Tournaments!

This weekend we've got a tournament in Rexburg, Idaho. It's Sectionals for the fall club season. BYU is going by the alias Madd Dogg. It's kind of a shout out to a freshman player from last year that really came on the scene and made a difference (Austin Alpeter). We adopted the name for our club team after he left for his mission.

I believe the order of tournaments in the collegiate circuit is Sectionals, Regionals, Nationals. Unfortunately, BYU is disqualified from ever participating in Nationals because of Sunday play. In fact, we rarely make it out of Regionals because of our Sunday forfeits. BYU as a school requires all of it's athletics to avoid Sunday play, which is fine for other sports that keep their tournaments off Sundays, but USAU, the NCAA of Ultimate, has yet to recognize the need to do this. Our goal as a team is to make a big enough splash in the college scene to warrant a consideration of suspending Sunday play.

At our opening team meeting, Bryce Merrill, volunteer coach of Y Mens Ultimate, communicated his goal of breaking the top 25 in our USAU collegiate rankings this year. Last season BYU peaked at number 28 before dropping due to Sunday forfeits. We lost some key players, but many players have stepped up like Jacob Redford, Nate Freystätter, and Cody de la Rosa. They've really picked up their games since last season, and we may not miss a beat. I truly believe that our program should be in the top 10. We shouldn't settle for anything less. With our Sunday losses, it may be impossible. We will break the top 25 this year.

Anyways, back to Rexburg. We are going to drive up on Saturday morning (4 hr drive) and play 3 games, then drive back home. If we play well, we will have no problem winning ANY of our games. We are a very very very talented team that I haven't seen the equal to when we are at our prime.

Here is the schedule: http://scores.usaultimate.org/scores/#open/tournament/13192

I will Update on here as soon as we finish.

Injury Update/ What do you want?

I wanted to start off with an injury update: I am back on the field at partial speed. I'm running at roughly 75% of my full speed. After a week and a half, the injury had not changed very much, which worried me. So, I went in to see the doctor. He recommended that we do some x-rays, which came back negative. He was able to show me in the x-rays where blood is pooling in my knee, as well as where some of my ligaments are calcifying. He said not to worry about that. Overall, his diagnoses was KNEE TENDONITIS. I was shocked at first, but then he told me that I should take three days off, three days of partial activity, and be back to playing again. I am soooo thankful for that!

After my own reevaluations as I have been coming back from the injury, I have determined it to be more definitely identified as IT BAND SYNDROME, which is less ambiguous, especially with treatment. I have since been doing special stretching to alleviate the symptoms. Here are some of the videos I recommend:

Since the injury, I have been adding a morning short stretching routine, followed by a nightly 15 minute stretch. I have been stretching specifically my hip flexors and IT band in the morning, and my hamstrings, groin, and thighs at night. I think it will help me to avoid injury during this season. My biggest weakness in Ultimate has been being able to stay on the field. I will keep you updated as the season progresses by tagging my posts with the tag or label of "Injuries."

I also wanted to say a little about knowing what you want. I often think of our existences having two sides to them: Our desires, and our actions. I often find that the happiest people in the world are those whose desires match their actions almost exactly. When they feel that they ought to do something, they do it. It brings happiness because it avoids the sinking feelings of regret and shame. On the reverse, I have found that people who say they will do something or feel that they ought to and subsequently don't, are always feeling regretful and unhappy.

This principle applies to sports and Ultimate. If I feel like I need to spend time outside of practice working on my low-release forehands and I don't, It creates athletic unhappiness and athletic regret, where your body feels like dragging itself down. I notice that when I realize that I need to work on something and I spend the time outside of practice making it to the gym, or throwing with a buddy, or going on a run, I am always ready to perform at an elite level when the time comes.

That's it for today. GO CHI!

Preseason Ending

We are One Week out from officially starting school. That means that there is no more time for the preseason workouts to get ahead. It's getting to be time for application.

Every Saturday we have a high-level scrimmage against a local club team, the Killjoys.

It's always a good experience to practice new offensive sets and practice defensive strategies in high-intensity situations that are low-risk. It's great. After this last Saturday's scrimmage, I felt some aching in my knee, that turned into debilitating pain. I have pain on the lateral side of my knee. It hurts especially while walking down stairs. For more information on possible  injuries due to pain the outside of your knee, go here: http://www.knee-pain-explained.com/lateral-knee-pain.html

One thing makes me not worried about my injury; Lack of swelling. Most major knee injuries including Meniscus tears are also accompanied by large swelling of the knee. I have very little/no swelling. I'm not too worried about it. Unfortunately, I am going to have to take some time off of workouts, etc... (Maybe a week) in order to rehab my knee. It sucks, but has to be done. I am going to be starting my in-season weight lifting and throwing schedule soon, so I will be posting that in the next week.

Earn the Trust and Let it Work for You

Last post I mentioned Kris Gethin's DTP, which is the workout I have been doing for the past 6-8 weeks. I've only got one week left. I figured I would share my workout tracking log with y'all in case you wanted to give it a go. I've embedded it below:



I realize that I made a typo on days 5, 12, 19, and 26, because the exercises listed are arm exercises, but where the rep ranges are, those exercises are from the Chest and Shoulders day. I just cross out those names and read it from above. The reps and sets are correct.

Here's what I have been doing in order to make myself an awesome Ultimate Frisbee player: For some context, there are mainly two types of positions in Ultimate Frisbee. They are the Handler, or a throwing specialist, and the Cutter, or a running/speed specialist. I have never been a handler before. It's not because I never wanted to be, but because A) I've lacked the skills, and B) We always have had awesome handlers and needed cutters more. At BYU we have "intramural sports," which is where you can make a team of your own and play against other teams of students eventually playing for a championship shirt. Often the BYU club team players will make a few teams on their own to go after the shirts, but in order to remember why I loved the sport so much, I decided to join a team of athletic people that come together to play some Frisbee and have fun. Our team was called "The Flying Dillbillies." Last night was the championship game, and we had clawed our way to the top. This season I've finally had that chance to play handler, and I've finally had the chance to have a team behind me who trusts me when I have the disc to make great decisions. That goes a LONG way.

Even though we lost to a much more experienced team, I remembered why I loved the game. It's all about trust for me. People will put you in the situations that they trust you in. Obviously, I haven't earned that trust yet on the club team. You bet I will though! Last night was my best throwing night in my career. I "broke the cup" whenever I wanted to (See my posts about Ultimate Frisbee lingo...) and was 1/3 on my long hucks (throws). The two misses were barely out of reach.

You need a team with trust. If you don't have that, you need to earn. Make it your goal. I'm making it mine.

Off-Season Motivation

Need it??

Here's our team's highlight reel from last year:

MmmMmmm. Nothing says "you're a mediocre player" like being in your team's highlight reel only once (0:58), only for a second, and the picture is actually staged, not a live action shot...

It's okay. I know who I was last season. I was the guy that played 1-3 points a game if I was lucky because I lacked the endurance, hops, and disc handling skills. I knew I had no where to go but up.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't unhappy with my role. There were definitely better players than me on the field and that was the best move for our team. I just wanted more.

That's where I started in April. I approached this off-season with the chance to really make a difference in my game. So far? I've packed on 10 pounds of muscle. Here's the evidence:

BEFORE: This was even a couple weeks into my weight-lifting routine!!

AFTER: To follow me on BodyBuilding.com and find what I'm doing, my username is rboyer2

My weight-lifting routine ends the muscle-building phase in 3 weeks, after which I hit the cutting/toning phase. I am so stoked to bring this new physique onto the frisbee field to train.

For an overview of what I have been doing for the last 6 weeks, take a look at Kris Gethin's DTP Workout.

Want some motivation? I just had to look in the mirror. I had to understand that I was getting what I deserved. If I want more, I have to deserve more.

Universe [Point]illism

Universe Pointillism.

I am an Ultimate Frisbee Player. I am on BYU's Ultimate Frisbee Team. I have played for 2 seasons and right now am in preseason training for this upcoming season.

Universe Point

The most intense situation that can occur in Ultimate Frisbee is a phenomenon known as "Universe Point." This is when the game is tied and the time for the game has expired, creating a "hard cap" (Or a sudden death point). Basically, whoever scores next in this situation wins. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it means that you have to give it all you've got. Universe Point has become a phrase that means give it all. All or nothing.

Pointillism of course is an art technique, wherein the painter uses small dots and circles of color to create a painting. The painting itself exists as a bunch of dots. When you take a step back you can see the whole thing for what it's worth, but it all starts with one little circle at a time.

This blog is going to be my pointillism for this year's ultimate frisbee season. I am going to make each post about some different way that I am working to have a successful season, and hopefully these posts become the points that create a masterpiece when completed and seen as a whole.

Therefore the name.