Max Output v. Conditioning

I am putting this here so that I can find it easily in the future.

"A Word On Fatigue 

This training program does not call for repetitions of weight training, drills, or plyometrics to be performed under conditions of muscular exhaustion or extreme fatigue as in bodybuilding or endurance training. Doing so would inhibit the central nervous system and dampen FT fiber recruitment and basically amount to a waste your time. Imagine trying to run as fast as you can for 30 seconds and then having to perform a maximal vertical jump. Try it sometime if you haven’t! You’ll probably find you don’t get very high. The reason for this is that optimal speed and power can only be maintained for about 6 seconds. After this, lactic acid begins to accumulate in the muscles and this is what gives the “burn” feeling after a long set. This lactic acid interferes with the contraction of the fast twitch muscle fibers. If you train with elevated lactate frequently enough you will interfere with power production as your muscles adapt to endurance. 

If you’re training with higher repetitions and getting a humongous “burn” from your training, then you’re probably not able to use enough weight or put enough intensity into the exercises you’re doing to create the adaptations or affect the muscle fibers that you want. Likewise, when performing plyometric drills, some of the goals are to increase the efficiency of the nervous system, improve rate of force development, and increase muscular recruitment. To accomplish this, the rep range needs to be fairly low so that each repetition can be performed with nearly 100% intensity and power. 

Some programs out there use repetitions of 100-500 per exercise! This is training muscular endurance, not muscular strength or power! Any gains made on these programs are made in novice athletes mainly because technical abilities were lacking. If you think training for endurance is all well and dandy realize the average marathon runner has a vertical leap of about 12 inches!! Any high volume endurance training you do will tend to interfere with power development. The body can be trained to be fast, quick, strong, and powerful at the same time, or it can also be trained to have a lot of endurance. It does not do both (gain power and endurance) at the same time very effectively. I realize that athletes do need to maintain a level of conditioning but it needs to be the right kind of conditioning that develops the endurance specific to the sport. 

There definitely is a time and place for the right type of conditioning and endurance training but unless you’re very out of shape ideally you should not try to train for vertical jump improvements along with endurance at the same time. If you want to train for strength and power in a workout then focus on that. If you want to train for conditioning and endurance don’t try to do it with your strength and power program by doing high reps of exercises designed to increase your power. Ideally you should focus on boosting your power and jumping capacities while maintaining general fitness. Once you have your power capacity in place you can then focus more on endurance and conditioning."

http://msuathletics.ru/books/bible/vert_jump_bible.pdf  page 19

Nemesis's Ho Stack: Point #1 v. Viva

This post is dedicated to Sur because she said I should write it.  This post has a lot of potential to be awkward and lacking concreteness because I haven’t read Nemesis’s playbook.  I don’t know what their ho-stack is trying to do nor do I know what they’ve been taught to do.  Given that I can’t do anything about these limitations I will just write about what I would do.

Here is the lovely Christina Sur, wide open.  If she takes the green line she’s open right away, instead she takes the red line behind the thrower’s mark and doesn’t tempt Sam Cain to throw to her. It is possible that Sur is trying to execute a diamond cut where she will sweep out of the way allowing JJ tons of space.  Diagram below:

If this is what Nemesis is going for they get it, but Sam doesn’t seem to be privy to the game plan as she stares at Carol and misses a wide open JJ in the below screen shot.

At this point Nemesis has lost two opportunities to hit an open cutter downfield.  Their central cutters have cycled and they end up in the screenshot below.

My first issue is their width.  The red lines shown are the distance from sideline to the widest cutters.  The next two cutters are cut in half by the camera, but they can be seen downfield of the clearing cutters.  Compare Nemesis’s width to Riot’s width in the below:

This frame is from the moment after Riot’s middle cutters have made their moves, a similar time as the screen shot for Nemesis.  Riot is creating a wider field than Nemesis.

Sara Miller comes from the forceside, catches a dump behind Sam, and throws a continue to Allie Fish.

JJ is open.  If she goes on the green line Allie can hit her, but she takes the red line and isn’t an option.  I hate the width that Dobby (Is #21 Dobby?) is creating.  I would want her at the blue dot, giving JJ a 30 yard box in the middle of the field to beat her defender in.  I think there are guys on BMU that couldn’t cover JJ in a 30 yard box and I think Nemesis needs to take advantage of her motor more.

Dobby gets the cut that JJ gets.  Why did we have to wait for Dobby to make this cut when JJ could have made it 3 stall counts ago?

Dobby hits a pass to the sideline and proceeds to jog on the red line.  She takes herself to the middle of the field and camps out right where everyone is trying to attack their cuts to.  In this frame you can see that Sur has not only a better angle than her defender, but her body and is lined up as well.  If Dobby had swept along the green line and created width, the throw from JJ to Sur would be more tempting.  Dobby eventually gets this disc.

Allie is downfield for a strong continue pass, but Dobby catches facing the sideline and never pulls her eyes off of the sideline.  Her first move is to JJ.  I think a ho-stack should be middle oriented.  Keeping the disc centered creates space that makes it easier to get downfield isolations, like Allie in this screen shot.  I am bothered that Dobby doesn’t even look at Allie.

Dobby sends it to JJ, some kind of call is made, and the disc goes back to Dobby.  Now that she has time to look around she realizes that Allie, after all of this time, is still open in the middle of the field.  What’s great about this play is Sur attacking behind Allie, if Nemesis gets Allie the disc it feels like Sur will be in a great continue spot.  What’s bad about this play is the width, or lack-there-of, that Sam Cain is creating downfield.

Mostly I am just thinking, “get out of Sur’s way!”  Carol and Sam even run into each other in the below frame.

Sur is in the best attack spot.  If we remove Carol and Sam from where they are, then it is Sur 1v1 in a gigantic 30 yard box.  This white girl has no chance 1v1 with Sur in this kind of space.  Unfortunately the antics of the handlers clogs a valuable attack space for Sur and distracts Allie.

In the above screenshot Sur finally gets the space and gets open.  Allie made her catch at 1:03 she releases it at 1:09, the stall was probably around 8.  Fine, the disc eventually got to where I wanted it to go, but why did it take 8 stalls?  With better spacing couldn’t we have gotten here in < 3?

What if Sam wasn’t in the above screen shot?  What if sometime during the mess with Carol Sam realized she needed to stop being in the way and clear?  What if she had hustled to the blue dot and created width? JJ would have a massive amount of space to roast this girl.  This girl is not going to guard JJ in this space.  Instead we have Sam jogging straight downfield of Sur while looking back at Sur.  If Sam puts her head down and runs hard maybe Sur hits this fade, but that doesn’t happen either.

Sam goes for an undercut, against a defender that was playing underneath her the whole time, and then she clears straight deep! (Shown in the frame below)

Sam has spent an inordinate amount of time in the best place to get open.  JJ and Dobby, two far better athletes, are just idly waiting for Sam to move so they can get open.

Sur hits Miller on an upline.  Sam is still in the prime attacking space.  I don’t actually have a problem with this stand-a-lone moment, but I do have a problem with how long Sam has been directly downfield of the disc.  Sam has been hogging the space so long that JJ has actually cycled out of her spot and let Dobby into the continue cutter position.  The last issue I have with this is that Sam never touches the disc.  During this entire sequence she manages to create no separation at all.  Meanwhile some very athletic cutters are just waiting to get open.

She’s gassed and clears, not well but she clears enough where Dobby is at long last able to put her girl on the pain train.  This completion brings Nemesis into their endzone set and outside of the scope of this  post.

If I were coaching this Nemesis ho stack I would be harping on creating width, keeping the disc centered, and clearing out sooner.

Completing an Upline

After writing the “in-cut” post I felt exhausted.  That may explain why I have taken so long to get to this next one.  Recently I was talking with Carol Li.  Carol, a fantastic thrower, was expressing a frustration around how little her vision of throwing can gets translated.  To some throwers it is a binary function, the act of completing the pass earns a 1 and an incompletion earns a 0.  Carol goes several steps beyond this; she judges her 1’s and 0’s by their shape, speed, float, and accuracy.  Did it curve the way she wanted it to?  Travel at the speed she wanted?  Get to the side of her receiver she wanted it to be on?  It is incredibly hard to transfer this from thoughts to words.  The desire to be able to do it perfectly is what has held me back over the past month.  However as my doctor told me when I was a wee lad, “nature is never a perfect line, well fractures are perfect lines but those are no good.”

I’ll start as simply as possible.  The red star has the disc and is attacking up the page.  The defense (in orange) is forcing forehand.  The blue dot will drive towards the thrower and push upline for a forehand pass from the red star.

My first and most common frustration is the timing of when the disc gets thrown.  The thing about frisbee’s is that they float.  Case 1 is an example of when I want the Frisbee thrown.  The blue dot has gotten a small step here and given the red star throws a soft pass into the pale green oval then the blue dot can just box out his guy the whole way and do the necessary work.  Case 2 is an example of how I lose my sanity.  The red star is scared of holding the Frisbee so he holds the disc forever.  He waits all the way until this moment to release the disc and whips it at the pale green oval, this makes the catch tighter and it gives orange an angle to undercut this pass.

In the fall of 2009, I saw Austin get open upline on Kennedy.  I saw that Austin was open at a stage earlier than case 1 above.  I knew the whole time that I was going to throw it to Austin.  I waited, for no real reason, until a stage after case 2 to throw the disc, Kennedy laid it out easily.  After the point Austin told me that once he gets steps to just throw it out in front of him and let him run onto it.  I think this is a critical piece to completing an upline, you have to be able to sit a pass 7-12 yards in front of you so that your teammate can run onto it.

The next piece I want to talk about is where people try to complete the uplines.  I have drawn a black line.  The black line is not perfectly oriented N/S, it is angled a little bit NW/SE.  I think there is this fixation with trying to complete the upline on the line.  There is nothing forcing you as a thrower to do this.  When your teammate is open you should just get it to them at a convenient spot, there is no need to try to complete every upline to the same spot.  If I can complete the upline left of this line, then I have created power position and inched my team away from the trapside.  The Toph really likes to try to complete his uplines to the right of this line, he thinks it’s funny to further exacerbate the issue by putting an invert shape on the disc so that it tails away from the receiver.  I personally find this exhausting and would much rather put a roll curve to the left of the line.

The last piece I want to try and convey is that receivers can change direction.  In this drawing the defender is close the whole way and goes for the undercut.  When he goes for this undercut the receiver effectively has boxed the defender out of everything up the page.  If our thrower just puts the disc downfield and lets the receiver turn and run it down he can make the receiver pay massively for gambling on trying to undercut.

In general I think the ideas from completing an incut can apply to the ideas of completing an upline.  Throw it early, throw it soft, give it roll curve.

Here’s Christina Sur throwing to Sara Miller.  I think if Christina was a weaker/scared/rock of a thrower she would be tempted to gun it into Miller at the red dot, fortunately Christina puts a soft one to the green and the defender has no chance.

This one bothers me because Carol is open here; her left hip bone is in front of the defender’s right hip bone.  In this moment if Dobby (I think it’s Dobby) had some short range touch pass she could have hit Carol.  I put the green dot in as a rough estimate; this green dot is very far to the left of the black line I drew above.  Dobby’s mark has shifter no around which definitely gives her the angle to lay this off.

I fully understand that what I describe above is a very difficult throw.  This is what ended up happening.  Carol increased her advantage, and Dobby set up and released an around throw off the sideline.  I am ecstatic that she got this around off.

Here’s how they eventually score.  At this moment Carol is open, Christina just has to get it there.  As a receiver it's important to note that in this example Carol gets her girl's back rather than the getting her front like she did in the previous example.  Getting the defender's back gives Sur a lot more space to work with and entices her to take a chance on the throw.

This is the moment of release.  She throws this disc incredibly early and she is using a high release pass which will give her the float this disc needs for Carol to make the play.  Carol’s defender is close, but since Christina throws it early and soft Carol just boxes the defender out and scores ezpz.

This is not an upline but it’s a good throw by Carol and I want to talk about it.  Carol could fixate on Abby and try to hit her in the hands on the red dot, or she could float one for the green dot and get some buckets.  Buckets.

Here’s the last one I will do.  Emilie is open already and I’m pretty sure Risa sees her in this frame.

Ignoring the fact that Emilie is open by a mile and only a rock could miss this throw, there is still something to learn here.  If Risa tries to put it on Emilie’s hands in the red dot area this becomes a tough pass, but by floating it in the green dot she makes this an easy conversion and a goal.

Black Market

From my perspective Black Market is not a team, not a program, but an idea.  The idea being that if you are looking for a place to get better at Frisbee we can find you one.   I think the origin of this idea will vary depending on who you talk to about it.  For example I am confident that my perspective will vary widely from Sidrys’s, Kennedy’s, or Adam’s. 

To fully convey the way I see this Black Market idea I will need to start at the top.  In Chicago, Machine takes the first cut.  Machine doesn’t have any reasonably close elite open or elite mixed teams to compete with.  In theory Machine gets the top 25 guys in Chicago, in practice they get the top 25 from Illinois/Iowa/Indiana and sometimes even Wisconsin.  I think Machine does well in terms of taking the best players available to them.  This is important because as soon as you allow your club develop into a “fraternity” where returners are given preferential treatment to new/young talent you have maxed out the potential of your club and can only experience contraction in the future.

Every year the tier two peons of Chicago like to get worked up and pick on some of Machine’s roster picks.  In our view there is “excess weight” on the roster, but in reality this “excess weight” is pretty good at Frisbee.  Good enough to make it not obvious that we “are better” than them, and good enough to significantly impact the tier two landscape when they finally do get cut from Machine.  Picking on the bottom of Machine’s roster as much as we want won’t change the fact that Machine gets utility out of their entire roster at an extremely high level.

What happens after Machine makes its filter is where Chicago starts to get difficult to keep track of.  Haymaker was the first tier two team.  They were founded by a group of players that wanted to get some experience so that they could threaten for a roster spot on Machine.  After a year (maybe it was two) that Haymaker team was able to put people on Machine.  Haymaker had the inside track to solidify themselves as the clear number two in Chicago; all they had to do was take number 26-50 in Chicago.  Unfortunately they started ear marking roster spots for returners.  Ear marking roster spots hampered their ability to be flexible and reactive to the growing tryout pool of Chicago.  With this dynamic in place they made two critical mistakes.  First, they cut Greg Slover.  Cutting Greg Slover looks egregious today and it was incredibly dense back then.  Second, they took away Dan Williams and Luke Johnson’s play time going into the series in favor of “veterans” (read: our friends).  Slover went ahead and created Beachfront, Dan and Luke bailed to form Natives.

As an aside: I think I am hard on Haymaker because I wanted them to do what I want rather than what they want to do.  They conscientiously chose to create a club team where they could play with their friends.  Just because I wish they had solidified a #2 in Chicago doesn’t mean that that is what they wanted.

At this point Chicago had four teams Machine, Beachfront, Haymaker, and Natives.  Machine continued to dominate that first selection, Beachfront, Haymaker and Natives continued to gravitate towards ear marked roster spots.  It is frustrating to try out for a tier two team because you have no idea how many roster spots are open (usually it’s only like 2-8), and even if you perform better than a vet you won’t get chosen because that guy’s roster spot was never in jeopardy. 

In the frustration of all this “cliqueness” and “earmarked roster spots” there were some people seriously pushing for the tier 2 teams to come together, take the best talent, clearly establish a #2 in Chicago, and compete for a spot at Nationals. (Something Haymaker could have done years ago).  I am going to skirt over the push for a #2 as much as possible.  This was an annoying/trying/exhausting/frustrating experience that didn’t work.  There is a lot to talk about when it comes to this but in the end one question remains for me “is this worth trying to do?”  Currently my answer is no.  The casualty of “the push” was Natives, who was twisted and distorted in Chi Club and finally died in a heaping pile of garbage. 

A group of players in the suburbs, at the time they called themselves Mufasa, decided they wanted to start trying to be legit and get better.  They pulled players from the mixed landscape (a world I will never comprehend) and from the ashes of Natives/Chi Club.  Their biggest win was getting a burnt out Kennedy to decide not to return to Machine after taking a year off.  This created a big draw for a lot of Illinois alums, myself included.  (I was ready to quit after the ChiClub experience but the attraction of Kennedy was enough to get me to practice, but not tournaments, with Black Market last summer).

The Chi Club collapse also created a vacuum on the northside.  It was temporarily filled by Bear Jordan, and this year is filled by Bounty Hunters.  Bounty is headed up by some passionate Frisbee people and although they are in year 1 I think this club has the potential to stick around.

Step back again with me.  Imagine being a college player.  Your college teammates and alums are pushing you to try out for club.  Since Haymaker and Beachfront finalize their roster before Machine (completely idiotic imho) you have to take a gamble; do you go for Machine or do you go for Haymaker and Beachfront?  If you’re good enough for Haymaker/Beach they will have the full court press on you to commit right away.  If you aren’t good enough they will hang you out for a couple weeks before cutting you, at which point wouldn’t it have been more desirable to try out for Machine and get the experience of playing with the best for a couple of weeks?  This gamble, which often coincides with a massively critical time of development for many Frisbee players, can be hedged knowing that after all the dust settles you can just show up to Black Market.  Practices are open at least until sectionals.  The roster isn’t finalized until sectionals and if numbers are there Black Market will just bring two teams to everything.

In year 1 of Black Market Kennedy, Wiesbrock, and Chris O’Hara were the captains.  Kennedy kept talking about how he wanted to help people develop and get better, yet they were splitting up the o and d lines to practice different things, there was no emphasis on fundamentals, the handler and cutter sets were loosely defined, and the moment that capped my 2014 descent to madness was at club sectionals when we were teaching people the vert endzone set.  Was this a joke?  Were we seriously incapable of organizing and structuring a practice plan that could have avoided to need to explain the vert endzone at sectionals?  I spent a lot of time trying to explain what a “progressive practice” was to Wiesbrock.  I tried to talk about how to structure a throwing plan not only in the scope of a singular practice but over the scope of the entire season.

So why have I broken my vow to never captain a Frisbee team ever again?  It dawned on me that rather than trying to convince the captains to captain how I would, I should just captain how I would.  I am also very attracted to the potential structure of Black Market.  Structurally Black Market has the potential to go all in on the “development” idea.  Beyond a heavy emphasis on fundamental work this means that we are going for the “let’s be okay at a bunch of things” instead of the “let’s be good at something” philosophy.  (Yes, I do think you have to pick).  A results oriented team is incentivized to go for the “let’s get good at something” plan, but since Black Market is trying to establish its primary goal as helping people get better, on-field results get thrown to the back burner which frees us to talk about something different every practice.  This theory materializes itself in me getting up on a soapbox and giving a lecture every practice about a different Frisbee idea.  Lastly, since results are of no concern to me I can just forge ahead with a new idea, no need to pump the breaks if it isn’t setting in for some people, just keep going, keep throwing a new idea, keep challenging people to see and think about a different part of the game.  Summing everything up, Black Market is an inclusive club that ignores results and is acutely focused on the fundamentals of the game.  This is what attracts me to captaining the team

As I write this I realize that Adam asked me to come up with a mission statement.  I might go with what I just wrote:  Black Market is an inclusive club that ignores results and is acutely focused on the fundamentals of the game.

Frustration Download

Time Value of Throwing:

The cornerstone of finance is the concept of time value of money.  Given the choice of receiving $1,000 today and $1,000 in a year, one should always take $1,000 today due to the earning potential of that money once you have it.

There is a time value of throwing; a throw available at the present time is worth more than the same throw in the future due to its potential earning capacity.  I feel that many throwers catch the disc and then wait for 3-4 stalls to pass before they even consider throwing.  During this process they may look off 1 to 2 looks, typically I find that these early looks are the best looks that you get as a thrower.

Rhythm Throwing:

In my own head I call myself a rhythm thrower.  Meaning I want to catch, turn, see and throw.  My lack of an oxford comma is intentional here because my “see and throw” process is a singular moment.  When I have to catch, turn, hesitate and throw, my shot always comes out of my hand poorly.  The classic example is catching an incut, turning, see a teammate downfield (realizing he is standing/deer in headlights/not paying attention) and then throwing some terrible huck.  Conversely when I can catch an incut, turn, and see a teammate downfield (head down busting deep as hard as he can) I find that my shots come out massively better. 

I think this boils down to an element of confidence or belief in the throw.  I want to take shots fast because I want to play the beautiful game, but when the receiver has that look of pure terror on his face that says “please don’t throw it to me” I instantly and dramatically lose confidence resulting in something terrible happening.

In summation, there is nothing more satisfying than throwing to someone who knows where the big box is and is going for it as hard as they can without saving anything for the swim back (cut back).

Tuttling:

There is a plethora of open backhand swings that people are halfheartedly pumping or just blatantly ignoring.  I don’t know what is wrong with them.

The up-line peel:

Imagine your team has the disc on the trapside.  Things are getting clogged in front of the disc.  The first dump handler can “flush” the backfield by driving up-line.  Since there is no space this will never be a good cut.  The defender doesn’t have to guard very much space, and since it’s already crowded an early touch pass is risky meaning you’ll have to wait as a thrower and rely on a tight pass.  BUT, you do not have to throw it to him.  He’s done you a great service by creating a massive space for the backhand around/swing off of the sideline.  Ideally the mark will get a “helpful” “no strike” call from his sideline, which would massively open up a centering pass.

I get frustrated when someone looks off an upline and then continues to stare downfield.  What are you looking at?  The upline runner is in your way, there is nothing for you there!  Turn your head and throw the swing.  Literally every time you look off an upline you have an open centering swing.

Throwing out of bounds:

The field is huge, how is it possible that you miss it?

Haymaker's SC top ten highlight

On Saturday of Down with the Clown Steven Cummings made a ridiculous play and landed himself on Sportscenter’s top 10:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnfRANF0qho&feature=youtu.be&t=26s

Highlight reel plays will put people in the stands but it’s the little things that will make you a good team.  Being a good team gets you paid, “drive for show, put for dough” if you will.

This is where our highlight begins.  Haymaker with the disc on the far sideline, Matt on the mark forcing flick, Jerry guarding Hanley in the middle, and Yngve on the far side handler.  Notice how Jerry is currently capable of seeing the disc.  Ideally Jerry can maintain his current positioning and end up like the below.

Instead Jerry ends up like this:

We currently have Jerry and Yngve faceguarding breakside handlers.  In this moment Haymaker is running a vert stack and has plenty of space to the forceside.  When Jerry decides to faceguard he is foregoing any chance he has of seeing the disc.  The thrower could just touch pass this up the line for Hanley and Jerry would never have a chance.

Here’s a quick diagram:

Hanley doesn’t have to beat Jerry; all he needs is a little help from his thrower.  The black line is the threshold at which Hanley has Jerry boxed out.  If the thrower can just put a touch pass into the green square before Hanley gets into the green square then Hanley will just box out Jerry and make the catch.  Again Jerry is faceguarding here and won’t be able to see the disc go up and won’t be able to make a play.  You may be able to argue that Jerry can hear an “up” call and then flail his arms around and get a D.  Sure, let’s rely on that, sounds fantastic!

It happens here.  Hanley is open, Jerry only sees Hanley, all Haymaker need’s is a cognitively functional thrower to release the disc in this frame if not before this frame.

Womp.

Fortunately Haymaker has a second handler, being guarded by Yngve.

Alright so BMU has decided to go with faceguarding again.  I have already discussed this with Yngve and his defense is that he was testing this guy’s upline running ability.

Yngve peaks here.  This is the frame that makes me believe him.  I think he understands that faceguarding is less than ideal so he sneaks a peak in order to gather more information. 

The handler steps into Yngve, compressing his defensive cushion.  This creates two problems for Yngve:

1.      He is now forced to go 100% faceguard, meaning all the thrower has to do is touch pass it right past him.

2.      He is flat footed.

The flat footed thing bites and the guy creates space up the line.

The thrower is in triple threat here; he is finally in a position where he can be actually throw what is being presented to him.

Here is the moment of release.  Yngve is beat all this requires is to be thrown out in front of both the handler and Yngve.

This throw actually goes up late, the offensive guy has to reach out awkwardly and attack the disc.  I wish the disc had been released at the below frame:

I speculate that this is the moment the thrower “sees” that his guy is open.  If he had recognized the faceguard and been able to read his guy getting initial space I think he would have “known” his guy would get open.  I think that where this disc ends up getting caught is a good spot, but that it could have been thrown earlier, to space, and softer allowing his guy to just run onto it.  Rather the thrower sees this late, jams it in there, and forces his receiver to adjust into Yngve rather than away from Yngve.

So what’s up downfield?

Everything is fine.

Back of the stack peels and now Matt West is guarding the last back.

Matt starts jogging to reposition himself as the last back defender.  That jog gives up everything and the offensive player goes hard toward the big box.  Matt can’t catch up.  He gets boxed out the whole way and Haymaker gets a nice big !