Off Season Day 48

Aug 15 Vikings Games
Aug 16 Arms
Aug 17 Agility, Run, Legs

In the afternoon and evening of August 15 I played in two games of inline hockey at Gawler.  This was the second week in a row I've done this.  I think I coped with it better despite both games being more demanding than their counterparts from the week before.  Importantly, the next morning I was nowhere near as sore either.

The first game had been four v four (ie. only one on the bench for each team) and every player could skate.  Thus, recovery periods were short and shifts were long and one had to be disciplined.  In the second game I played the role of 'responsible reserve' and tended to give as much time as they wanted to the team's own players.  This time, though, there were only two 'naturals' playing with us, so that led to more and harder minutes than the week before.

My aerobic recovery on the bench was sufficient to the task in both games and I was able to sustain play through extended shifts allowing others to recover.  Keeping my legs moving as soon as I had regained breath and, importantly, through the period between the games dissipated much of the lactic build up I was probably suffering and, I think, made a big difference the following morning.

The improvement from the week before is probably most due to a 'conditioning effect', of knowing what to expect (allowing conscious mindfulness) and having prepared the body for the experience (freeing up the mind).  Although I had eaten sufficient for the task through the day, probably the easiest way to further improve my performance will be through better dietary energy loading.

On August 16 I was still a little fatigued (though less than I had been in the previous week) and thus was again in danger of declaring the day an unplanned 'rest day'.  I did manage, however, to motivate myself to the extent of doing an arms session, usual weights, two circuits of ten reps, cutting the recovery time from 90s to 75s.

On August 17 I commenced my new life as a self funded layabout (having taken a package in return for my day job) so I put my status to good use and spent about ninety minutes on training activities.  I started with 25 minutes of agility drills, limiting myself to the four 'easiest' of them and trying to keep all movements slow and measured so I can drill into my neuromuscular self the movements needed before I step up the pace.  I did five reps of each drill, limiting myself to about the 5s per rep that is recommended for beginners with 25s recovery periods.

I found that by the end of the fifth rep I generally had the gross movement patterns down and was starting to concentrate on the 'popping' of the steps (removing the pause between contraction and extension motions), the point of the exercise.  If the motions are drilled in it will be interesting to see how the quickness develops in the next agility session.  For the record the four agility drills I commenced today were Forward (and Backward) Line Drill, Lateral Line Drill, Split Leg Shuffle and Split Leg 45' Shuffle.

I then went for my usual run.  I didn't stop to stretch and walked only twice (about 100m each time).  I was taking smaller steps than in past due pain in my calves from some ill considered isometrics I was doing yesterday (serves me right, I should know better) so my time was still relatively slow at 24 minutes.  Going at the slower pace, however, also allowed me to be a little more fine tuned with my breathing awareness, able to track VO2 efficiency (I suppose) against energy demand as I varied the pace.  Hopefully the legs feel better tomorrow.

To finish off the day's exercise I spent about a half hour going through my core leg exercises.  I left hardly any time between sets, and generally only 5-15s between reps.  Even so I didn't manage to fit the whole routine into the time available (no squats or Swedish Ball Planks).