Update continued.

Right. So I said that I would post the workout that we did on Sunday for plyos. Well, here it is:

Six Stations:
1) Box Shuffles
2) Box Jumps for speed/Slalom Jumps for height/Slalom Jumps for speed (we did a different one of these three every time we rotated through the stations)
3) Squat Thrusts
4) Wall Touches (off of rapid hops)
5) Frog Leaps
6) Scissor Jumps

First, we each did 2 full court suicides in relay groups of 2. We then divided into six groups and split amongst the stations, doing 45 seconds per station and then rotating to the next station. Before starting the next station, we would do 20 seconds of a stationary workout. These stationary workouts were: foot fires, high knees, butt kicks, shadow drill, shadow drill, and then foot fires. We took a short break and then jumped off each foot and off of both feet multiples times at the basketball rims. Then we did each of the six stations (and the 20 second stationary workouts that went with them) twice again. Then we divided into relay groups of 4 and did 3 full court suicides. Then we did 4 sets of 20 pushups with six inch leglifts held for 20 seconds between each set of pushups. Then we did 3 full court suicides in our groups of 4. Then we did an ab workout with 40 repetitions of each of the abdominal excercises we do (somebody told me that it amounted to 420 crunches or so). Then we did 2 full court suicides in our groups of 4.

So, yeah. It was a pretty tough workout. My legs were pretty sore for a couple days after, and I'm sure most other people felt the same way. It's that kind of workout, though, that's going to get us into the shape we need to be in when the season really gets going. A couple sad notes, however. Josh sprained his ankle playing basketball between sets of plyos and will be out for at least a couple weeks, it looks like. He's keeping a good outlook about it, though, continuing to work out however he can and eat relatively healthily. I believe that he will rebound well from this injury and be a dominant force for our team. John, my brother, also hurt himself during that workout. He pulled a hamstring, which he has done at least once a season for the last several years (ever since falling over backwards out of a chair, which misaligned his hips). He says it doesn't feel too horrible and that he will be back as soon as possible.

Today's track workout wasn't nearly as miserable as I had anticipated. The indoor track at Curry Hicks is only 165 meters long instead of 200, but I set us up to run 200 times (30 seconds per rep, 30 seconds rest between reps, 4 rep sets). We did 3 sets of 4 sprints. It was tiring, but certainly nothing terribly difficult. Next time, we'll have to increase the pace and drop the rest, or something. It's an inexact science and I'm still trying to get the hang of it. When we finished running, we did 4 sets of 15 pushups (with six inch leglifts held between each set) and my ab workout to 40 of each exercise. Next week, I think we're going to up it to 50 crunches per exercise. It's going to be glorious.

My conversation with the track coach this morning was pretty entertaining. He was pumped to hear that the Ultimate Frisbee team wanted to use Curry Hicks to get in shape ("You guys gotta come get your asses in shape!"), and told me that we could come there any day after 5pm to work out. He then cautioned me about the dusty floor of the track (it is pretty filthy), telling me to be careful that nobody hurts an ankle. He explained that the facilities guys usually only sweep one lane because they know that they can get away with leaving dirt on the track. "They only clean the things that people care about," he said, "like the basketball court." He then seemed to get a glimmer of hope and asked me whether the Ultimate team could pull some strings and get the school to start cleaning the track, therebye helping everybody. Sadly, I had to reply that the Ultimate team doesn't have any clout with Anybody in the administration. But that's okay. I'm just glad that I got to see the athletic hierarchy of Umass in action. I guess Basketball is pretty set in the pecking order above Track, but both are miles ahead of Ultimate.