A recent post here challenges the effectiveness of track workouts for ultimate frisbee. The main thesis is that although track workouts may be useful the ability of an athlete to sprint they are actually very far away from what an ultimate player goes through in real life games. He goes on to suggest using playing as the main direct cardiovascular training, and varying training outside of practice and games in less straightforward ways.
I can completely agree with these conclusions and recommendations actually, but the argumentation seems to be too dogmatic for me. The last decades of progress is athleticism at the highest levels (outside of PEDs...) has been via the idea that one doesn't only train the exact quality necessary for their sport or competition. Variety, progression, and periodization can increase many-fold the ability of an advanced or intermediate athlete to continue improving. 400 m runners used to just run the 400 m in training. Now they run shorter and longer distances, do jump and bounding training, interval runs, and spend a lot of time in the gym.
I think this concept is pretty well known and accepted, at least in general. So if it is advantageous to train outside of the parameter space of ones competition, then simply being outside of the parameter space of ultimate does not disqualify track workouts as useful training. Granted, I have done my fair share of 10 x 200 m sprints as training, and can attest to their torture. And I also agree that such extreme examples probably have no place in training for ultimate on a weekly basis. Sprinting 100, 60, or 40 m in lower volume at full speed may be more useful at the track. Still, running longer distances, especially in an interval fashion has a place.
The advancements in training for ultimate over the past few years are awesome, and the average ultimate athlete is getting more and more educated. But I think there is still a huge place for the track, and even sometimes "longer distances" in the weekly and monthly life of someone training for ultimate.
Spencer, I love your thoughts here! Conditioning outside of the exact sport demands is essential for athletes at a certain level of development — I agree.
ReplyDeleteMost of the ultimate players I see are making big improvements in speed and power month-to-month. That means training age is still low. So we choose specific conditioning in very small doses because it provides the biggest return on training time.
Players I have coached for several years don’t do event-specific conditioning at all. We identify player-specific weaknesses — ability to accelerate maximally multiple times or marking well on tired legs — then train those and I think that’s what you are suggesting.
We have used a few long sprints on the track for specific purposes -- but I don't think players designing training for themselves have those purposes in mind. "Long sprints are hard and hard is good for me" doesn't always deliver better performance and frequently causes overuse injuries.
Awesome stuff. I completely agree, and am so excited that people with good ideas like you are training ultimate players (although your making my competition faster :) ).
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