In my never ending quest to dunk a basketball I’ve come across some surprisingly potent exercises for developing explosive athletic power. These explosive movements integrate beautifully into an ultimate frisbee workout and here’s why:
- Ultimate players need to be able to sprint in order to perform well during every aspect of the game (offence and defence)
- It’s important to be able to change direction suddenly in ultimate frisbee – that’s why this ultimate frisbee workout includes movements to enhance a player’s agility
- Frisbee players benefit greatly by being able to jump higher than their opponents (jumping and sprinting both recruit the same muscle groups, so training one trains them both)
- Ultimate players generally have busy lives, and this ultimate frisbee workout doesn’t take long (power workouts are more convenient than endurance workouts for this reason)
In order to create this ultimate frisbee workout, I’ve cherry-picked specific exercises directly from three of the most impressive athletes on the internet: Anthony Lugo, Reid Hall, and Jacob Tucker.
And in the case of creating the most effective ultimate frisbee workout possible, the best athletes to draw inspiration from aren’t always ultimate players.
The athletes I’ve been inspired by come from a variety of athletic backgrounds where explosive power is of prime importance – football, basketball and volleyball.
I believe strongly that there is a single factor that sets exceptional athletes apart.
It simply comes down to a willingness to put in the work over the long term.
If you want to step into the mindset of the most legendary athletes of all time, I encourage you to read Relentless – From Good To Great To Unstoppable.
Learning From Absolute Animals
It turns out that some of the most powerful athletes in the world have workouts you can buy online.
This is the case with Anthony Lugo, who is easily the most impressive overall athlete (and certainly jumper) at 5′ 10″, which is my height. Lugo is also 15 pounds heavier than I am, which was important for me to learn because it dispelled any misconceptions I had about putting on muscle being counterproductive to jumping higher.
15 additional pounds of muscle (Lugo weighs 195 lbs to my 180 lbs) appears to be well worth the gravitational disadvantage when it comes to getting UP.
I was drinking whiskey by myself one night and watching these jump videos – and I made the impulse decision to buy Anthony’s jump program: Flight School.
The good thing about actually paying for workouts is you feel super guilty about not doing them. So, for me at least, I actually do the workouts if there’s a sunk cost fallacy involved. I’ve found that money on the line gets my ass off the couch.
I trained (and rested) every day as the program detailed. I followed it perfectly. But I didn’t get the results I wanted. So I looked for another program (this is not to say Flight School isn’t a fantastic program, I just needed something more in-depth).
Professional Training, Professional Results
The impression I had from Flight School was that although Anthony Lugo is himself an insane athlete, it wasn’t obvious that he also had a track record of replicating those results in the people he trained.
I had just wrapped up Flight School and was disappointed with my lack of improvement. A friend of mine (who had set the McMaster University Volleyball team record for vertical jump, at 36 inches) David Zanchetta brought another training system to my attention.
Enter the Heavy Cavalry
After a cursory review of his material, I payed Reid Hall, a former Team Canada volleyball player to develop a custom workout program for me.
Reid’s approach was to design a workout that would make my entire body measurably stronger, more stable, and much more capable of generating explosive power.
This was a more holistic approach than I had taken before – which was to simply focus on making my legs and back stronger for jumping.
So at the tail end of 8 months of hard training – I was finally getting results. I was setting personal records for max lifts, standing jumps, and maximum jumps. I could feel enormous change in my performance in ultimate frisbee games.
I was making plays I didn’t think my body was capable of – pulling discs out of the air from heights that seemed impossible to me.
During these final months, I learned that many of the exercises I had been doing my whole life took more time than they were worth in terms of producing athletic gains.
I also learned that there were a select handful of exercises which produced disproportionately greater increases in my stability, strength, power, and overall athleticism.
I’ve designed this ultimate frisbee workout to include only exercises that pack massive value for the time you spend doing them. This isn’t a promise that you will get instant results – because you won’t. You need to work very hard for a long time and it’s going to suck.
This is simply me highlighting the exercises which have lead to my greatest gains in power and performance.
Will I Burn Fat and Build Muscle?
Yes, 100%.
The addition of any power workout routine will set a downward trend in body fat and stimulate muscle growth. This ultimate frisbee workout is no exception.
If you truly commit do doing these exercises every day, you will burn fat and build muscle just as surely as the sun rises. Unless it’s cloudy. Then the sunrise is not so bright.
I guess we could riff on this and say that there are plenty of self-sabotaging efforts available to destroy your gains. You intuitively know what these obnoxious indulgences are, and if you abuse them, you won’t see much in terms of fat loss / muscle gain.
From experience, I’ve been pretty well behaved while working out. I sleep pretty well, eat pretty well, and don’t drink too much or overly indulge in recreational drugs. So the fact that I’ve become visibly leaner and more muscular over the course of the year makes total sense.
Harnessing Inefficiency for Athletic Gains
Now, every athlete is different and what worked well for me may not work optimally for you.
However, I firmly believe there’s enormous benefit in doing workouts you’ve never done before in order to maximize “beginner gains”.
Most of the workouts contained in the programs I purchased introduced me to movements I had to learn to do for the first time.
These new movements were intimidating because I didn’t like the feeling of not being all that good at them right away. I had that uncomfortable feeling of being a raw beginner again – and it made my mind squirm. I didn’t like the new exercises and I wanted to stop.
BUT being a beginner comes with beginner gains and that applies to training in a significant way. When you do exercises you’ve never done before, your body is initially inefficient at executing the new movements.
To really butcher the science here, your body hates inefficiency and so it adapts rapidly to these new motions. Nerves become more robust to accommodate the new technique, effectively transforming brain and muscle composition in the process.
The connection between your brain and muscles upgrades from dial-up internet to land-line.
Training just outside of our comfort zone has come to be known as “deep practice” – and is critical to developing mastery in any discipline.
The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp. Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it’s about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.
Daniel Coyle, Author of The Talent Code
Stimulating our bodies with exposure to new and challenging workouts is where we get our greatest gains from. It’s known as the principle of adaptation in sports medicine, and it also accounts for the reason we see diminishing returns the longer we do any one workout.
So, if we want to continue to improve as athletes, we need to continually change up how we’re exercising. This variety exposes us to new movement patterns and forces our bodies to continually adapt.
I’ve included a wide range of motions in this ultimate frisbee workout. So, switch between them frequently and keep your body guessing (and adapting) optimally.
What Gear Do I Need For The Ultimate Frisbee Workout?
I’ve noticed something funny about myself.
If faced with even the slightest obstacle to working out, I simply won’t work out. Even the slightest inconvenience can totally derail my workout efforts if I’m not careful with how I approach (and think about) working out itself.
I need to “rig my workouts” in order to actually do them. And much of the time, this “rigging” is simply the removal of complexity.
Eliminating the steps necessary to do in preparation for the workout (like putting on shoes and driving to the gym) has been an effective way for me to find fewer excuses not to workout.
And so, I work out (or “actively recover”) every single day – unless I have a brutal hangover (this still happens a few times a year… after weddings, for example) or am otherwise physically incapacitated.
A huge part of why I actually do this ultimate frisbee workout on a regular basis comes down to this:
This ultimate frisbee workout doesn’t require fancy equipment, a gym membership, or large chunks of time.
You don’t even need shoes for this workout. I play ultimate frisbee barefoot, so it follows that I would train for ultimate frisbee barefoot as well.
Even if you don’t play ultimate in bare feet, it makes sense to train in bare feet because doing so engages all those little muscles in your feet and toes.
Training in bare feet encourages you to make softer contact with the ground when running or jumping, which strengthens supportive ankle muscles and reduces long-term wear on joint cartilage, tendons and ligaments.
Wearing shoes all day weakens the feet and arches, but barefoot exercise strengthens the muscles and improve the arches.
Fred Beaumont of the Institute of Chiropodists and Podiatrists
Resistance Bands Optional
Because this ultimate frisbee workout contains torque components, a stretchy band is useful but not crucial. You can order resistance bands on Amazon for $15.
Or you can just swing a heavy rock or bag filled with sand. I made my own resistance band using $12 of surgical latex tubing from Home Depot.
How Often Should I Train?
Every single day.
There are no days off.
Training includes recovery (discussed later in this post) and therefore you want to think of your “days off” not as “days off” but as “active recovery” days. This means you still have the mindset that you’re going to be moving your body, going for a big walk or a moderate bike ride, as well as stretching and resting and eating well.
You want to position yourself ideally for the next workout, and a big part of that is keeping the momentum and confidence you’ve built up by doing past workouts.
A good place to start is following a “3 and 1” pattern. Work out for 3 days in a row, and then have 1 active recovery day to stretch, roll out, hike, swim, do yoga, and recover.
I do some form of intense workout every single day. Because it rarely lasts for over an hour, I find that I’m fresh enough the next day to do another intense workout.
Approaching it this way removes the choice of whether or not to work out. The answer is always yes. If I’m feeling tired, I just go lighter that day. If I’m raring to go, I go hard. But I always go.
What if I Don’t Have Time to Work Out?
If you don’t have time for your ultimate frisbee workout it’s because working out isn’t a priority for you.
Until now, of course.
Make working out important and you’ll have time to do something every day. Even if it’s just a 10 second “hard style” plank.
That said, I have two very young children and truly appreciate how hard it is to shim a workout into an already jam-packed day.
For efficiency, I’ve broken up this ultimate frisbee workout into separate exercise units. This way, if you’re short on time, you can do just one of the exercises and call it a win (which it absolutely is).
Or, if your schedule is structured so it’s actually not possible to work out every day – you can do longer workouts, less frequently, including more of the exercises listed below.
It’s up to you.
I usually train somewhere between these two extremes. Usually, my personal ultimate frisbee workout includes 2 or 3 of the exercises below on any given day – lasting between 20 minutes and 1 hour.
There are other days where I only have time to do one set of broad jumps, and that’s fine. On those days I’m mostly keeping the habit alive, and that’s the most important thing.
A 1 minute workout every day is infinitely better than a 0 minute workout every day.
I generally try not to do the same exercises on consecutive days, but even avoiding adaptation is not terribly important if doing the same workout every day is easier for you to do consistently.
If You Want To Become Unstoppable, You Can Never Stop Working Hard
What’s important is doing the work, consistently, forever. If you want to be unstoppable, you can never stop working hard.
I really want to emphasize this point, because it is everything.
Stop thinking about working out as temporary (a means to an end), and start thinking of working out as an inseparable part of who you are.
Adopting this mindset will inevitably change your physicality.
It will elevate your confidence.
It will make you unstoppable.
Do Whatever Works for You
The deeper mission in all of this is to get you to work out every single day – light or hard it doesn’t matter. Same exercises or a variety, it doesn’t matter.
This ultimate frisbee workout is built to be flexible, so do what works for you, and do it every day.
Adaptation Vs. Habit
To recap: if you do the same exact workout every day, over time, your body will begin to adapt to the exercise and you won’t benefit as much in terms of gains.
But this potentially negligible loss in gains (I truly have no clue what you’d lose in reality) to adaptation is probably outweighed by the behavioural benefit of doing the same thing every day and developing a permanent habit of working out every day.
I don’t know the correct answer here. The regular workout habit needs to be in place before adaptation even becomes a problem. So if you only pick 3 exercises from this ultimate frisbee workout and do those every single day, that’s likely perfectly fine.
Just be mindful that this can lead to developing muscular imbalances if carried out over the long term. After a month or so, it would be wise to transition toward working the opposing muscle groups.
There is no silver bullet. Gains come from putting in hard work over the long term.
You will benefit from doing anything consistently, and most of the battle is simply not doing nothing.
Reps and Sets: 5 x 5 = POWER
To keep things simple, most of the workouts listed below are to be completed in 5 sets of 5 repetitions (unless otherwise noted).
5 x 5 is the golden standard of power development.
The 5×5 program was designed to increase strength, breaking plateaus, and periodization… It was designed for strength athletes because one of the most common effects seen by it is an increase in strength.
Shannon Clark (View source article at Bodybuilding.com)
Along with the strength however you will most often see an increase in muscle mass as well, provided you are eating enough calories to support this muscle growth.
Power is an expression of strength and speed. It is the ability to generate large amounts of force quickly. So power is exactly what we want in an ultimate frisbee workout.
Building power is an ideal way to improve sprinting and jumping ability for ultimate frisbee. The goal is to execute these exercises at full intensity. High quality reps (good technique and high effort for each repetition) will lead to impressive gains.
Low-effort “workouts” do almost nothing to stimulate muscle growth, and are a waste of time if your goal is bigger than “breaking a sweat” or “to burn a few calories.”
Because we’re shooting for maximum exertion on each repetition, a relatively long 2 minute rest period in between sets is important. This ensures our muscles are fresh again for the next set and ready to deliver at full power.
Depending on your current fitness level and the nature of the exercise, you might need a little more (or less) time to recover – so just do it by feel. Remember that starting the next set before you are fully recovered from the last set is only hurting your gains.
Wait until you’re fresh enough to deliver again at maximum effort.
There’s no rush. Take your time! Power takes months to develop, and ideally you will incorporate these ultimate frisbee workout exercises into your life over the long term.
Technique and Execution
Adhere to the following principals in order to avoid injury while attempting to maximally stimulate muscle growth and power development:
- Focus on fast concentric contraction. Simply put, anytime you’re going up, go as fast as you can. This means “exploding” when you jump or “contract” (shorten) your muscles – as quickly as possible. You’re also training your Central Nervous System to send more urgent signals to your muscles to get them to fire harder! If you’re unaccustomed to working out with maximum effort, be happy – this will be an area of great (and probably rapid) improvement for you!
- Go for slow concentric muscular extension. This simply means landing as softly as possible from a jump and absorbing the forces in your muscles instead of in your skeleton (which can’t take the force nearly as well). Slowing the “lowering” portion of a push-up or pull-up leads to superior muscle growth because of increased micro-tearing (hypertrophy) during a muscle’s lengthening phase.
- Aim to keep shoulders, hips, knees and ankles in alignment when doing these exercises. Don’t let your knees buckle inward or bow outward when jumping. Keep them bending in as straight a plane as possible. It helps to record yourself doing these motions and compare them to videos of people you see online with good technique. This way you can see if you’re actually doing the technique properly – which takes time to learn, and adjust your technique where necessary.
Become Unstoppable: The Ultimate Frisbee Workout
Here it is, the actual workout portion of the post!
Each exercise is accompanied by a short video of me demonstrating the movement. I encourage you to watch other YouTube videos about each movement in your down time, as I don’t cover technique very deeply for the sake of trying to keep this monstrosity of a blog post somewhat bearable. Also, I’m no technical expert in any of these exercises.
There are much smarter people than myself breaking these motions down perfectly on YouTube – so do your own studying and familiarize yourself with the finer technical points where you feel you could use a bit more knowledge.
The exercises are listed below. It’s a good idea to combine a more difficult movement (like Pistol Squats) and an easier “maintenance” movements (like Banded Stars and Single Leg Deadlifts) in the same workout so that you’re developing strength and doing a bit of maintenance work in each session.
I’ve done my best to put together a balanced set of exercises that compliment one another by hitting all of the major anterior and posterior muscle groups.
Most of the exercises are “compound” motions, which means they recruit several major muscle groups simultaneously, making for a very time-efficient way to exercise.
Single Leg “Speed Skater Jumps”
I don’t know what else to call these as I believe they were invented recently by one of the most athletically impressive human beings currently alive: Jacob Tucker. The guy has a 50″ vertical. He played for the Harlem Globetrotters. He’s a freak. And he swears by this exercise.
Lateral Bounds
King of all agility exercises, lateral bounds are fantastic for improving an ultimate frisbee player’s ability to change direction explosively.
Box Jumps
I love these. Box jumps are an ingenious way to increase concentric reps (the jump itself) without having to pay as high of an eccentric price (landing hard).
Box jumps allow you to get more jumps in with less soreness the next day, so you can work out on consecutive days.
When choosing a box to jump onto, make sure it is stable and not too high. The jump itself should be maximum effort, but the height of the box doesn’t have to push your limits.
Single Leg Step-Up Jumps
This exercise works that all-important explosive first step when launching into a sprint or taking off with one leg and jumping for the disc.
When starting out, step up on a smallish ledge and gradually increase the ledge height until your knee is at a 90 degree angle (or just under).
Broad Jumps
Focus on timing your arm-swing to deliver as much added boost to your jump as you can. This means you’re actually winding up your arms for the next jump while you’re still airborne.
Thing about thrusting your hips forward powerfully with each jump.
Single Leg Bounds (Skipping)
My daughter does single leg bounds wherever she goes. Channel your inner Super Mario and smash those bricks!
High Catches From Kneeling
The player who reads the disc the best usually comes down with it. In this drill we sharpen our ability to contact the disc at the highest point possible.
Banded Lateral Twists
Adding torsional strength increases core stability, which is necessary to throw the disc super far.
Banded Star
Targeting the oft-neglected muscles in the upper-back and shoulders is an excellent idea if you want to avoid injury (especially if you work at a computer all day like I do).
“Hard-Style” Plank
Of course the Russians invented it. This plank is hailed as the king of the core-strength category and for good reason. Hard-Style planks were the first time I’d encountered the instructions to “brace yourself as if someone is going to kick you.”
Supine Bridge
Draw circles in the air, or do the alphabet. This exercise has to be good for you because it sucks that much.
Med Ball Ab Twists
Abs are special, they can take an enormous amount of abuse. Work these twists until failure (this is not a 5×5 workout). Do 3 sets.
Single Leg Deadlifts
I’d argue that the single leg deadlift is the most valuable counter-movement in this program. It works the posterior chain, so don’t leave this out!
Pistol Squats
Possibly the most advanced and challenging exercise in this ultimate frisbee workout – pistol squats are absolutely amazing for building powerful legs and flexible ankles. This is because they provide the added mobility bonus of requiring adequate ankle dorsiflexion.
In fact, improved flexion of the foot can help your squatting, sprinting, strength, and your ability to avoid injuries in the knee, hips and low back areas.
Dorsiflexion is also important for sprinters. The ability to pick the foot off the ground quickly (dorsiflexion) and to apply force when it strikes the ground (plantarflexion) can increase speed and efficiency when running as well.
Kim McLaughlin (view article at crossfitinvictus.com)
Ladder Drills
A strong player is of little use in ultimate frisbee if she isn’t very agile. These ladder drills train our bodies to coordinate intricate movements gracefully by improving footwork and agility.
You can buy a fancy ladder on amazon but a tiled floor is just as good.
I also have a piece of sidewalk chalk I use to draw ladders in my driveway.
Yoga / Stretching
Doing yoga at the end of a workout is a great way to reward yourself with a little relaxation while doing due diligence and keeping muscles from becoming overly tight.
I neglected to include a hip-flexor and quad stretch in this ultimate frisbee workout recovery yoga flow, so here’s BJ Gaddour with a couch stretch to hit them both:
Recovery Protocol
Now that you’re training like a serious athlete, you need to take a more active role in your body’s recovery process.
This includes getting quality sleep, paying attention to alcohol intake timing, eating high quality calories, drinking mineralized water, managing environmental stressors, and stretching/rolling out sore muscles.
Optimize Sleep for Max Gains
If you’re not sleeping well, your energy suffers, and so does your workout quality. So sleeping well is the best way to both optimize gains from previous workouts, while positioning yourself ideally for high quality future workouts.
The majority of our physical repair processes occur while we sleep, so getting plenty of quality sleep (without caffeine, alcohol, or marijuana in our system) leads to quicker gains.
Avoid Blue Light Emitted by Lights and Electronic Screens
Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light to exposure to green light of comparable brightness. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours).
Harvard Health Publishing (source)
Prioritize sleep by dimming the lights and avoiding blue light when the sun goes down. Avoid looking at screens, or install a program to filter out blue light on your laptop, tablet and phone.
Avoiding blue light allows your body to release melatonin, a hormone that triggers our bodies to grow tired in preparation for a good, deep sleep.
Limit Alcohol, Coffee, and Marijuana Intake
Avoiding excessive alcohol, marijuana and caffeine intake will have a profoundly positive impact on sleep quality.
The stimulant effect of an afternoon (or evening) coffee lasts far longer than most of us think. Even if we don’t “feel” the caffeine, the time it takes to exit our bodies can cause real sleep issues.
The half-life of caffeine (time taken for the body to eliminate one-half of the caffeine) varies widely between people… In healthy adults, the half-life is approximately 5 to 6 hours.
Ananya Mandal, MD (source)
And while a couple glasses of wine with dinner or a toke of the marijuana smoke before bed can seem to help us fall asleep, these substances have negative effects on our REM (deep) sleep.
Alcohol shortens the time to fall asleep and arousal threshold changes (while under the influence little noises don’t wake you up). It wears off in the middle of the night so your arousal threshold changes. This is bad because little noises and things wake you up more and the second half of sleep is pretty low quality.
Dr. Nitun Verma (source)
“… over time researchers believe that habitual [marijuana] ingestion will suppress your REM sleep significantly.
Patrick Allan (source)
So, you can get drunk and high at night or you can get good sleep, grow muscle, and work out like an animal the next day. It’s up to you!
It’s Probably Still Okay to Drink, But Definitely Avoid Getting Hammered After a Workout
Preliminary research shows that alcohol can impair protein synthesis, or the process that builds new muscle… What’s more, a separate study from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine found that alcohol decreased the production of human growth hormone, a key part of the muscle repair and growth process, by up to 70%. Experts note that both of these studies were done with a large amount of alcohol administered to animals, so a few drinks may not have the same effect.
Sharon Liao (MensJournal.com)
So, it appears that like most things, moderate alcohol consumption isn’t going to totally derail our workout efforts. But timing our drinking so as not to overlap with an ultimate frisbee workout recovery period is a smart way to protect our gains. Maybe don’t hit the bar right after the gym?
I also know that I’m far less likely to work out when hungover. So it makes sense from a behavioural standpoint to limit my heavy drinking to days where I’m not expecting to work out the following day. Weddings exemplify this for me. Or cottage weekends.
Drink Mineralized Water
Just a tiny pinch of salt in your water will add electrolytes and keep your cells hydrated. Using pink Himalayan salt is preferable due to the amount of minerals it contains.
Natalia Quiroz (view article at alternascript.com)
Pink himilayan salts and lemon = cheap Gatorade without all the sugar. We sweat more when working out, and those minerals lost while sweating need replacing.
Eat High Quality Calories
Working out like a savage requires that you eat like a savage. This should be obvious, but high intensity workouts require high caloric input.
Don’t eat garbage and you’ll be fine.
Stay away from processed food, avoid refined sugar, and don’t eat anything containing ingredients you can’t pronounce. Shop from the outer walls of the grocery store and skip the inner aisles altogether.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael Pollan, Author of In Defense of Food
Get Your Hands On Some Creatine Monohydrate
If you’re only going to take one supplement, get some Creatine Monohydrate. It’s dirt cheap and lasts for months. It’s safe to consume and occurs naturally in our bodies anyway.
We just don’t produce as much as we age, and creatine can dramatically improve our ability to produce power with our muscles.
Athletes have been supplementing creatine monohydrate to improve exercise and strength performance for over twenty years. Creatine has been dubbed by many as a staple supplement since it is safe, natural, and effective… The result of the study indicated there was a large increase between before and after testing in mean power for the group that supplemented creatine monohydrate.
Joshua Wortman (view article at breakingmuscle.com)
It is also a nootropic (good for your brain).
Creatine is a molecule that allows cells to store energy in your brain cells for use at another time. This extra energy means you can do more work or study more effectively… Humans need creatine. We create it ourselves, and it is available in most animal products… Getting the optimal amount of creatine requires that you eat 2.5 pounds of red meat per day.
View article at Paleofx.com
Roll Out Sore or Stiff Muscles
Roll out sore muscles using a tennis ball, lacrosse ball, and/or foam roller. This breaks up the connective tissue between the skin and muscles, and improves mobility. You’re basically giving yourself a deep-tissue massage which, although sometimes painful, does a fantastic job of keeping muscles supple and ready for action.
Neglecting to do this maintenance work, for me anyway, generally results in minor muscles strains down the road. I seem to be far more resilient when I’ve been on top of my rolling out.
Olympic Lifting To Accelerate Increases in Power
If you want to extend this ultimate frisbee workout to really spike your strength and power development, I’d advise getting an olympic bar and some bumper (rubber) plates.
UPDATE: Read my article on Weight Training For Ultimate Frisbee.
Why get into olympic lifting? There’s simply no better way I’m aware of to rapidly build strength, power (and muscle) than by getting into olympic powerlifting.
Case and point, Stefi Cohen. To put things into perspective, consider the following two videos.
This is not to say that crazy progress cannot be obtained with bodyweight exercises alone.
No – what I’m saying here is this: if working out daily is new to you, get that mastered first by sticking to low-barrier-to-entry bodyweight-only exercises.
We’re focusing on removing all potential excuses people tend come up with to get out of working out.
Then, once you’re training every day (or taking rest days because you absolutely have to), and want to expand your training, that’s when I’d suggest looking into investing in a decent barbell and plates.
Or, just get a pull-up bar. Chris Heria looks like a weightlifter and he got that way with bodyweight exercises alone.
Pretty much everything he does in this video defies belief:
You could also just get a gym membership and use the gym’s weights. But there are two major reasons I prefer buying weights over renting them:
- An olympic bar and bumper plates will hold its value for a very long time, so there is resale value. Money spent on gym fees is gone forever.
- Driving to the gym is a big enough obstacle to prevent me from working out at all. My barbell lives in my backyard year-round, so lifting is as convenient as stepping outside.
Do I Need To Worry About Overtraining?
99% of the time, I’d say the answer is no – get out there and train.
But sometimes environmental stress puts you in a situation where training is not going to do you much good.
If You Made It This Far, Congratulations!
Thanks for sticking with me on this epic journey into working out for ultimate frisbee. I hope you put yourself to work with these exercises and blow your own mind once the results start coming.
Be patient, work hard, never stop.
Learn To Bomb The Disc
I’ve put together a training video teaching you how to absolutely LAUNCH a forehand throw way farther than you ever have before. Players who have used this technique are going from struggling to throw a forehand to launching it half the length of the field in a single training session. More advanced players have used this technique to start throwing their forehands the entire length of the field.
