Reader llimllib asks:

With the series coming up in a month or so, how are you going to work out to try and peak at the right time?

A teammate has borrowed my Ross Enamait books, so I can't really give as detailed an answer as I'd like (at least not terminology-wise), but it boils down to this: there are several models of periodization (how you time and vary workouts to improve over time), and the one I follow doesn't really emphasize peaking.

What I don't do is follow the periodization model where you spend a certain number of weeks emphasizing strength, then more weeks emphasizing speed, then more where you start putting it together, etc. in the hopes that it will all be in optimal for your event of choice. Don't get me wrong, this can can be a successful model, it just doesn't have much appeal for me. I like to be able to feel like I can play tourneys throughout the season without shortchanging them because I haven't peaked yet.

In his books, Ross favors a model geared towards fighters. There's no well-defined season, fights may occur year round, and schedule changes/opportunties mean you may have to fight on relatively short notice. I'm no fighter, but I like this model for myself as well. I like doing lots of varied routines, working on many different fitness qualities throughout the week. In a given week I try to fit in the following:

• 1-2 sessions Tabatas, with at least one being sprints (emphasis on max. fatigue).
• 1 session hill sprints and/or acceleration work (emphasis on max. effort/power, not fatigue).
• 1 session GPP (fairly grueling bodyweight circuits).
• 2 sessions pick-up Ultimate.
• 1 session max. strength.
• 1 session explosive strength.
• 2-3 core workouts interspersed with the other stuff throughout the week.
• 1-2 rest days/week.

It's pretty easy to fit all that in during the off-season, but adding in the 2 days of pickup makes it hard. At this point in the season, if anything falls off my plate it's the strength work, but I try not to let it.

Anyway, by mixing up the stuff I work on throughout the week, I don't overtrain any one given quality, so I can keep progressing (the rest day(s) are essential, however).

I'll do this pretty hard for three or four weeks, then take a back-off week, where I might just do bodyweight exercise, jump rope for the Tabatas, etc. I stay active, but I don't kill myself like I do in the hard weeks. The back-off week allows supercompentation to kick in, where your body adjusts to the strains of the preceding weeks, and allows you to start again the next week from an incrementally higher level. I think I've got the gist of the theory here, but again, no books to refer to at the moment.

And that's pretty much it. I repeat that cycle year round, varying what I Tabata, what strength exercises I do, etc. to keep it fresh. This has allowed me (I hope/think) to improve my strength and conditioning evenly and steadily. Again, this worked better in the off-season, as pickup kinda messes things up, but I still think I've gotten stronger as the season has progressed.

As for the implications as the fall series approaches, I'm basically going to keep doing what I'm doing, but will time it such that my back-off week is the week before Regionals. I'll probably skip pickup that Thursday, but will otherwise break a sweat a few times that week to stay active and fresh.

I gotta say though, I pretty much adopted this model as one I wanted for life, not for Ultimate. It seems to fit well and work for me, but a more traditional periodization model (build over months and peak for Nationals) might be superior.

Anyway, hope that answers your question!

Like the Roger Federer piece (which you really should read, as it cast tennis—which I've always enjoyed watching—in a whole new light for me), this ought to be good for fans of sports in general, not just tennis aficionados...

First up, this is a terrific tribute to the many comebacks of Andre Agassi's career:

The most important thing I've learned from watching him is how to defeat winning and losing.

That piece links up this interview with Agassi following his loss to Federer at the US Open final last year. Fantastic, and more weight behind the "Federer is possibly the best ever" camp.

Finally, check out this composite photo of an Agassi vs. Pavel point. I'm guessing Agassi controlled that one.

• Art De Vany: Work Outs for Chicago Nick and Las Vegas Nick.
• Ross Enamait: Strength Training For Fighters - 15 Random Thoughts (definitely not just for fighters, IMO).

It's a bit vague in spots, but More Research on the Aerobic Benefit of Sprinting nicely sums up why I've completely eliminated anything remotely resembling long distance work from my training. Why sacrifice speed and power with no upside? Personally, I need every bit of speed and power I can eek out. I do wish I knew how much rest the sprinting group took between sprints, and whether the numbers are reversed in that table, but you get the gist of it.

So as you probably know by now, this is why Tabata Intervals are the backbone of my training regimen. For anecdotal evidence of the protocol's broad applicability, scroll down the third success story on this Clarance Bass page, titled "Tabata Protocol Produces PR Rowing from 500- to 10,000-Meters". « via CrossFit »

• Revisited my Pulling, Climbing, Twisting workout for the first time since March. I like it.
• Remember those two days of Scott Sonnon videos I linked to? Well, he has days 3 through 6 up now (scroll down "Video Performance Clips"). Good stuff! His creative use of the rings continue to provide the highlights.
• Two on YouTube: Beyond Burpees « via RT » and a 720-degree (!) Dunk.

If you wear Adidas Copa Mundial cleats you know two things:

• They're great.
• They're expensive.

Rock-bottom price I've ever paid is $80. Prices gust up to $100. But at the moment you can get 'em for $63 through Amazon.

Regular price is $83 (and that's the price that shows up on the page above). Hopefully you'll see a "Special Offers Available" link on that page. If so, when you add the item to your cart and check out, the $20 discount should be applied (it will show up prior to final confirmation, so you can cancel if it doesn't happen). Shipping is free.

Not sure how long this promotion will last.

The catch is there's a 3-to-5 week wait. I'm going to have to make due with my old ones and some duct tape until then. As long as the new ones are here for Regionals...

Roger Federer as Religious Experience by David Foster Wallace. He uses the first paragraph to lovingly describe an amazing "Federer Moment". He then concludes:

Anyway, that's one example of a Federer Moment, and that was merely on TV—and the truth is that TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love.

I don't know where that puts YouTube on the video porn/actual sex spectrum, but they've got a clip of that exalted Federer Moment, starting at 8:10 in. I think YouTube might be off the bottom end of the metaphor, actually, and the moment strikes me as one of subtle greatness, only really appreciable by fans. Love the article, though.« via kottke »

Couple things:

• Poking around in this Crossfit thread, I clicked through on one of Greg Everett's links and noticed how nice the Evolution Athletics and Performance Menu sites are. At Evolution Athletics, check out the resources, particularly the videos (oops, quick sample suggests quite a few have "video coming soon" notes, but there are some good ones there). Also, don't miss this, The Performance Menu has a free issue offer, and you get to choose which one you want. Tough choice!
• One of the nutrition sections of Ross Enamait's Never Gymless is all about milk. In particular, pasturized and homogenized vs. raw. His latest blog post, Milk, addresses the topic again, and includes lots of good resources for making your own decisions.

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.

Alrighty, yesterday's workout. Give it a shot, do better than I did:

• Warm-up: 50 one-arm, light-weight (20 lbs.) DB swings per arm, done in sets of 25. This has become my new favorite warm-up. Hits lots of muscles, doesn't take long to break a sweat. I do the first 25 for a given arm swinging up to vertical, then the second set swinging to 90 degrees to up the tempo.
• The Dreaded Leg Matrix as described by Skwigg (see paragraph 3). Took me 120 seconds (sigh), crappy form (sigh), probably managed 1-inch vertical on most of the squat jumps (sigh). The lactic ache in sets 3 and 4 was incredible. I would like to see a video of someone doing this in the prescribed 90 seconds, with good form. I mean, if you're a complete rock star and able to do good jumps for the lunge jumps and the squat jumps, won't the time in the air alone pretty much consume whatever time you socked away from the first two sets? Volunteers?
• 4x4 on The Evil Wheel. I do it from my feet, but rollout to a wall that stops me way short of going to the floor. Gonna start working on these more regularly.
• Tabata pushups. Pretty good for the first couple sets, then lucky to get 5-6 in the each remaining set. Weak.
• Core circuit. I set my Gymboss for 30 seconds work, 15 seconds rest, and did this circuit: [1] Chinnies, [2] Plank, [3] Plank, right side, [4] Plank, left side, [5] Superman, [6] Knee Hugs, [7] Medicine Ball Slams (10 lbs.), [8] Medicine Ball Twist Throws, [9] Flutter Kicks, [10] Plank. Actually did a pretty good job on really cranking during each 30-second work period.

Let me know how it goes!

I recently realized I never followed up on my ankle brace delibrations. It came to my attention when reader N. Trout sent me this e-mail:

Hi, Jim. I stumbled upon your site while doing some research. I have a remarkably similar experience with ankle braces. I'm 38 years old and fairly active. I had chronic ankle sprains up through college, at which time (about 1989) the school's training department gave me the McDavid brace. I've been wearing that ever since and have never fully sprained my ankle ("tweaked" it a few times but never rolled it over completely)...until two nights ago. Coincidently, I had just bought a new McDavid ankle brace for my right ankle and the night I sprained it was the first night I wore the new brace. Maybe it wasn't sufficiently tight and/or broken in, or maybe it was just that I came down just right (or wrong) on someone else's foot and nothing could have prevented the roll and subsequent sprain. I do believe, however, that the brace probably limited the extent of the sprain. Anyways, it has incredibly been 17 years for me as well without a sprain. Some of the other guys I play basketball with swear by the Active Ankle brace but I didn't want to make a change (until two nights ago) because the McDavid had seemed to suit me so well all these years. I did end up going to the doctor yesterday. I figured that maybe there had been some new technological advancements in ankle protection technology over the past 17 years. Sadly, he said not much has changed, but he did recommend Active Ankle.

So, I'm wondering what you ultimately did. Did you make the switch or did you stick with McDavid? What's happened since your last post on this topic (or did I miss an update somewhere on your site?)?

Here's my reply, which will do double-duty as follow-up for this site:

Hi Noel,

Sorry to hear about the ankle! Also sorry about the lack of follow-up, it just didn't end up being all that interesting. The bottom line is that I tried the Active Ankle braces, but didn't like the way they felt, so went back to McDavids. I'm fairly comfortable with this for a few reasons:

[1] I figured one sprain in seventeen years wasn't too bad a record.

[2] I read in one of the studies that no ankle brace solution provides enough support to resist the torque of a bad roll.

[3] Another study suggested increased proprioception and/or assisting in returning the foot to a neutral position is how ankle braces and taping conferred their benefits.

From this I inferred that the Active Ankles would be better at resisting torque but not as good in providing proprioceptive benefits, while the McDavids would provide the converse. No idea if that's true, but it seemed to make sense to me, at least.

Then again, I know guys that swear by the AAs, and say stuff like, "I can't imagine spraining my ankle while wearing this."

Sorry I don't have a more conclusive answer. If you stick with the McDavids, make sure you tighten them up after the first 10 minutes or so. I never realized how slack they get (one of those studies mentioned that tape jobs and lace-ups basically provide no support after the first 10 minutes because of loosening). Of course, I had to stop doing this because the added pressure exacerbated my achilles pain. If it's not one damn thing it's another... :-)

Good luck!

Jim

• I had no idea watermelon was so good for you! I just assumed it was mostly sugar and water. Hip-hip-hooray for good sources of Vitamin A.
• A RossTraining thread: when the going gets tough... "I just cut off my mind." He makes it sound so easy!
• A 2001 Malcolm Gladwell piece: Drugstore Athlete.