This year I'm going to try and do a better job of coaching movement.
The myth that athleticism is fixed for players feels like old news. I think if I want to build the best players in the long term, I need to do a better job at helping guys lay a strong foundation of athletic movements used in ultimate. I think Bolt, like most college teams, gets a lot of players with pretty diverse athletic backgrounds. Many have played some sport or another prior to finding ultimate, but the variety is immense and it results in a wide range of movement aptitudes. We've had cross country runners, sprinters, swimmers, tennis players, basketball players, soccer players, lacrosse players, football players, volleyball players, the list goes on. We also get a fair number of guys who have no prior formal athletic experience at all. It's an odd melting pot of skills.
I think that the guys with high level basketball, football, soccer, or track experience tend to have a bit of a head start. Baskeball movement patterns are pretty similar to 1v1 defense and handler d, a good focus on athletic stance, shuffling, and quick lateral movements. Football gives you route running, good acceleration patterns, and usually a good strength training background. Soccer teaches acceleration/change of pace, balance, coordination, and spatial awareness. Track gives an obvious advantage in the open field. Sometimes sports like tennis, badminton, ping pong, and even baseball can give a thrower an arm action and mobility base to work with, but I find that to be a bit less common in newer players. Or at least effective carryover from those is less common.
I think when I say "coaching movement", I'm talking about patterns. Developing a movement skill or pattern that people can get a critical mass of reps in and eventually implement unconsciously, all the time. Examples of movement patterns might be: how a player accelerates forward, how a player accelerates to the side, how a player drop steps, or how a player makes a cut/changes direction. I think movement patterns are generally pretty improvable for a melting pot group like this, and spending time and energy on them could pay huge dividends down the road.
So how do I coach this?
It seems obvious that a lot of quality reps are required to make gains in this area. This makes me think I should make it something we do every practice, perhaps as a piece of the warmup. I also think there needs to be specific thought behind which movements I pick. As in, the movements I pick must be something we use in ultimate a lot, or maybe something I think we need to work on.
My current thoughts are that the drill must cover 4 scenarios. Other scenarios could be useful but these are the big ones, in my mind. They are illustrated in the picture below. Note: the green arrow is the direction the player is looking. The red line is the plane of the hips, and the black line is the direction of movement.
1. Forward acceleration - duh
2. Acceleration to the side - Useful for offensive cutting/beating an opponent, defensive cutting/maintaining good hip position while on d.
3. Acceleration to the back (drop step) - Useful for 1v1 defense
4. Making a cut - How to decelerate and accelerate properly with a lateral hip position. Useful mostly for offensive cutting, but relevant to defense as well.
Some closing thoughts:
-Shuffling and athletic stance I think share a similarly high priority as these 4, but I think should maybe be addressed separately from this drill.
-These drills are probably pointless without good movement cues, since form has to be good if gains are going to be made.
-Not sure the best format for this drill. Current thought is some kind of 4 cone/box drill with no discs. Adding discs probably distracts from the main point, but more touches seem good generally.
-Gamespeed by Ian Jeffreys is a cool book. Simonelli also influenced my thoughts on this.
-Ideally this will complement our weight training program really well, but we'll see.
The myth that athleticism is fixed for players feels like old news. I think if I want to build the best players in the long term, I need to do a better job at helping guys lay a strong foundation of athletic movements used in ultimate. I think Bolt, like most college teams, gets a lot of players with pretty diverse athletic backgrounds. Many have played some sport or another prior to finding ultimate, but the variety is immense and it results in a wide range of movement aptitudes. We've had cross country runners, sprinters, swimmers, tennis players, basketball players, soccer players, lacrosse players, football players, volleyball players, the list goes on. We also get a fair number of guys who have no prior formal athletic experience at all. It's an odd melting pot of skills.
I think that the guys with high level basketball, football, soccer, or track experience tend to have a bit of a head start. Baskeball movement patterns are pretty similar to 1v1 defense and handler d, a good focus on athletic stance, shuffling, and quick lateral movements. Football gives you route running, good acceleration patterns, and usually a good strength training background. Soccer teaches acceleration/change of pace, balance, coordination, and spatial awareness. Track gives an obvious advantage in the open field. Sometimes sports like tennis, badminton, ping pong, and even baseball can give a thrower an arm action and mobility base to work with, but I find that to be a bit less common in newer players. Or at least effective carryover from those is less common.
I think when I say "coaching movement", I'm talking about patterns. Developing a movement skill or pattern that people can get a critical mass of reps in and eventually implement unconsciously, all the time. Examples of movement patterns might be: how a player accelerates forward, how a player accelerates to the side, how a player drop steps, or how a player makes a cut/changes direction. I think movement patterns are generally pretty improvable for a melting pot group like this, and spending time and energy on them could pay huge dividends down the road.
So how do I coach this?
It seems obvious that a lot of quality reps are required to make gains in this area. This makes me think I should make it something we do every practice, perhaps as a piece of the warmup. I also think there needs to be specific thought behind which movements I pick. As in, the movements I pick must be something we use in ultimate a lot, or maybe something I think we need to work on.
My current thoughts are that the drill must cover 4 scenarios. Other scenarios could be useful but these are the big ones, in my mind. They are illustrated in the picture below. Note: the green arrow is the direction the player is looking. The red line is the plane of the hips, and the black line is the direction of movement.
1. Forward acceleration - duh
2. Acceleration to the side - Useful for offensive cutting/beating an opponent, defensive cutting/maintaining good hip position while on d.
3. Acceleration to the back (drop step) - Useful for 1v1 defense
4. Making a cut - How to decelerate and accelerate properly with a lateral hip position. Useful mostly for offensive cutting, but relevant to defense as well.
Some closing thoughts:
-Shuffling and athletic stance I think share a similarly high priority as these 4, but I think should maybe be addressed separately from this drill.
-These drills are probably pointless without good movement cues, since form has to be good if gains are going to be made.
-Not sure the best format for this drill. Current thought is some kind of 4 cone/box drill with no discs. Adding discs probably distracts from the main point, but more touches seem good generally.
-Gamespeed by Ian Jeffreys is a cool book. Simonelli also influenced my thoughts on this.
-Ideally this will complement our weight training program really well, but we'll see.
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