• A little pick-me-up to watch before your next workout: Nike Courage. I can't link to the high-quality version directly, so don't forget to click the "watch in high quality" link by the lower-right corner of the video.
• Interesting summary of the health benefits of eating coconut. Caught my eye because it was only a couple days ago I saw this post lauding coconut water as "nature's perfect sports drink".

Just subscribed to the What's New @ Peak Performance blog. They carry all kinda of interesting stuff. Two leapt out at me from my quick scan of their first page:

• Sports drinks or water: what is the best choice for sports performers?

Contrary to what you might expect, fluid absorption tends to take place in the small intestine rather than the stomach. Studies have shown that the larger the volume of fluid in the stomach, the more rapid the emptying into the small intestine, which means that maintaining a large fluid volume in the stomach by repeated drinking will maximise the rate of fluid (and nutrient) delivery to the small intestine.

Alas. I can't carry a large fluid volume in my stomach without feeling like it's sloshing around and making me feel generally bloated. Interesting, nonetheless.

• Warm Up Activity : The dynamic alternative to static stretching

Is there a better way? [than a jog followed by static stretching] I believe there is. In my view, an active or 'dynamic' warm-up is an infinitely superior way to prepare for physical activity.

Although this type of warm-up has been used by track and field athletes for years, it is not widely practised within other sports - eg football, basketball and baseball - at junior, senior or professional levels.

I keep reading everywhere that pre-competition static stretching is a bad idea (except, perhaps, the hip flexors). I switched from my only stretching occurring pre-play to a model where I stretch for flexibility regularly throughout the day, and do dynamic warm-up pre-play, and I prefer it.

I don't really read much on conditioning for endurance sports, as the methods are generally counterproductive for field and power sports. Since Ultimate tourneys are grueling two day (or more) affairs, though, nutrition and hydration strategies can come into play. The NY Times ran an interesting piece around a week ago where they talked about a few things, but the marathon hydration bit caught my eye (well, my teammate's eye, who pointed it out to me, thanks Matt!):

[Dr. David Martin] said that while it seemed logical to drink as much water as possible before the race—and runners try it—"it doesn't work." The reason, he explained, is that drinking a lot of water increases blood volume and the body responds by getting rid of it, in urine.

"What you need to do is to increase your total body fluids another way," Dr. Martin said.

He added that the legal, safe way to do it is through glycerin loading. The technique exploits the unusual properties of glycerin, a thick, gooey sugar alcohol that is sold in drugstores as a lubricant. Each molecule of glycerin absorbs three molecules of water. During a race, the body uses the glycerin for energy. And every time the body metabolizes a molecule of glycerin, "it unleashes three molecules of water," Dr. Martin said.

The result, he said, is that "you have a water bank account."

Glycerin loading, he added, should be reserved for races of a half marathon or longer, when runners are competing in intense heat for at least an hour and a half.

That last sentence there worried me a bit. If the technique is so good, why reserve it? Why not just use it all the time? Happily, the Times ran a follow-up piece a couple days later:

Glycerin should be used with great caution, Dr. Martin says. It you use too much you can end up with excess fluid in your cells. The excess fluid in your brain can give you a headache, and excess fluid elsewhere can make you bloated. Glycerin should only be used for long runs, two hours or more, under conditions of high heat. It is useless in cooler weather. And anyone who tries it should start gradually with lower dilutions and be sure they can tolerate it before using it in a long race. That said, the formula is one tablespoon of glycerin in 36 ounces of water. You should sip it over one to two hours before you run. Dr. Martin discusses the technique in his book, "Better Training for Distance Runners," 2nd edition, published by Human Kinetics in 1997. The glycerin section is on pages 370 to 372.

I'm also curious about the rate of release of the "water bank". Marathoners never go anaerobic, right? So would a field sport athlete just burn up all the glycerin, releasing all the stored water, in short order?

The U.S. Army definitely needs to know how to keep soldiers hydrated doing hard work in demanding environments, and their Work/Rest and Water Consumption document (PDF) contains several interesting revelations, all directly relevant to athletes that train or compete in hot weather:

1. You shouldn't drink more than 1.5 quarts of water per hour.
2. At lower temperatures, 0.75 quarts of water/hour is the rough guideline. At 82°F though, your intake should jump to 1 quart/hour.
3. For me this part is the most interesting: as the temperature goes up above 82°F, the army does not recommend increasing water consumption. Instead, what varies is the amount of rest recommended.
4. A Nalgene bottle is a quart, which is awfully handy for tracking your water consumption based on this model.

For me, this has obvious implications for weekend-long Ultimate Frisbee tournaments, and thus other team sports. More subs! Did I really type so many words to come to a two-word conclusion that everybody likely knew already?