Thursday, October 6, 2016

10-05-2016

Workout:

Throwing  - Backhand Breaks (290)

No Workout - Rest Day

Reading:

http://ericcressey.com/pitchers-elite-time-off-throwing

This was an interesting read.  I think this blog is one of the best free resources out there for information on training throwers.  There are also obvious differences between throwers in ultimate and baseball pitchers.  Mechanics aside, the volume and intensity of pitching several innings of baseball is clearly far greater than the kind of throwing done in ultimate.  Also, pitching a baseball is obviously very mechanically similar every time, whereas throwing in ultimate puts a lot of different kinds of movements into a single bucket (just in terms of arm and wrist position, e.g. flick, backhand, hammer, scoober, etc.).

Let's say a pitch is roughly equivalent to a max effort hammer.  So obviously you don't want to throw 100+ max effort hammers every day, year round, that would be asking for an injury.  Luckily in ultimate, there are lots of other things you can work on between max effort hammer sessions.  You can work on your arm positions, your accuracy, your wrist mechanics, and so on.  So I think you can throw a disc every day without injuring yourself, provided you have good variety in your throwing plan.

I think there is a lot of depth to throwing in ultimate, and I think it is essentially impossible to be "too good" at throwing.

Notes:

No Wisconsiquences

NUT went to No Wisco twice during my college career, in the fall of 2009 and in the fall of 2010.

2009:  I don't remember a lot about this tournament.  I do remember that we only had 1 bid and we took an odd squad of ~25, including a mix of captains, returners who needed reps, and people the leadership decided were "good rookies".  I think we did fairly well, looking decent against split squads from teams like CUT and Wisconsin, with those teams still solidly in the tryout phase.  It was a good time, it felt fun.

2010:  As I remember it, this is how the tournament went down:

Thursday - Decision is made to drive up Saturday morning, departing at 5 am
Friday morning - We have only 1 bid again, van list gets sent, our team is 18 strong, 3 rookies, cool
Friday afternoon - Revised van list gets sent: team is now down to 12, including 2 captains who can no longer attend, yikes.
Friday night - At least 6 of the remaining 12 attend a Kid Cudi/Snoop Dogg concert at Welsh-Ryan arena, double yikes.
Saturday - People are on the sidelines, too hungover to play.  Terrible.  We struggle to get 7 bodies on the line all day.
Saturday - 4th game of the day we play Iowa

Side Note: Iowa before this was very middle of the road.  In 2010-2011 they were a straight up dominant team, qualifying for nationals in the toughest region in the nation and finishing tied for 3rd overall in the country.  They featured guys like Sean "Shark" Parker (6'5, linebacker sized), Jimmy Weisbrock and Tyler Glenn (6'2, 35"+ vertical), and they were coached by Mike Denardis, who later coached UNC to a college title.

I distinctly remember striking deep with Shark guarding me, the throw going up, him closing the gap, then laying out shoulder-height for the block.  I don't know why I remember that so vividly, but that still motivates me, to this day.

Saturday night - We go to Panhans' house.  While we are all battle weary and disappointed with how we performed, it is awesome

Sunday - We play some games in the loser's bracket, ending up in not-last by beating a high school team in a relatively close game

I remember watching the finals that year.  I believe it was Wisconsin X vs Wisconsin Y, since back then (maybe still now?) the hodags would use No Wisco as a tryout tournament.  For some reason I think muffin was there, playing, though he would have had to have been some kind of assistant coach at that point.  I remember him getting beat deep.  It was a hotly contested game, but while I was sitting there watching it all I could think about was how we could build a program as deep and as strong as possible.  This is a question I still think about often.  I believe there is no "silver bullet" for this, but I have a few ideas I like so far.

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