Laura bought me a membership to CrossFit Toronto for my birthday. From all that I’ve read about it, it seems like fitness at an entirely different level.
This will be great as I attempt to tour in Ultimate this year. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, as tryouts start this weekend.
I’m watching “I Bleed Black” right now as I get ready to go to a fund raiser that Laura and two friends are running (Breast Cancer).
While watching all the hot outdoor Ultimate action I started to wonder if all my Fartlek work will pay off for outdoor. It’s definitely working for indoor, but the two games are quite different when it comes to intensity. Indoor is quick-point, so play starts immediately after a point is scored, so you’re always on the go. Outdoor gives you a lot more time to recover after a point. My guess is that I’ll see a nice boost in outdoor as well, but we’ll have to wait about a month to see.
I figure that the next thing to work on it sport specific strength training.
A couple of observations about I Bleed Black:
- they swear a lot
- they had a surprising number of really bad high fives, awkward and embarrassing :)
- they dive on d like crazy… really amazing stuff
I’m going to switch it up tomorrow and use a different interval.
I was reading a few articles on the intertubes and I’m going to try 8 seconds of sprinting and then 12 seconds of slow jogging/cycling.
10 min – warm-up
10 min – 8s fast/12s slow
10 min – Gerschler Fartlek
15 min – cool down
I’ll see if this works or not.
One of the disadvantages for Interval/Fartlek training is you can be a victim of being a lazy bastard. For example, this morning I found a number of my sprint intervals lasting 27 or 28 seconds rather than 30. This regiment requires you to push yourself and sometimes you wake up and don’t want to push yourself to the edge of exhaustion.
I think that in the grand scheme of the training, being lazy won’t cause too much of an issue, but I don’t like the look of this trend.
So watch yourself, you may be like me, a fair weather trainer.
I’ve realized that I’m not cooling down properly after ultimate. This is leading to my heartrate remaining higher than it should be for quite a while.
While at the gym I’m careful to watch my heartrate drop from 170 to 100-105 during my cooldown. But after ultimate I walk around a bit and then just sit.
This ain’t helping nothing as my heartrate is still too high when I’m trying to get to sleep.
http://sparkpeople.com/resource/reference_warmup_cooldown.asp
I had another game last night. We lost again, but on the upside I felt better than last week, so it appears that the Fartlek training is working.
Post!
This is stupid.
bloop
As I mentioned, I cut together a mix for my Fartlek interval training. I did it using Rogue Amoeba’s Fission, and Apple’s Garageband. I’m not an audio dude in anyway, but it took about 40 minutes from start to finish to produce the first version of the interval mix.
I just wanted to give props to both Fission and Garageband. It was so simple to pull this off because of them.
Props to DJ SteveBoy as well for his podcast PodRunner.
I too discovered the joys of DJ Steveboy, and the benefits of a soundtrack based on BPM’s. But man…can that guy quit asking for money in the first 10 min of every podcast? We’re just gonna ffwd on ya, so what are you REALLY accomplishing?
I find the mixes hit or miss, some I’ll use over and over, others I delete almost immediately.
What I can do, Matt, is stop doing the mixes entirely, especially if no one helps out with the cost of 36 TB a month that you’re eating up for nothing. Two minutes of intro for an hour of music that would cost $10 anywhere. I’m usually pretty nice about criticism, but this whining bullshit really chafes my ass. It’s FREE, Matt. What exactly do I owe you on a weekly podcast that you’re, on your own admission, benefitting by? Maybe you should buy the Nike mixes — no one talks in those.
I’ve been rolling on fartlek training for the past 2 weeks and it appears to be working. I’ve been using the Gerschler Fartlek and last night’s Ultimate game when well. I should say it went well for me in terms of energy and speed, it went poorly for the team as we loss in fantastic fashion.
The training details follow:
Gerschler Fartlek
This is good training for getting fit quickly when combined with steady running.
* 10 minutes warm up jog.
* Repeat 3 times – Stride hard for 30 seconds, jog 90 seconds. Repeat with 15 second decreases in recovery jog e.g. 30-90, 30-75, 30-60, 30-45, 30-30, 30-15 and finally 30-15-30.
* 10 minute warm down jog
2 fartlek runs a week and 1 continuous run ( medium intensity for 45 minutes ).
I’m going to hack together a few mixes with alternating music for the intervals using Fission.
[Update:] I’ve cut together the first mix using one of DJ Steveboy’s PodRunner mixes. I emailed him and asked about redistribution, so if he says it’s ok, I’ll upload my mix. I’ll be using it during my Fartlek run tomorrow so I’ll see if it’s any good.
Hahah… man, that was gold. Anyhoo, the past two Ultimate games have showed me that I’m a bit out of shape. I thought that the training regiment I was on was good enough. Couple that with the 18 lost pounds and I thought I was all set. Not the case.
I went on a search to find a better method of conditioning. All that I was doing was running on an elliptical for 45 minutes 3 times a week. To be fair, sometimes “3″ was “1″ but that’s when I was sick and tired. And lazy as well I suppose. After searching around in the internet, I came across Fartlek training. It’s basically interval training, except it has an awesome name. It’s from Sweden, so it’s efficient and can be flat-packed for easy storage*.
Today was Fartlek run number one and it beat my ass. It was similar to indoor Ultimate… strange. Hopefully, this will improve my conditioning, as sucking wind sucks.
* Ikea joke? No? Alright.
My good colleague has had a pretty consistent running regime for the last 2 years. He hit a plateau at the point where the amount of time that he had to run maxed out with the speed at which he was capable of running. To switch things up he started doing hill intervals. The program from Men’s Health (http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=fitness&category=cardio.activities&conitem=c4b7b6c832597010VgnVCM100000cfe793cd____) will kick your ass, and is also pretty short on time consumption.
I also have a fairly large dispute with the eliptical trainer, as it only seems to make you good at doing the eliptical trainer, rather than a bike/treadmill/stair climber, that trains your body for more practical activities….that’s just me.
I feel the same about the elliptical trainer. I used to use it because of my shin splints. Now that I have them under control I’m switching back to the treadmill and stair climber.
I’m going to look at that hill climb plan, thanks.
Very much enjoyed the Ikea joke. Giggled out loud, enough to make people walking by think I’m making fun of them….niiiice!
Nothing but the best from me.
Matt LeQ 10:37 am on February 20, 2007 Permalink
Perhaps if we hung a Bear Claw in front of your treadmill you’d be more inclined to run, fatty. No? Guess you don’t want to sweat the gravy out of your system.
PS. This particular style of “Motivation” helped me become the svelte 230 lbs that I am today.
Tyler Weir 10:40 am on February 20, 2007 Permalink
Is addiction to bacon-wrapped chocolate bars a disease? It sounds like one to me.
Matt LeQ 11:02 am on February 20, 2007 Permalink
In Scotland, that’s actually a branch of Cuisine. The Scottish Nutritional Board (RNB) ranks it between “Iron Brew” and Tripe Smoothies on the Food Wheel.