I remember thinking in December of 2009 that I was in a vastly different place, derby-wise. I had just begun training as a skater with Belles 'n' Bombshells. I had just gotten a derby wife. My derby wife and I had spent New Year's Eve together, with our respective significant others. I was very happy. As I've noted, things changed very drastically in 2010, but when the year started, I was in a very good place. I was very comfortable with my derby life.
Right now, I think I'm happier - and wiser. Yes, I lost my first derby wife, which is something that I will always in some senses regret, no matter how badly I feel it turned out. However, a lot of people who came to mean a lot to me during the course of that year with BnB are still a part of my life. I love them just as much now as I did when I first met them - my two wonderful derby wives, Malice, Zelda, DT, Slim, Moth, Delirium, and my sweet little sisters Mystique and Reaver. We may not be skating together (except for Slim and I), but the happy memories aren't ever going to go away.
But I'm also in a much better place as an athlete. As I've mentioned over and over and over again, Burn City Rollers have shown me something entirely new from what I knew about playing derby. They've shown me a whole new level of hard work, dedication, determination, and athleticism. I love where I am, even if it might be a little lonelier than it was this time last year.
I was afraid, when BnB folded, that no matter where I went, no matter what team I skated for, I would never find another team that made me want to be as good as I could be. I was luckily wrong. I love my new old team. I want to be the best skater I can possibly be, and I can already tell that I am well on my way to breaking barriers that used to be impossible, unconscionable to even consider breaking when I was the Belles' captain.
That having been said, I wanted to share my Derby Resolutions with you. I've come up with three goals for this new year, three goals that I think will make me the best skater I can possibly be, and three goals that I hope will show my team just how much it means to me to have a place among such talented skaters.
They are:
1. Keep working on my endurance, no matter how much it hurts. I've discovered since BnB folded that my biggest problem when it came to bout time was endurance. I used to skate my 25 in 5 and struggle through it, hassling for breath and nearly puking at the end of it. That has changed drastically since I started skating with BCR. My speed has improved. My cardio endurance has shot through the roof. And my lactic acid tolerance has even improved to a point where I'm not finishing every time trial in total agony.
But I can still do better. BCR is one of the most athletic teams I've ever seen. And that challenges me. I know that I can be faster. That my endurance can improve. And that makes the pain worth it. The aching muscles, the sweat pouring out of ever pore... it's all worth it in the end. No matter the pain, I'm going to keep setting up challenging workout weeks, and keep sticking to my goals.
2. Learn to quit over-analyzing hits and just trust my instincts. I've said previously in this blog that during the BnB days, I was almost taught to be a passive hitter. Conserve your energy. Hit only when you know it will be effective. That led to me over-analyzing every single hit I thought about making, and ending up, overall, being a very passive blocker.
No more. Since starting with BCR, I've learned that if you have the right technique and the right training, hits don't have to sap all your energy. All you have to know is how to do it, and then trust your instinct to tell you when to go. This is probably the hardest goal on the list for me, because I'm very much more mental than I am instinctual. But I can learn. I know I'm a very sturdy skater, but I want to be one of the people who make other skaters wince when they know they're about to take a hit. I know I can do that, if I can only learn to trust myself, and to play more aggressively.
3. Pay more attention to what I eat, because the quality of fuel affects the quality of the performance. This is almost a no-brainer. I have done what I feel is a good job watching what I eat, and paying more attention to calories. But now I want to change the quality of the fuel- more efficient metabolism, and more healthy meals.
What are your derby resolutions for the year? How do you want to improve yourself for your team? Or for yourself?
Showing posts with label cardio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardio. Show all posts
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Monday, November 15, 2010
American Jumping Bean
Today's butt-kicking is all about plyometrics. I'd never even heard this word until I started skating seriously, but in the opinion of many skaters (speed skaters especially), plyometrics is what can make the difference between a good skater and a great skater - a good skater practices only on skates, and a great skater trains off-skates with plyometrics to improve muscle strength, explosiveness, and agility.
Given that those are three things that I really feel I need as a skater, I can't ignore plyometrics. Besides, if speed skaters do it, there's no reason it wouldn't be good for roller derby skaters; in spite of the different natures of our sports, there's a good deal of crossover, at least as far as what we want out of our bodies. Both sports call for good cardio and muscle endurance and strength, good explosive power for sprinting past other skaters, good agility for slipping through the holes other skaters leave as they move around the track, and a strong stride that uses as few strokes as possible to go as far as possible.
That having been said, my plan for this week, as it has evolved, involves me working on some cardio endurance, muscle strength, and explosiveness training today.
Here's today's regimen:
WARMUP: 1 lap walk, 2 laps jog, 1 run, 1 cooldown.
Stretch.
Run Coliseum stairs - goal time, 20 minutes or less for a whole lap.
PLYOMETRICS:
-tuck jumps, 3x 10
-lunge jumps, 3x 16 (8 per leg)
-box jumps, 3x 12
-forward lunges, 3x 10
-backward lunges, 3x 10
-squats, 3x10
-wall sit, 2 min.
COOLDOWN: brisk walk, 2 laps.
Stretch.
In practice, it didn't go badly at all. I was decidedly not in an exercising mood today; it was gray, rainy, and on those types of days, I really prefer to just hang out around the house and relax. Oh, and it was also chilly outside. One of those typical Alabama November days that had me much more likely to enjoy curling up under a blanket and reading a book than working my butt off at the Coliseum.
To the Coliseum we went, a little bit later than originally planned. We started off with a three-lap warmup instead of five. It had been a few days since I'd exercised and, I admit, I crapped out because my shins and ankles were feeling grumpy pounding on that concrete floor. We stretched, then got ready for the real kicker- running all 40 sections of the Coliseum seating, up and down the stairs until we'd completed a whole lap.
We tried this for the first time about a week ago, and I was not impressed with my own results. I was easily winded, my legs felt like jello, and I had to stop a few times because I didn't feel like my legs could maintain the strength to go safely down the stairs. Tonight, I set the two of us a goal: Make the whole lap with no stops, in under 20:00.
That was a resounding success. Our ending time was 11:42. This kind of blew my mind, to be honest. Like I said, the first time I'd done it, my legs had felt positively awful. This time, I even paced myself carefully, starting out more moderately than I could have so I could have a burst of speed to finish at the end. I was out of breath at points, but that was the point, of course. I was frankly shocked that our time could be that much different (it took at least 20 minutes the first time we tried it). I guess I'd chalk it up to a bad day, or maybe just knowing that I had the pressure of a time limit; that tends to make a big difference for me when I'm trying to beat a clock.
After the out and out cardio, we switched to out and out plyometrics. It's a bit of a meaningless distinction to make, however, considering how out of breath I got doing the jumps. The lunge jumps I found easy, and could probably increase the reps to 20 or more. I didn't start feeling any tiredness until the third set. The other two, I could definitely sense some muscle jello going on- the farther up I tried to tuck my legs after more reps, the harder it was for me to do that. Sometimes I felt like I was barely getting off the ground. The only thing that I had an issue with was the landing; again, doing these tuck jumps on concrete was hurting the hell out of my ankles, and I think at points I was landing way too hard. That's something for me to work on, and perhaps research a bit. There were points where I was definitely getting more than muscle pain out of those exercises. Another alteration I want to make for our next set of plyo is the rest period in between exercises. We took brief rests in between each set (maybe about 30 seconds or so), but the rests between the different jumps were three minutes, and I think that was too much; for the next plyo set we do, I'm bumping the time down to two minutes.
We moved on to the lunges next, and I set the time between those down to one minute, because they were much less high impact. I also bumped up the reps - for the forward and backward lunges and squats, we did three sets of 20 rather than three sets of 10. The lunges were a bit challenging by the end, but I think, again, it's a case where we may want to increase the reps; maybe 30 per leg instead of 20. The squats I definitely felt, especially the lower I got. By the end of the sets of squats, my knees were shaking badly, but my quads were burning in that good kind of way. From there, we moved on to a 2 minute wall sit, which, by this point, was VERY challenging. I had to readjust my position a number of times and couldn't keep holding a 90 degree angle with my legs. My legs felt outright weak and wobbly after I finished it.
That, of course, was a perfect time to run a one-lap time trial around the top of the coliseum. We don't know exactly what the distance is, but we think each lap is about 1/4 of a mile. Both of us took off at a dead sprint. We both got about the same time, with a three second difference between. I actually finished the faster of the two of us at 1:14, which pleased me since my husband is usually the faster of the two when it comes to running.
One thing that was very strange about running that lap: I controlled my breathing pretty well for most of the lap, because I had noticed that I have a bad tendency to hold my breath when I'm doing cardio. For about halfway around the lap, I wasn't particularly winded. When I was on my third leg of four, I started to lose my breath a little bit, but that felt normal. Oddly enough, the last five sections of seats, my body started giving. It was like a switch snapped off- all of a sudden, my legs were rubbery, and I could hardly push without feeling like all my muscles were going to snap somehow. I finished slower than I wanted to (perhaps a pacing error on my part, after maintaining a relatively consistent pace for most of the lap). It was a very strange physical experience; mentally, I was still pushing myself, but my body gave up on me before I was ready for it to. I'm not sure what I could have done to push through those feelings at the end of that lap, and I was also dizzy when I sat down afterward.
Overall, though there were negatives and positives, it was an overall positive experience. I can tell that, despite what you might call rather low reps for the plyo, the exercises are working. Sitting down to get in the car, my legs almost buckled- the sign of a good workout, no doubt.
I followed up some advice about doing cardio and loaded up on antioxidants for dinner: spinach, garlic, beans, potatoes. Since then, I've taken a nice long shower, and I believe I'm going to put some heat on my ankle before I go to sleep tonight, just to see if I can relieve some of the soreness.
I've been taking melatonin to sleep most nights lately- don't think I'll need it tonight. I'm exhausted before 11:00, and I'm totally okay with that.
Tomorrow night, team off-skates practice back at the Coliseum. Expect a report from that no-doubt surprising ass-busting, with the bonus entertainment that I have no idea what I'm getting into!
Given that those are three things that I really feel I need as a skater, I can't ignore plyometrics. Besides, if speed skaters do it, there's no reason it wouldn't be good for roller derby skaters; in spite of the different natures of our sports, there's a good deal of crossover, at least as far as what we want out of our bodies. Both sports call for good cardio and muscle endurance and strength, good explosive power for sprinting past other skaters, good agility for slipping through the holes other skaters leave as they move around the track, and a strong stride that uses as few strokes as possible to go as far as possible.
That having been said, my plan for this week, as it has evolved, involves me working on some cardio endurance, muscle strength, and explosiveness training today.
Here's today's regimen:
WARMUP: 1 lap walk, 2 laps jog, 1 run, 1 cooldown.
Stretch.
Run Coliseum stairs - goal time, 20 minutes or less for a whole lap.
PLYOMETRICS:
-tuck jumps, 3x 10
-lunge jumps, 3x 16 (8 per leg)
-box jumps, 3x 12
-forward lunges, 3x 10
-backward lunges, 3x 10
-squats, 3x10
-wall sit, 2 min.
COOLDOWN: brisk walk, 2 laps.
Stretch.
In practice, it didn't go badly at all. I was decidedly not in an exercising mood today; it was gray, rainy, and on those types of days, I really prefer to just hang out around the house and relax. Oh, and it was also chilly outside. One of those typical Alabama November days that had me much more likely to enjoy curling up under a blanket and reading a book than working my butt off at the Coliseum.
To the Coliseum we went, a little bit later than originally planned. We started off with a three-lap warmup instead of five. It had been a few days since I'd exercised and, I admit, I crapped out because my shins and ankles were feeling grumpy pounding on that concrete floor. We stretched, then got ready for the real kicker- running all 40 sections of the Coliseum seating, up and down the stairs until we'd completed a whole lap.
We tried this for the first time about a week ago, and I was not impressed with my own results. I was easily winded, my legs felt like jello, and I had to stop a few times because I didn't feel like my legs could maintain the strength to go safely down the stairs. Tonight, I set the two of us a goal: Make the whole lap with no stops, in under 20:00.
That was a resounding success. Our ending time was 11:42. This kind of blew my mind, to be honest. Like I said, the first time I'd done it, my legs had felt positively awful. This time, I even paced myself carefully, starting out more moderately than I could have so I could have a burst of speed to finish at the end. I was out of breath at points, but that was the point, of course. I was frankly shocked that our time could be that much different (it took at least 20 minutes the first time we tried it). I guess I'd chalk it up to a bad day, or maybe just knowing that I had the pressure of a time limit; that tends to make a big difference for me when I'm trying to beat a clock.
After the out and out cardio, we switched to out and out plyometrics. It's a bit of a meaningless distinction to make, however, considering how out of breath I got doing the jumps. The lunge jumps I found easy, and could probably increase the reps to 20 or more. I didn't start feeling any tiredness until the third set. The other two, I could definitely sense some muscle jello going on- the farther up I tried to tuck my legs after more reps, the harder it was for me to do that. Sometimes I felt like I was barely getting off the ground. The only thing that I had an issue with was the landing; again, doing these tuck jumps on concrete was hurting the hell out of my ankles, and I think at points I was landing way too hard. That's something for me to work on, and perhaps research a bit. There were points where I was definitely getting more than muscle pain out of those exercises. Another alteration I want to make for our next set of plyo is the rest period in between exercises. We took brief rests in between each set (maybe about 30 seconds or so), but the rests between the different jumps were three minutes, and I think that was too much; for the next plyo set we do, I'm bumping the time down to two minutes.
We moved on to the lunges next, and I set the time between those down to one minute, because they were much less high impact. I also bumped up the reps - for the forward and backward lunges and squats, we did three sets of 20 rather than three sets of 10. The lunges were a bit challenging by the end, but I think, again, it's a case where we may want to increase the reps; maybe 30 per leg instead of 20. The squats I definitely felt, especially the lower I got. By the end of the sets of squats, my knees were shaking badly, but my quads were burning in that good kind of way. From there, we moved on to a 2 minute wall sit, which, by this point, was VERY challenging. I had to readjust my position a number of times and couldn't keep holding a 90 degree angle with my legs. My legs felt outright weak and wobbly after I finished it.
That, of course, was a perfect time to run a one-lap time trial around the top of the coliseum. We don't know exactly what the distance is, but we think each lap is about 1/4 of a mile. Both of us took off at a dead sprint. We both got about the same time, with a three second difference between. I actually finished the faster of the two of us at 1:14, which pleased me since my husband is usually the faster of the two when it comes to running.
One thing that was very strange about running that lap: I controlled my breathing pretty well for most of the lap, because I had noticed that I have a bad tendency to hold my breath when I'm doing cardio. For about halfway around the lap, I wasn't particularly winded. When I was on my third leg of four, I started to lose my breath a little bit, but that felt normal. Oddly enough, the last five sections of seats, my body started giving. It was like a switch snapped off- all of a sudden, my legs were rubbery, and I could hardly push without feeling like all my muscles were going to snap somehow. I finished slower than I wanted to (perhaps a pacing error on my part, after maintaining a relatively consistent pace for most of the lap). It was a very strange physical experience; mentally, I was still pushing myself, but my body gave up on me before I was ready for it to. I'm not sure what I could have done to push through those feelings at the end of that lap, and I was also dizzy when I sat down afterward.
Overall, though there were negatives and positives, it was an overall positive experience. I can tell that, despite what you might call rather low reps for the plyo, the exercises are working. Sitting down to get in the car, my legs almost buckled- the sign of a good workout, no doubt.
I followed up some advice about doing cardio and loaded up on antioxidants for dinner: spinach, garlic, beans, potatoes. Since then, I've taken a nice long shower, and I believe I'm going to put some heat on my ankle before I go to sleep tonight, just to see if I can relieve some of the soreness.
I've been taking melatonin to sleep most nights lately- don't think I'll need it tonight. I'm exhausted before 11:00, and I'm totally okay with that.
Tomorrow night, team off-skates practice back at the Coliseum. Expect a report from that no-doubt surprising ass-busting, with the bonus entertainment that I have no idea what I'm getting into!
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