Frisbee S&C, late winter 2025

It would be surprising if my strength & conditioning experiment from the fall went entirely according to plan. The material is too new, the constraints too varied and particular.

So what went wrong, and what worked brilliantly? What did I learn about what to do next, or next year?

High level review

My priorities haven’t changed: stay healthy, get faster, improve throwing & catching, stay generally physically prepared. The tools haven’t changed: bread-and-butter track work, fundamental plyometrics, basic lifts in the gym, and simple home kettlebell workouts. (I admit to a couple specialized exercises to optimize running/sprinting.)

What has changed: what I do at the gym will change significantly but not radically to build some muscle before the season starts and those sessions take a back seat. Home GPP workouts get a fresh hand from the dealer.

Outside the gym

Track workouts went great, except I forgot that sprinting and throwing aren’t as cold-friendly as slow running. I will restart the same plan in the spring without much alteration. Looking further ahead, I hope to push these hard through the whole competitive season, for both conditioning and speed.

I think I did three juggling sessions before including it in my program writeup, and zero afterwards. Meh, it happens with low-priority stuff.

Home GPP workouts remain a beloved fallback. My extremely scientific “lots of double kettle clean-and-presses” strategy kept my upper-body vanity in check. Occasionally I did pull-ups too; I tried mixing in other exercises but preferred staying simple & light enough (2x20kg ’bells) to safely lean into these workouts brainlessly.

GPP demands variety, so I need a similar-but-fresh template using rings and kettlebells. It would be nice to keep hypertrophy pressure on my deep lunges, as that bottom position is such an important shape for Ultimate. I could let go of the presses entirely because upper-body hypertrophy can’t be a priority as the season approaches, but I figure it’s better to go 1-armed to load some off-angle trunk positions. It’s also time to switch from cleans to swings, to better hit the posterior chain.

What feels right enough to try is a pair of couplets, performed sequentially:

1. two-handed swings (20-25 reps with 20kg kettlebell, hopefully the 28kg after a ramp-up period)
2. 1-handed presses (from a single clean; reps per set ???)

then

1. ring pull-ups (5-8 per set)
2. lunges (for depth, no load, probably sets of 8)

In the gym

Starting every lifting session with extensive plyometrics feels great. I continue to find evidence that it’s the right approach, and I appreciate the time to drill this new physical vocabulary.

I stopped doing tibialis raises and Copenhagen planks because they felt like busywork. I could be wrong.

I discovered a three-angled variant of the dumbbell side bend which I preferred for this cycle.

I swapped out power cleans for loaded jumps with a trap bar, using the same sets, reps, load, and timing. Being able to focus on purely “jump as high as you can“ feels great.

One-legged reverse squats were a game-changer. I’ll try to keep them in the plan, though they overlap with the hanging leg raises I’m introducing. I’ll try lowering the reverse squats’ volume & weight so they fit, increasing the speed so they remain helpful. (Hanging leg raises will cover the strength/hypertrophy/endurance aspects.)

The ‘physics of effort’ applied to the 1-leg calf raises: the weight went up, slow and steady. I think it’s time to focus on other things, but this is definitely coming back next post-season – with a major correction. Just as it’s important to go heavy with these, it’s important to go slow:

Considering the majority of biomechanical changes and injuries experienced by Master runners involve the plantarflexors, resistance training programs should focus on improving the load capacity of the calf musculature and the Achilles tendon. Evidence clearly indicates that slow, heavy resistance training (eg, 3 to 4 sets of 6 to 8 repetitions performed 2 to 3 times/wk) has a large beneficial effect on muscle qualities, tendon stiffness, and running performance. In contrast, high repetition, light resistance training has a negligible effect on tendon stiffness. Plyometric training also results in beneficial changes to Achilles tendon stiffness, yet does not result in desired changes in plantarflexor architecture, such as those observed with resistance training. Master runners and clinicians should bear in mind that the rate of important tendon adaptations to loading, such as collagen synthesis and an increase in tendon stiffness, declines with age. Thus, resistance training programs for Master runners should be at least 6 months in length and progressed slowly to provide sufficient training stimulus and time for tendon adaptation.

That’s per Willy & Paquette 2019, The Physiology and Biomechanics of the Master Runner.

I neglected lower body strength and hypertrophy. I should have done at least one thing from the set of {RDL, 1-leg RDL, Jefferson curl, front squat, split squat, step-up}. Belatedly putting a couple of these back in the mix is the major motivation for rejiggering my program now.

I’m removing the remaining upper-body work from my gym workouts. This is a mental struggle but goals are goals. I can bring it back in the off-season…and once I retire to a masters team in a few short years. Memento mori.

The new late-winter gym plan

1. 5-15 minutes of jumping, bounding, sprinting (best toward the end), skipping, and hopping
2. Big power lift: Hex bar jumps, 5 heavy sets of 3, possibly exploring a split stance (superset with light Cossacks as a mobility tonic)
3. Small-muscle speed-strength: one-legged reverse squats (just a high-rep warm-up set then one set of 8 loaded for max speed)
4. Strength/hypertrophy (lower body): split squats 3x8-15 and 1-leg Romanian deadlifts 3x8-12
• Or, I’m considering alternating so I can cover both 1- and 2-legged exercises:
• A days: split squats & RDL
• B days: front squats & 1-leg RDLs
5. Trunk work to cover all directions:
   • Back extensions (unweighted for now), sets of 20
   • Side bends ~25kg x ~20
   • Hanging leg raises (unweighted for now), sets of 10
   • Side-to-side rotations, starting with 20kg x20, aiming for 25kg
   (If I go with A/B workouts these might be 2 on one day and 2 on the other.)
6. Loaded butterfly stretch (My small-muscle hypertrophy target has switched from calves to adductors.) Paired with a lower-priority countermovement like side-lying loaded straight-leg lifts or dog-pissing bent leg raises.