We're now understanding how to create athletes

The last few years have seen athletic development really take off.

Coaches of strength and conditioning are learning about their athlete's and how to improve their athleticism, in ways that really advance on old ideas.

Here is a great example: read about Shannon Turley and how he turned Stanford's conditioning program around for the football team. 

I am confident there were other factors that improve Stanford's win total, but I am also confident that Turley's approaches were significant.

Keeping players injury free is being recognised as critical for athletic coaches. It is most important way they can help their athletes.

Lastly, it is great to see the arrival of better assessment tools, so athleticism (and not just power or speed) can be measured. Here is the Function Movement Screen which Turley uses.

The new offering from Morrill Performance: The Foundation

So ultimate fitness guru Tim Morrill has been hard at work...

He has compiled all his training structures, ideas and explanations into one ebook.

You also get a comprehensive set of videos included in the purchase. There are over 100 videos, to show you the exercises and movements described. One click in the ebook, and you are watching an example on Youtube that you can pause, replay or bookmark.

It's great value for anyone looking to elevate their ultimate game by learning how to train their body and  become a better athlete.

If you have been to a Morrill Performance Clinic, the content and ideas are all captured here. No need to guess what the ideal movement or exercise looks like. It will trigger your memory.

If you haven't been to a clinic, this is the next best thing to attending. Living in a different country to Tim is no longer an excuse to miss out!

The even better news is that it currently has $20 off the price. Pretty awesome since it is already the best money you can spend on your improving your fitness for ultimate.

Check it out.

See if you can spot Heads of State being represented!

Five days into the Explosive Ultimate clinics

Tim Morrill has come out to Australia to deliver his Explosive Ultimate clinics.

So far, it has been a real eye opener.

Tim giving advice

Tim has delivered a clinic to my club, Heads of State, as well four weekend clinics to many other Victorians.

His style is passionate, encouraging, and high-speed. He considers all questions carefully and has extensive knowledge gained from working with hundreds of elite athletes, from reading the literature and personal experience as an ultimate player, surfer and athlete.

Tim starts by outlining the demands of ultimate, identifying the movements we use in our sport, then explaining how to be train them. He has lots of appropriate cues.

While you are trialling the activities and movements, Tim is dishing out feedback and observing how you are going.

The clinics have covered the basics of speed, agility, strength and power.

• Basic Ideas and Concepts for Weightroom
• Exercises and Categories
• Program Design
• Knee Stability & ACL Reduction
• Self Myofacial Release (Lacrosse balls)
• Flexibility, Mobility & Warm Up
• Activation & ACL Reduction (Bands)
• Jumping Mechanics
• Agility: Jab Step and Crossover Progressions (Ladders)
• Conditioning

It's been really valuable having exposure in Australian ultimate to new ways of thinking about these issues. Historically, our knowledge about fitness and training has been piecemeal. We haven't had comprehensive expertise before on weight training, physiology, recovery and biomechanics from someone who understands the sport of ultimate.

Connect with Tim online, or attend a Explosive Ultimate clinic as soon as you can.

Fitness for ultimate athletes

There is so much valuable information on ultimate fitness now online.

I have discovered lots of new ideas through Skyd.

Tim Morrill and Melissa Witmer make use of videos to explain how to build fitness for ultimate. They are both professional fitness trainers and ultimate players, who have investigated how to improve your conditioning specifically for ultimate. I haven't seen many others who can claim all three of these things, and are sharing their stuff with the world.

Here's a taste.

Getting functional

I am really interested in doing more functional training.

Here's one quote from this book: "In functional training, it is as critical to train the specific movement as it is to train the muscles involved in the movement."

For instance in Monash's training today, we incorporated sprints with turns (for cutting in the game) and skipping (for jumping in the game).

We then did the kill drill, for a full body workout and to condition the body to throw when fatigued.

I think I really have to go make that weighted disc, even it is a hack job, and not useful for throwing...

Rethinking aerobic and anaerobic training

As someone who has a background in exact sciences (physics), the fuzziness of sports science and physiology sometimes leaves me uncertain about what we know or why in sport.

Here is more to throw into the mix. A blogpost on Establishing an aerobic base. The article addresses training from the perspective of a range of team sports that ultimate would definitely fit into.

Is more rethinking needed here Australia?