Conditioning for ultimate
Ultimate is a unique team sport. Ultimate players have to have all the explosiveness of other team athletes, but are asked to do it over multiple games in a weekend. That makes it an endurance sport. Training must take into account both endurance and explosiveness, but too often ultimate conditioning regimens ignore the endurance part.
The program I am outlining gives easy methods to improve cardiovascular endurance along with ways to improve stamina and explosiveness.
Let me quickly define some terms:
endurance: the ability to maintain a high level of performance over several hours, like a tournament weekend.
stamina: the ability to endure high intensity work over a shorter period, like a point that goes on for several minutes.
explosiveness: the ability to run, stop, jump, etc. at a high level.
These are all linked, but can be trained separately.
And this program is based on the Club ultimate season. High school and college students who also play club have very little “offseason”. They should alternate between the preseason and season sections.
Year-long training
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Offseason (Oct.-Dec.)
How to use the offseason to build endurance and recover from the season.
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Preseason (Jan.-April)
Start to build stamina and begin working explosive movements.
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Season (May-September)
Continue to improve endurance and stamina and build explosiveness.
Offseason Training: Building Endurance
Let’s talk Training Zones. These are measures of intensity that also correspond to different ways our body burns fuel. They range from Zone 1 (a leisurely walk) to Zone 5 (a full-on sprint). Zone 2 is the most interesting. It is the highest level of activity where the body burns fat along with glucose. Spending long periods of time in Zone 2 builds up cardiovascular endurance without taxing the body. It is super-efficient at burning fat and increasing endurance.
It is low-impact. It can be done injured. It can be done on days you workout or play ultimate.
Zone 2 is running, cycling, swimming, rowing, etc at a pace where you can still carry on a conversation, but would prefer to not talk. I do mine on an elliptical and watch TV shows to keep the boredom away. That’s the biggest issue with it, it’s so low-impact it’s fairly dull.
The ideal length of a session is 45-60 minutes, but you still get benefits at around 30 minutes. You should do this 3 times a week for maximum results.
And, you have to do it consistently over months to get those results.
So start now. Get a buddy to do it with, or find some good podcasts or albums to listen to, or TV shows to watch.
Assuming you are active, just adding this to your routine will work wonders for your endurance. If you are not doing anything else, you can add in the interval training from the next section once a week to also build up stamina.
Here is more information on Zone 2.
Preseason: Stamina
Now that we have a solid foundation of endurance going, it is time to start building stamina and working toward the explosive movements we need for ultimate. Interval training will be the key to this goal.
You will continue to do Zone 2 training at least twice a week (three times is better if you can fit it in). Once a week begin to do work intervals. These can be done running, or on any cardio equipment. The point is to start elevating the heart rate to condition the body for all the starts and stops of playing ultimate.
Start with: 4 minutes easy pace to warm up.
Then 20 seconds sprint, followed by 2 minutes easy. Do this 4 times. Then another 4 minutes of easy to cool down. Simple, right?
Week 2, do that with 8 fast intervals.
Week 3, make the intervals 30 seconds for 8 reps.
Week 4, increase to 45 seconds.
Etc.
The goal is to get to a point you can sustain a high rate of work for at least a minute for 4-8 rounds. You may have to ease into it and increase every 2 weeks. Or you may find you need to go longer sooner. Everyone is different, do what your body allows.
The “sprint” portion does not necessarily mean 100% every round. Fatigue will dictate how fast you go, but go hard.
When you can do this for at least 60 seconds of max work, getting through a 10 minute turnover-fest point during the season will be much easier.
After about 6 weeks of this, you can start adding in explosive exercises. I will detail these in the next section.
Season: Explosiveness
This really should start in the Preseason phase and continue into the season. This is where we work on all the explosive movements we need for ultimate. Sprinting, jumping, cutting. Start working these about mid-way through Preseason to get maximum results.
You cannot improve these simply by playing ultimate.
You can improve these by doing plyometrics and/or lifting weights.
There are dozens (hundreds?) of plyometric exercises that can be done with no gear. I will not get into specifics here, but will link to a helpful series of videos from professional ultimate phenom Tobe Decraene. These are great to do with a group, but you can do them solo as well.
In the gym, the best exercises to build speed, jumping and general explosiveness are: deadlifts, heavy squats (back and front), and power cleans. Kettlebell swings, thrusters, and sled pulls are also great. Anything that targets hip extension with weights. Power comes from the hips, so building that area up increases power.
If you find yourself with not a lot of time or equipment, nothing beats 100 burpees.
Hopefully your team will start having conditioning days where you can train with a group.
During this time, you should still be getting in at least one solid Zone 2 session. Two is better.
