My Road Thus Far VI - Month 7

Month 7: Feb 20- March 20, '09
- Patellar tendinitis pain is the primary hurdle during this time period. On the field there is no instability, no favoring of one leg over the other, no change in play due to weakness or pain. However, warmups often include substantial soreness and pain in the patellar tendon area. This is forgotten on the field, but reappears during stop-play gaps of waiting on the sidelines. By month's end, however, this pain is continuing to diminish on a slow curve downward.
- This month also featured the largest gains in explosive muscle. Last month saw positive results in muscle bulk and balance, but that doesn't translate into anything on the field, it just gets me out there. This was apparent in the worlds scrimmages where I was without that acceleration needed to get certain blocks that I felt I could've gotten to pre-injury. Although I didn't hold hard & fast to my twice/wk stairs then field workouts, I still did enough to show marked improvement, and accomplished my goal of touching rim on March 19th, a perfect way to end the month!
- March 1 I played in a medium-intensity scrimmage of seattle club players v. UW and Western Washington's college teams. This was my first full-field, open "elite" ultimate. I've played elite Mini and Goaltimate, full-field non-elite pickup, and full-field elite coed, but this was my first test of high speed men's ulti, and I felt great. The big question mark for me was on defense, since the college players would definitely run a ton, and hard, and I was happy to say I more than held my own, sufficiently guarding UW's main thrower well and holding my own against other good matchups. While still lacking old explosiveness, I could keep up well enough.
- Month 7 was defined primarily by large gains in applicable, explosive strength (quickness, speed, jumping ability). Training focused more on maximal effort in small time increments, pushing the muscle's exertion ability rather than lactic acid threshold, with the idea that speed comes first, followed by speed endurance. Building a base of endurance early is sounding crazier and crazier to me every day I train. I am doing the opposite, and am very pleased with the results so far.
- Looking ahead, Month 8 will basically be the final month before tryouts (give or take). In this time period I will begin to lengthen my reps and sprint distances, and decrease recovery time, so that come tryouts my maximal effort can be maintained over a longer period of time. The knee is becoming less and less of a thought, and although there is occasional soreness going up stairs or in a warm-up jog, this is nothing compared to the horror stories of those who did not maintain their PT (one friend still does not have full extension 1 & 1/2 yrs later!).