Run to Eintracht Training

90 minutes yoga

6.5km / 4mi in 31:40 (7:55 pace)

1.5 hours of indoor practice, including:
15 clap pushups per turnover
Total: 130


Yeah...I did them even if it was a turnover because the receiver dropped it. Plus I threw in an extra ten for a hammer I completed for a goal that probably wasn't a good idea. Gotta keep things interesting somehow. Unfortunately I also stubbed my toe during practice, hopefully it heals up pretty quickly...

Night Run

Had to shift my schedule around and couldn't make it to the gym, so instead I went for a nice long jog. Less than halfway through my shins were really hurting, but I decided to ignore it and keep going. I actually wound up feeling better after a while. My first two miles were around 8:15 and 8:05 respectively, and the second half was a little faster than the first.

Total: 4.73mi in 38:00 (8:02 pace)

Feldrenner Training

Still outdoors on the turf. Tonight we did an in-cut defense drill, deep cut/defend drill, and a modified scrimmage: 4 defensive players pull to 5 offensive players. Offensive player A swings to B, who then must complete a pass that gets caught further downfield than 20yds from the endzone line--any pass caught less than 20yds from the endzone line (the "dead zone") is a turnover. Once one of the downfield players catches it past this "dead zone" they continue to play 3v3 until they score (A and B don't do anything except the first two passes, and the puller only guards B until B throws the first pass downfield, then he sits out too). It was kind of weird, and I didn't figure out all the rules right away, but it was kind of interesting as a strategic challenge.

Uni Lift

500m row in 1:53
10 overhead squat 20kg
Front squat: 5 at 40, 60, 60, 60; 4 at 65; 1 at 70kg
5 overhead squat 40kg
Bench press: 5 at 40, 50; 4 at 60; 3 at 65, 67.5, 67.5kg
Deadlift: 2 at 50, 50, 50, 50, 60, 60, 70, 70kg

5 rounds for time:
10 burpee pullups
10 knees to elbows
Finished in 10:20

Deutsche Nationalmannschaft Tryout

"Inside Rocket" is the name of the team, I believe. Their logo is awfully reminiscent of Johnny Bravo. In any case I hitched a ride with one of the Mainz captains and we got to Heidelberg comfortably before the 9am start time. After gathering and quatching for a bit the 40-odd of us went over to the track for a fitness test. Unaware that we'd be running anywhere other than the field, I didn't have my running shoes...but no biggie. It was a heart-rate/VO2-max test of some kind, involving a heart rate monitor and a jog around the track following a pace-bicyclist. The jog got harder and harder though, speeding up every 400m, until eventually I tapped out at 3600m with a heart rate of 198. It wound up being approximately 2.325mi in 18:30, or 7:47 average pace, which sounds easy (considering I've done 3.1mi at like 6:27 pace) but I haven't been running and it showed. Compare to my last VO2 max test.

Anyway after that we split into 4 teams and did a breakmark drill, then played a mini-tournament with games to 7. After breaking for lunch we had another game to 7 and then a combined scrimmage, which my team won (putting me at 3-2 for the day in scrimmages). I played fairly well, but I wasn't used to playing that much at that high a level--not every player is strong, but enough are that it was no picnic trying to play defense. I also had to play downfield a lot and was having trouble working myself into the offense at times, problems with timing and not pushing deep enough in my cuts. The biggest problem though was that each team had only three or four subs, so there wasn't a ton of rest. Lots of fun, though. Looking forward to tomorrow.

After the last scrimmage we listened to a little training advice, showered and then gorged ourselves on Greek food at a nearby restaurant. Nice.

Uni Lift

10 overhead squats 20kg
2x5 hang clean to front squat to push jerk 40kg
Clean and jerk: 4 at 50, 4 at 60, 2 at 65, 3x2 at 70kg
Bent-over row: 3x8 at 40kg
Rear-leg elevated split squat: 10 per leg at 24kg
2x(10 pushups with R hand elevated, 10 pushups with L hand elevated)
2x10 bosu plank reverse single-leg hyperextensions
4x20 dead bugs
25 leg-elevated toe-touches
10 ring pushups

Feldrenner Training

Some weird drills, and the mixed scrimmage at the end was kind of disappointing, but the 3v4 scrimmage was good. I put some nice leading long throws out. I'll have to focus on keeping my vision open on offense this weekend, though--I'm going to tryouts for the German National team and don't want to make stupid turnovers because I didn't see the poach. Also, tighter defense. As always.

Uni Lift

500m row in 2:05
10 overhead squat at 20kg
Front squat: 5 at 40, 50kg
Back squat: 3 at 70, 80, 85*, 80kg
Bench press: 5 at (40, 50), 3 at (60, 65, 70), 7 at 60kg

Partner WoD: 6 rounds
A: row 200m
B: continuous movement of 15kg plate

Angry Dave Abs

Finished all the 200m rows in under 0:45, tried to push myself on the plate movements but it got pretty difficult by the end. Oh, and for the back squat I didn't go full RoM at 85kg, because I was worried if I went parallel I wouldn't get able to get back up. Felt good on the bench press though.

Eintracht Training

I'm not really feeling the leadership. I agree that it's important to learn to throw with touch...but I'm not really interested in perfecting my air-bounce backhand. That was what we did for the first twenty minutes of practice. The next twenty minutes? Blades. Okay, so it's indoor. But still.

But there was thirty or so minutes of scrimmage at the end and the drills weren't all bad...just not really my cup of tea, strategically speaking. Plus with the beginners I get good practice having to attack discs on the edge of my sphere of catchability. I also met Jared, a player from Denver who picks up for a week with whatever team is in whatever city Cirque du Soleil happens to visit (he's one of their lighting techs). Nice guy, interesting job, pretty cool way to see the world.

Sore

Yeah, my body tells me it's been a while. Started out sore, ended with some shin splints going on so I cut my run a little short.

2.4mi in 19:00 (1 in 7:00, 1 in 8:00, 0.4 in 3:00)

10 minutes foam rolling
5 minutes stretching
2x(5 fingertip pushups, 10 fist pushups)
10 V-ups, 10 leg lifts, 25 crunches, 20 situps
4x(0:45 plank, 0:15 rest)

Uni Lift

500m row in 1:48, 1:00 rest, 500m row in 1:48
Thrusters: 10 at 20, 30, 40, 45kg
SLDL to cable row: 10 at 7.5, 10kg
SLDL to DB row: 10 at 10kg
HSPU: 10 with 2 mats, 3x5 with 1 mat

21-15-9 for time:
R DB snatch 14kg
L DB snatch 14kg
Pullups
Completed in 9:06

Feldrenner Training

The structured throwing practice and the warmup drill we did really made me think about how much further along the team here in Mainz is fundamentally from Frankfurt. I don't know whether they understand the game better, or whether this team's leaders just put more thought into planning practices, but I'm a big believer in doing drills that mimic real-game situations. Even though there were plenty of errors in both cities (both teams have beginners even at their "experienced" practices) I felt a lot more incentive to push myself and improve tonight, compared to Monday, because the drill actually made sense to me. After that we played 3v3 continuous-passes, which is super tiring because I'm not used to non-stop Atlas-style play like that, and after a while my defense started really suffering...but then we moved into a full-field 7v7 mixed scrimmage, 3/4 the way it ought to be, and that was pretty great. I still can't get over how nice it is to play on a turf field, 7-9pm under the lights. I mostly handled, half the time wondering why they don't dump/swing enough and the other half of the time throwing goals to girls. Boom.

Uni Lift

3x(4 muscle-ups, rest
5 burpee pullups, rest
6 pullups at +10kg, rest)

Overhead squat: 10 at 20, 5 at 40kg
Deadlift: 5 at 60, 80, 90, 80, 60kg
Bench press: 5 at 55, 4 at 60, 4 at 60, 6 at 55kg
Hang clean to push jerk: 5 at 40, 5 at 50kg
Ring plank holds, 3x10 roman chair leg lifts
Army Abs

Met a kid from Hungary who is into Crossfit, so we're going to try to coordinate some WoDs (as best we can with the limitations of a university fitness center). I need to keep at it, though--my hands were toast by the end today and I couldn't even keep my grip for the few hang cleans I did. It's frustrating that I can't drop the weight. But either way, looking back on some of my old workouts, there's a lot of work to do just to get back to where I was in-season...

Eintracht Training

Indoor training in Höchst. Much closer than Mainz, a lot more people, but not nearly at the same level. Frustrating at times, but still definitely good practice for me--I got to work on my throws, run around indoors and remember how bad it is for your knees. I got to work on my defense against a squirrely asian kid (aren't they all?) and I had some fun.