The ultimate way to become a better Ultimate Frisbee player.
Ultimate Frisbee is a sport that uses a variation of muscles in your body. Leg muscles, arm muscles, and your core muscles all receive a major work out when playing in a London Ultimate Frisbee League. In addition endurance, jumping ability, and throwing and catching skills need to be at there prime.
Remember, you must always stretch before starting exercise. Try reading the Netball 5-Step Warm Up blog, and referring to the stretching section before beginning any exercise.
Pre-Jog
Your legs get a major work out from the constant running up and down of the field, changing directions, and moving to an open position. To beat your opponent to open space, you need to work on your speed, and cutting ability. In order to do this your leg’s must be warmed up and supple. Begin your exercise with a half-mile jog as a warm up
Sprint and Cut
Mark out a starting and finishing point about 15 metres apart. When you hit the finishing point and cut to the left and then sprint a short distance to the side. Repeat this about eight times. Four times cutting to the left and four times cutting to the right.
Burpees
To continue working on your legs and jumping ability do Burpees. Burpees combine a vertical leap, a squat and a push up into one exercise. First jump straight up into the air fully extending your arms. When you land instantly drop down into a squat, with your hands touching the ground. Next jump back and get into the push up position, and do one (1) push up then jump back into the squatting position and jump straight up again. Do 3 sets of 10, 12, or 15 of these. Your arms will also get a nice toning workout.
Squats and Calf Raisers
Even with out weights it is possible to perform a worthwhile squat. Place your feet about shoulders width apart, and squat untill thighs are parallel to the ground and your knees are in line with your toes. At the bottom of the squat, hold the position for a second before standing up. Do roughly 3 sets of 10-12. With your feet in the same position you can do calf raisers. Lift your self up onto your toes and then lower your self without letting your heels touch the ground. Doing calf raisers off an elevated surface works best. Do 3 sets of 10-15 of these as well. These exercises will help to improve your jumping ability and speed.
All of these exercises will help you to develop your speed, cutting ability, jumping ability and endurance for playing Ultimate Frisbee.
Push-Ups
Arm strength and endurance are needed to continue throwing the Frisbee throughout your match. In order to work on arm strength without weights do plenty of push-ups. In ultimate Frisbee you use a wrist flicking motion to throw the Frisbee, so when you do the push-ups do them on your fingertips or on your knuckles. Make sure that you are on a soft surface; it makes it more comfortable. Try to get to a total of 100 push-ups. You can divide these up in a multitude of fashions. (For example; 25 regular, 25 finger, 25 knuckle, and 25 of you choice push-ups.)
Wrist Work Out
Continue to strengthen your wrist through training exercises. A simple exercise is to take a broom and hold the handle palm side down. Hold it as high up as you can, and turn your wrist till your palm is facing up but not all the way turned over. Do 3 sets of 12 with each hand. Also, hold a Frisbee as if you are going to throw it, and flick your wrist, focusing on keeping your wrist stable as you mimic the throwing motion. This will help to build muscle memory.
Throwing
Set up targets (these can be cans or something that wont break) on an elevated surface like a fence or a trash can, and throw the Frisbee at them. This will help to work on your accuracy. Try to hit the target(s) with the centre of the Frisbee. As you get better move farther and farther back from the target(s). Remember to focus on your throwing form. You could also practice this with a friend. Go out to your local pitch and practice passing back and forth to each other. In addition to stationary passes, also work on passes when the receiver is running, proper leading passes, and specialty curved passes. Practice throwing regularly (backhand), forehand, push passes, and thumber forehand passes. As you master these move onto more difficult pass such as the air bounce.
Catching
If you are by yourself, then throw the Frisbee up at an angle at which it will hook back towards yourself, and run to catch the Frisbee. This will help you work on your reaction to disk flight, prediction to flight, and making the run to make the game changing catch. If you have someone with you, have him or her throw both simple and difficult passes to catch. Don’t forget to have high passes, diving passes, and passes that require you to run thrown to you so that you can practice these difficult catches.
When you are planted and can’t move you have to engage your core muscles to duck and dive around whom ever is guarding you. These exercises will help you to build up your core strength.
Cycle Crunches
Because you will primarily duck side to side, its important to strengthen your oblique’s. Put your leg in the air in a crunch position. Drive your right elbow to your left knee while crunching, and then do this with your left elbow to your right knee. This is one-rep. Do 2 sets of 25 reps of this crunch; then do 50 normal crunches. This exercise will develop your oblique’s and abs muscles
Planks
Planks will also help to strengthen your core. For the side prop your body up on one arm, keeping your body in a straight line for 45-60 seconds. Once you do this switch sides and repeat. Lastly prop your self up on your elbows, face down, and hold for 45-60 seconds. You can do one to 2 sets of these.
Completing these exercises on a regular basis will help you improve your endurance, speed, cutting, jumping, throwing, catching, and core strength. These improvements will help you to excel in your London Ultimate Frisbee League.
Are there any particular exercises/warm ups you do to help you with your Ultimate Frisbee game?