athletic performance training for ultimate frisbee. We will be covering… How to Build an Ultimate Frisbee Workout Put things in the right order to get the adaptations you’re looking for. Get in Shape quickly without going for long, boring runs In this section you’ll learn how to take advantage of the supercompensation curve to get in shape quickly without going for boring long runs. Strength Training Here’s where the magic happens. We’ll talk about what type of strength training you need and why it’s so important. Speed and Agility Learn the common mistakes most ultimate frisbee players make when trying to improve their speed and agility. Make the hard choices other players won’t. And reap the benefits! A well thought out ultimate frisbee training schedule is the game changer that will help you break free from your training plateau. Make hard choices other players won’t make and reap the benefits! www.TheUAP.com How to Get in Shape Quickly for Ultimate Frisbee The first thing I want to address is this… Long runs are NOT the best way to get you in shape for ultimate frisbee. In fact, they will be counterproductive. 2 There are two reasons for this. Well, one main reason. Your ultimate frisbee conditioning workout should mimic what you do on the field if you want it to transfer to the field. There are two implications for this. 1 Use Intervals instead of long runs 2 Vary the direction of your movement instead of running in a straight line all the time First up, intervals for ultimate frisbee training. Getting in shape is about helping the body to learn to process and use more oxygen. The greatest increases in aerobic fitness will occur by working out at the speed where you’re consuming the most oxygen. However, this pace can only be maintained for six minutes before fatigue sets in and you literally cannot continue at the same pace due to muscle fatigue. The fatigue you feel is caused by the buildup of acid in the muscle tissue. To avoid acid buildup, we would have to work out at intensities in which only the aerobic system is used. At this intensity, about 99% of the metabolic energy comes from the aerobic system. This is a pace that can 2be maintained indefinitely. But at no point will you actually be using nearly as much oxygen as you can. Working out at this pace does not produce gains in the aerobic system as rapidly as working out at higher intensities. So the problem is, how do we work out at intensities in which we are using as much oxygen as possible without tiring out from lactic acid buildup?O The answer is interval training. The whole point of interval training is that you can extend the amount of time you spend using the most oxygen you possibly can with significantly less lactic acid buildup in the muscles. www.TheUAP.com Beyond just being efficient, interval training is the best way to train for ultimate(or any other field sport) that requires bouts of speed and bouts of recovery. Need further proof? Watch an actual game of ultimate. Pick a player and time how much time they spend in motion versus walking and standing around. You might be surprised! Between calls, the disc going out of bounds, and turnovers, there is a lot more standing around in ultimate than you might intuitively think! With interval training, you are also training your body to recover rapidly from bouts of hard effort, just like you’d be doing on the field. Stop running in a straight line If all of your conditioning is on a track in a straight line, you may still become surprisingly tired when you step on the ultimate field despite having a good level of fitness. The muscle groups you use in conditioning matter because the body works as a whole system. Fitness gained by bicycling or swimming does not necessarily translate as well as you’d expect to running. And fitness gained by running in a straight line won’t translate well to a sport where you are starting, stopping, accelerating, and changing directions many times per point. Changes of direction require more core stability and single leg strength than simply maintaining movement in the forward direction.