An Article on Injury Prevention

Fitness and Injury Prevention
Jamie “Idaho” Arambula

Ultimate is a weird sport where you can get a very eclectic mix of people from different sports across
the board. (I did track and boxing before my career started.) Because of that there are very different
approaches to what people think regarding fitness and preparation for a college ultimate season.

What may not be obvious to everyone is how closely linked fitness and injury prevention are. In a
perfect world, there would be one cookie cutter method to fitness and conditioning where everyone
would be physically peaking come Regionals, or Nationals. Unfortunately, this is the real world where
injuries, and time constraints exist.

My philosophy to fitness and injury prevention is centered around the fact that think that muscle
memory is a huge factor to success. My thoughts are that you are less likely to get hurt if your body
has some recognition to what you're asking it to do. When someone has to stop to turn for a disc
thrown behind them and they make the awkward stop and twist, people's bodies tend to say, 'Hey,
what's this motion? I'm not used to this!', and then 'pop' something gives.

However if you can start from day one replicating the type of full speed direction change motions,
SLOWLY at first, to teach the body the proper mechanics, then the chances are much less that you
initiate a 'system shock'. This is an easy solution with footwork, reaction, and receiver scenario drills.
Do some form of these drills EVERY PRACTICE so that by the time mid season arrives the body does
them without thought. It's extremely rewarding the first time a player realizes that they've just
'dropped and chopped' without a second thought about it.

In drills, it's important to make sure that both defensive and offensive footwork is taken into account.
Defensive footwork is much more tied into reaction, and those aspects can be added to footwork
drills, then integrated into game-like drills.

I don't like to waste practice time with conditioning. I think any success oriented team needs to have
separate conditioning hours, whether it's mandatory tracks, or pod-style workouts.

To get fast, there is no substitute for sprinting, both full recovery, sprint, and recovery- type running. I
truly believe that 'ultimate shape' is really just a matter of how much time you take to recover.

Tabata style conditioning (sprint intervals 20 seconds on / 10 seconds off) is brutal but very effective.
Also you can integrate footwork tabatas as an 'active recovery.'

Proper running form is the foundation for speed. It's nice to be given feedback or to run a set of 'sprint
form progressions' to teach the habits that make sprinters even faster.

If you want to be super technical, you can split your conditioning workouts into 'on track', and 'in
cleats' phases. Even more technical than that is to split into 'handler' and 'cutter' pods / groups to
condition using the sprint length and recovery time to replicate your style of play.

After the mid-point in the season, I think it's useless to run 400 or even 200 meter workouts during
conditioning. There is no point on the field where I replicate that sprint form, or time, so why would i
allocate time to teach my body that, instead of sprint 30 cut back 10 sprint 30? The latter replicates
the style of lane cutter running, and recovery depending on number of reps.

Even if some players do not have access to a local gym, I think it's important to have a weight or
isometric type strength program with the objective of keeping the shoulders, knees, and ankles
supported throughout the season, as a supplement to all the track work.

In summary:
• Fitness and injury prevention are closely intertwined
• Muscle memory, balance, and reaction are important aspects to injury prevention
• Certain drills should be integrated into every practice/warm up in order to cultivate muscle
memory
• Practice time is not conditioning time. A separate conditioning time is necessary to maximize
full team meetings
• You can be faster by improving on body mechanics/running form
• Sprinting, and footwork drills with variable recovery, and reps will serve the players better than
longer-than-ultimate type runs
• A supplemental strength program to keep shoulders, knees, ankles supported is never a bad
idea

EUC2007, Ireland v Belgium - First victory for Ireland's Woman

2007 was a landmark year for Irish Women's Ultimate, for the first time we had trials and a selected squad. We trained intensively and followed a fitness programme from February to August putting in the hard yards and going out with the belief that we could get results! Liz Schaffalitzky (Captain) and I (Vice-Captain) designed the training programme for the season focusing on playing the basics well, working on our long game and playing to our strengths - a fast running game! 

Having attended the previous World and European Championships there was a hugely different attitude and mentality about this Irish Women's Team and the buzz was mighty! We played a very strong Germany in our opening game who beat us 17-5. Next up we played the Belgians.

Having never played the Belgians before we didn't know what to expect, they had not entered a tournament as a national team since 1995. For me this game is a bit of a blur......Video of the game!.....the win seemed like it was always going to happen as soon as we stepped onto the pitch....we didn't win it in a glamorous way but it was certainly a team performance with our D game really lighting up. We finished the game as victors 17-9. There were no wild celebrations and we quietly carried on; this victory was a long time coming for the Irish Ladies and this was only the beginning of that sweet taste - we went on to beat Latvia, France, Austria and Russia convincingly. However we took our eyes off the prize in our last game for 9th place and lost 16-10 to France. Team list and results. Our performance at these Championships were unprecedented and the loss on the final day drove us on to compete at a high level again the next year beating France 16-14 for 13th place at WUGC08.

I really see EUC11 being a MASSIVE tournament for the Irish Women's Team and I can't wait to try out to get a chance to pull on the green jersey again! May be this Team video! will get you inspired.

Women's Team Spirit Win World's 2004

2003 saw the first Irish Women's Team ever compete in EUC03 in France. We entered as a tyro team and finished 9th out of 9, Sparky and I as designated captains (from a bit of coaxing from Dominick and Brian) had begged, stolen and borrowed to get women on board......what we did manage was to gain a reputation of being a highly spirited team....this was somewhat accidental as our knowledge of the rules weren't the sharpest but perhaps we were known best for our off field antics....none the less we did well and represented Ireland to the best of our ability at that stage. Team list and results.

The experience of 2003 had certainly put fire in our bellies to improve and in 2004 we went to Finland as a non-tyro team. Team list and results. We were improving and managed to have a no bagel tournament. 

Irish Women's Team 2004:

A lot of hard work from Brian helped us gain knowledge and experience throughout the week (thank you Brian) and we really started to show our true colours on the field battling with determination and fairness! Especially in our tight games against the Russians. When we rocked up to watch the finals (well and truly hungover) we were absolutely over the moon to be announced as Spirit Winners!!!!! I think we owe a lot to the Irish Open Team (Open Division Spirit Winners) at the time who encouraged us the whole way through the tournament, it may have been easy to let our heads drop but the lads tirelessly cheered us on with countless renditions of 'You're just too good to be true'. World's 2004 blooded some of our strongest international tournaments to date and it really is a pleasure for me to say that I was part of the team who really started to make things happen for Irish Women's Ultimate. I just hope I've got more miles on the clock to experience another Spirit Win! To win alongside the Open Team was a great testament to the good reputation that Irish Ultimate holds, I just hope that we can all uphold this as we grow....the future is in our hands! I really think it is important to highlight for future National Teams that whilst you need to focus on your team's performance and your individual performance to have your fellow country men and women there supporting you in the green white and gold is something very special indeed!

World Women's Spirit Champions 2004 with the trophy:

Fiona Mc Donald