Stay In Shape By Cross Training

by Marisa Krisananuwatara

Ultimate Frisbee season is now over. You are in the best shape of your life. But how can you stay in shape for the next season? You think that you can keep playing Ultimate and do track workouts. Nope. You may be in awesome shape for the club Ultimate season, but if playing Ultimate or doing Frisbee workouts is all you do all year long, you may be setting yourself up for injury or mental burnout, and that is not a good way to stay fit. Cross training can help prevent both of those.

Cross training is a great way to condition different muscles not normally used in Ultimate, learn new skills, and help decrease boredom that sneaks up after months of doing the same exercises over and over again. After months of the same movements, your body becomes conditioned to perform those movements efficiently, which is great for competition, but not for overall fitness. That is because you are reducing the actual conditioning you are getting while training for Ultimate. Rather than continuing to improve your fitness, you plateau at a certain level of fitness. Cross training is also necessary to reduce the risk of injury from muscle overuse by waking up other muscles while the conditioned muscles rest and recover.

Now that it is the off season, take the time to enjoy old and new activities. Try a new sport that you have always wanted to try, or bring back old memories and start up activities that you use to play when you were a kid. This is also good time to rehab all the injuries you acquired during the season by getting deep tissue massages to help lengthen those stressed muscles that stay tight throughout the season or receiving therapeutic care for more serious injuries. Whichever method of training you choose, make sure that you are strengthening the cardiovascular system, bones, muscles, joints, improving flexibility, balance and coordination, and most importantly are having fun.

Some suggested exercises that can be great cross training for ultimate:

• Cardiovascular Exercise
  • Running
  • Swimming
  • Cycling
  • Rowing
  • Rope jumping
  • Skating
  • Boxing
  • Racquetball / basketball / other court sports
• Strength Training
  • Calisthenics (strength training you can do without weights. EX: push ups, crunches, pull ups, squats against wall, etc)
  • Free Weights, machines
  • Tubing and Bands
  • Rock climbing
• Flexibility (yoga, stretching)
• Speed, agility, and balance drills
• Circuit training, sprinting, plyometrics and other forms of skill conditioning

Marisa (Marisak00 @ gmail.com) is an outdoor enthusiast, who enjoys working out and playing outside as much as she can. Her specialty is healing people’s injuries with her touch through massage.

picture by Rachel Palmarozzi shows local player Todd Geldon playing floor-ball (open pick-up 6:30-8:30 Tuesdays), a non-contact sport that is another favorite among ultimate players.