Tool - Reflection

10 pushups

3 pushups with 100+ lb added

3 pushups with 100+ lb added

10 pushups

25 decline pushups

Knee has been bothering me. I think that means I need to be more active. Let's find out.

Drake - I Want This Forever

Went to the Karlsruhe Christmas Cup over the weekend, an annual indoor tournament where double-disc-court discs are used for all games. Kevin drove us down through the snow, so cold outside that we had to keep pouring anti-freeze out of the sunroof to clear the windshield. We got to the sleeping hall in late evening and, after checking out the "Welcome Party" for a quick minute, threw around with the DDC-discs and a good Mainz-brewed Doppelbock in hand. The hall was freezing on Friday night, almost unbearably so without a sleeping pad, but I had a borrowed sleeping bag and slept in layers with my underarmour hat on. I got basically enough rest before waking up 45 minutes before the alarm, I guess because it was too cold to sleep. Traditional German breakfast in the other hall and then right away our first game, barely begun with enough players because most of the team was late making the drive down on Saturday morning. We lost to one of the better teams at the tournament, and only by 2, but it was a frustrating game and it felt like we could have won if we had only had our full team assembled by the time it began. Remember, it was 5v5 continuous play for 24-minute games so there was no time for the latecomers to warm up or anything.

After a few rounds of byes we played our second game and got wrecked, mostly due to a ton of throwing errors and dumb decisions, miscommunications and crap defense (what else can go wrong in a game?). By the third game we finally picked a single directional-force defense, instead of having four defenses changed with audibles. We may have also been playing a weaker team, but we finally won a game and earned ourselves...last place in the pool, due to point diff. We won our two crossover games though, then showered and went to eat at a decent pub kind of place with a Giant Hamburger special and decent local beer. We grabbed a Streetcar and went to the tournament party, already in full swing. Danced for a while with teammates, watched a team put on a show to "Who let the dogs out?", called my girl and then most of the team wanted to leave. I wasn't ready to go yet, but I knew if I wanted to go back at some point during the night I'd have to go then, or walk home alone in the single digits without any idea where the sleeping hall was. So I said screw it, I'll stay and win the party--after all, there's a first time for everything. Bernhard and Martin had also convinced Kevin to stay, so the four of us grabbed more drinks and hit the dance floor again. Fast forward to Bernhard getting too drunk, he puked outside and we put him in a cab (to whom he said, when asked where he lived, "Frankfurt!" and was halfway there before he realized the appropriate answer would have been "Karlsruhe Uni Sporthalle!"). Half an hour later Kevin and I had no idea where Martin was, eventually found him passed out in a chair at the corner of the dancefloor and put him in a cab (though the driver wouldn't take him until we had sobered him up for half an hour). So then it was just Kevin and I, the two left who hadn't really meant to stay all night. We partied all the way until 5:30am, outlasting all the other teams (aka winning the party), then found our way back with the help of a Karlsruhe native. It wasn't quite so warm on Saturday night as it was on Friday, either because the hall had a lot more people in it or because I didn't notice in my post-party state.

Two hours of sleep or so later, we got up for another early breakfast and first-round game. We lost, waited around for almost 3 hours and then won our consolation game (11th out of 16). Showered real quick, commentated the women's finals (which the Mainz women lost, but only barely) and then hit the road. It was snowing hard again, slow going at some parts but Kevin eventually dropped me off in Schlangenbad so I didn't have to wait around for the bus. Overall the weekend was a lot of fun, though frustrating at times because our team wasn't playing up to what I felt our potential was. I think I played well, at least on offense--some throwing turnovers and one drop aside, I was one of the more conservative players and had a good completion percentage. I got some blocks, but had trouble at times taking away downfield cutters. I'm still not sure how to deal with a team that connects on a lot of overheads and blades, hopefully I'll get to work on that more in the States. But considering my goal for the weekend was to be a better role-player on O with fewer turnovers, I think I was successful.

I come home in a little more than two weeks. Compared to the plan I set out for myself when I came to Germany, I know I didn't work out as much as I intended to. On the other hand, I got to play a lot more disc than I expected to. I haven't let myself go and I'm not fat, though I certainly ate well. I think over the next two weeks I'll mostly be doing yoga and recovery stuff, with maybe a few runs and DoC workouts thrown in. I'd like to step up my ability to do consecutive pushups before going back, and overall my goal is (as it has been) to be ready to hit winter conditioning hard. I'll be planning the next phase, too, and I'm really looking forward to having the resources at Rutgers again--dudes to work out with not the least. In the meantime...

Flipsyde - Shippin' Stones

er...150 reps of stuff. Actually 145. I wanted to do pullup-type stuff, and medicine ball stuff. This is what I came up with. "Explosive pullups" means while hanging on a pullup bar, launch your body up so you can grab onto a parallel but higher-placed bar. Doing this without the hand pads that gymnasts use is sort of painful, especially with a small-diameter bar.

5 L-hang pullups

10 3kg medball vertical tosses

5 knees-to-elbows

10 3kg medball overhead throws

5 explosive pullups

10 3kg medball throws right

5 knees-to-elbows

10 3kg medball throws left

5 single-rope pullups, left on top

5 single-rope pullups, right on top

10 3kg medball throws back over head

5 one-hand (two-arm) pullups, right

10 single-hand wall balls, 3kg 10' L

5 one-hand (two-arm) pullups, left

10 single-hand wall balls, 3kg 10' R

10 3kg medball slams

10 glute-ham raises

10 box jumps with 3kg medball

5 explosive pullups

Right afterwards, got into a solid sixty minutes of 5v5 continuous indoor scrimmage with very little subbing (for me), using Double-Disc-Court discs (smaller, with greater tendency to blade outside-in). Fun, but not as fun as real discs. Unfortunately, we're using DDC-discs for the tournament this weekend in Karlsruhe. I think I threw enough turnovers tonight for the whole weekend, so we'll see how it goes.

Tool - The Patient

10 pushups at +42lb

8 pushups at +42lb

40 close-grip floor press 42lb

Yeah, I'm working with a stack of tiles that the scale said weighed that much. Actually it gave me a number in kilograms, but that wasn't useful to me so I converted it for my (and your) convenience. Not even a workout really, but I'm taking it easy between back to back weekend tournaments.

Fort Minor - High Road (ft John Legend)

2mi and 4x5 L-hang pullups in 16:00

(I did one set at each of two places along my loop, which I ran around twice)

15 minutes stretching

King Geedorah - Anti-Matter

Went up to Magdeburg to play in their indoor tournament with a Cranberry Snack / Mother Tongue combo team, 4 guys and 3 girls (including a lady pickup from Dresden). Games were 5v5, 30 minutes continuous play so I took no subs all weekend. Saturday we went 2-1-1 (tying with "DOMinas and boyfriends") and because our only loss was by 1 point we finished 2nd in the pool, a clutch-money move that gave us a bye on Sunday until noon. We took advantage of this to party hardy after some delicious thai/chinese fusion food and a cruise 'round the Weihnachtsmarkt downtown. 3rd place in the "team shots" standings for the party, definitely first for shots-per-capita and won the party no question. Plenty of sleep, felt great on Sunday but lost our first game by one point, then got creamed by Dresden (who took our ringer lady back for the game). That set us up for a rematch vs DOMinas for 5th place. Tight game, but more spirited than our first meeting and we held on to win by two, 5th out of 10 teams.

We had "spirit circles" and spirit games after each game, which was a little different but kind of cool. Overall I had a lot of fun, a great experience for my first German tournament. Learned a bit about how things are done here, at least in mixed. The competition was pretty strong, but there's a much greater emphasis on avoiding contact and players don't tolerate the same kind of bumps and checks that American teams would call incidental. The biggest problem was the floor, though, which was super slippery. I saw a bunch of people bust their ass trying to change direction, and between that and the no-wind there were tons of blades to the break side for goals, very difficult to take away options downfield. But most teams had a wide spectrum of individual skill levels, so I still got a bunch of D's (and of course threw mad goals) all weekend. A bunch of turnovers too, but it's hard to say how many were receiver error. I think at my next indoor tournament I'll be with a stronger team so I can play more of a role and focus on no-turnover play, but this weekend was very much about fun and flash with not many real handlers to work with. It felt great to get out there, though, and it's cool that I get to prepare so well for Mercer Midnight Madness and NJ indoor league. Home in 3 weeks!

Jay-Z - Blue Magic (Big Z Remix)

3kg medball 300 with sprints:

after each exercise, sprint 20yds out and back

Overhead squats

Wall balls

Clap pushups

Chops R

Chops L

Big circles clockwise

Big circles counterclockwise

Swings

Rotations (20 to each side)

Split squats R

Split squats L

Rocky solos clockwise

Rocky solos counterclockwise

Situps with a bounce-pass off wall

V-ups, pass ball between feet/hands

all exercises 20 reps with a 3kg medball, except pushups

Completed in 11:20

25 3kg medball slams

25 3kg 10ft medball sideways throws R

25 3kg 10ft medball sideways throws L

25 3kg medball throws up, high as possible

Practice was mostly scrimmage, and I worked on tight defense. Looks like I'll be attending an indoor tournament this weekend. Sweet.

Missy Elliot - Wake Up (Ratatat Remix)

1mi in 6:05 (3:05, 3:00)

walk 800m rest

1mi in 6:13 (1:33, 1:34, 1:33, 1:33)

10 pullups at +3kg

8 pullups

25 SL RDL 3kg each leg

Did the run before practice. Worked on the ending height of my throws during practice. After practice did the exercises with a medball, but they were closing so I couldn't do the rest I had planned. Actually I didn't even do the 8 pullups in the hall, I had to climb a streetsign post to do them.

Jay-Z - Sunshine (Ratatat Remix)

4x(5 pistol squats per leg

10 decline pushups)

1x(10 pistol squats per leg

20 decline pushups)

10 deadlift 19.5kg (42lb)

Tabata abs: 8x(20sec on, 10sec off)

30 toe touches (legs vertical)

15 leg lifts

12 scissor kicks (four-count)

15 flutter kicks (four-count)

23 toe touches (legs vertical)

15 leg lifts

13 bicycles (four count)

14 V-ups

8 pushups at +42lb from ground

Jay-Z - DOA

30 pushups

1.7k uphill in 10:15 (1.06mi)

5:30 rest

1.5k downhill in 6:30 (0.93mi)

20 decline pushups

15 decline pushups

10 decline pushups

10 pushups

5 single pushups, from the ground

30 minutes stretching/yoga

King Geedorah - Next Levels ft...

Went out early again and met Doug from Harvard (and Longmeadow HS) for some jogging, around a mile working my way from slow to strong. Tried a bunch of times to do a muscle-up, unsuccessful but close a couple times. Worked on my mark during the throwing segment, did well in the box-out-while-cutting drill, then we worked on indoor zone defense. I love shredding zones. Afterwards scrimmage, almost exclusively zone...I got some good D's as the deep, skied two defenders for a goal, got skied once for an ill-advised razor. Afterwards a beer with the guys Fun night, though I miss full-field Ultimate with full-field cuts. Hopefully will get some on Sunday.

Lil' Wayne ft. Drake - I'm Goin' In

21-15-9 pullups/burpees

Completed in 9:12

Medball 300: 20 reps each of

Overhead squats

Deadlifts

R chops

L chops

Wall balls

Standing Russian twists

R big circles

L big circles

R split squats

L split squats

Clean and press

R SL RDL

L SL RDL

Situps, bounce pass off wall

V-ups, pass ball from feet to hands

At beginners practice in Mainz I worked on accuracy from different release points (because we threw for more than 300 minutes), dump defense, and...ok the scrimmage was not very helpful this time. Too many people who had no idea what they were doing.