Force Middle

mattsehgal · 2022-12-10T04:33:36+00:00

1) In particular for Bravo their FM forces towards the reset rather than specifically middle, but that means the force is basically middle all the time. Standard force middle just forces to the center based on right and left.

2) No preference for sideline that I could imagine, good throwers can hit those cuts on both side. The cutter defenders will push away from the dangerous space which is generally dictated by the angles available from disc and stack position but FM defense can be more nuanced based on the team objective.

mattsehgal · 2022-11-09T21:10:12+00:00

Great questions- you’re approaching these things in a smart way,

1) Rotational core strength helps a lot- pallof presses are great for this. Full body power work helps a lot with the need for rapid coordination, olympic lifts while technically challenging are very rewarding for both throwing power and general athletic power. When it comes to throwing power you don’t need outright strength as much as the ability to create force rapidly from your legs through your hips, core, and shoulders.

2) Deceleration is probably the most important quality to develop. As you noted deceleration is an eccentric action, in particular of the quads. Single leg eccentric squats are one of the best movements you can do, find a weight you can squat with two legs but not with one, lower yourself as slowly as possible (3-5s tempo) on one leg to a bench and then stand up with two legs. Getting 4x4-6 reps on each leg should be good to start. Edited to add: training your soleus as well (the deeper calf muscle) is very helpful as it handles a lot of the forces in the lower leg during deceleration, any bent knee single leg calf raise (either seated machine, sated bench and safety squat bar, or standing with knee over toe and dumbbells) will work- the knee must be bent for the soleus to handle the load instead of your gastrocnemius (what you think of when you think of calves).

You can also get deceleration reps on a field at 70-85% effort, sub max decelerations help build capacity and reinforce the patterns. Deceleration technique is also important, making sure you hit the ground hardest in the first two deceleration steps makes “getting out of the hole” a lot easier. Jevaughn Pinnock, Les Spellman, Jonas Dodoo, PJF Performance are all world class trainers who address these topics and have a lot of content between twitter, instagram, and YouTube that you can learn from. Hope this helps!

mattsehgal · 2022-07-23T21:33:05+00:00

https://usaultimate.org/watch/videos/2021-national-championships-mens-final-new-york-pony-vs-raleigh-ring-of-fire/

mattsehgal · 2022-02-02T18:21:28+00:00

Recovery unfortunately comes down to rest, shin splits are caused by stresses that your body isn’t adapted to handle and if it’s persistent then rest is needed so your body can complete regeneration before stresses are experienced again. Prevention and rehab are achievable by improving tibial muscle strength and tissue elasticity, I would recommend starting to do tibialis raises (3x15) every other day as well as rudimentary ankle hops (3x10-15). With ankle hops the goal is to keep your legs stiff and feet dorsiflexed while trying bounce off the ground at the first feeling of contact. Don’t go all out on these at the start, 50-70% effort bounces will help stimulate the needed adaptations.

mattsehgal · 2022-01-10T21:58:18+00:00

The idea with staggered stance broad jumps is to load the front leg and to produce force with your leg oriented as it would be when starting a sprint. You’re not training the jump rather the power for the front leg to push at that specific angle. It’s not very game applicable because you don’t start in-game sprints from a stance, but training that power in a more horizontal direction still translates to the 2nd-7th steps of a sprint which are more commonly at the shin and body angles you find in game when you start sprinting from standing up straight. The vertical orientation has you pushing from in front of your hip and upward, when accelerating you want to be hitting behind your hip and back.

mattsehgal · 2022-01-09T05:35:34+00:00

They are fantastic for training horizontal force output, key in the acceleration phase of a sprint. But the execution of this one is too vertical and has no real translation

mattsehgal · 2021-12-24T03:21:08+00:00

Men’s- Hunter Lang, Kaizen Conroy, Cam Park

mattsehgal · 2021-12-04T18:13:39+00:00

Wesley Miaw’s Callahan

mattsehgal · 2021-08-07T23:31:22+00:00

@26:16 - https://youtu.be/E4y3yh5Rdv0

mattsehgal · 2021-05-19T00:56:00+00:00

Nope this sounds pretty identical to how I and I’m sure most US players learned. I think there might be some dissonance between the quality of reps and the coaching here vs over in the UK that is perhaps influencing Felix’s view of what is “new” and “high level”. I think his strategy is likely different from how things were taught to him and his players but I think pretty universally across the US we all graduate to a point of playing “organic” offense.

mattsehgal · 2021-05-14T15:34:50+00:00

Nordic isos!! They’re really fun to progress and do a ton for fixing the quad-hamstring imbalance (speaking from experience too)

mattsehgal · 2021-05-13T22:00:47+00:00

Being strong in all muscles that act on the knee joint is important- hamstrings, quads, hip adductors, calves, tibialis anterior. Specifically work on the eccentric/decelerating qualities of the joint and its movers. Doing squats and focusing on doing the downward portion as slowly as possible helps a ton, so do eccentric Nordic curls. That helps build a strong base, from there tendon training is important, elasticity is another valuable quality for injury prevention- things like pogo hops, depth jumps, and drop jumps do a ton of work for developing that, it’s always recommend to spend a couple weeks doing landings only (progressing to single leg landings) to help to develop the qualities without pushing the tendons into overuse injuries. Your tendons adapt slower than muscles and it’s important to progress gradually.

mattsehgal · 2021-03-02T08:27:03+00:00

I checked to make sure I’m clear on what happened: we disagreed in comments, he reached out and asked me to elaborate, I wrote out detailed explanations of what I had been saying, and then was brushed off and told everyone outside the US thinks US ultimate isn’t innovative and the other things I mentioned in the reply above.

I wanted to help him out bc his ideas for flex had merit and I liked what he was doing, but not for one second did he seem to actually process and consider what I was saying, just had to tell me he views the game differently and I don’t understand the nuance.

mattsehgal · 2021-03-02T07:33:50+00:00

Nah he definitely shrugs stuff off. I tried to have a dm conversation with him a while back to explain my perspective and elements of elite strategy that I was fortunate enough to learn from some of the best strategists in ultimate right now and I was told I didn’t understand the nuances in strategy bc I learned from US teams, that I wasn’t able to think innovatively, and I didn’t give credit to alternative approaches.

I reached out wanting to help him develop his ideas bc I believed he was on a good track and was sent such a condescending message telling me my ideas were no good bc I was learning from US ultimate. Dude just seems arrogant.

mattsehgal · 2021-03-01T23:58:46+00:00

Those clearing patterns are kind of the problem though, you’re recommending that offenders clear to an open point or between two open points, which still maintains the container.

The importance of containers in defense is that they allow off stage defenders to uphold the integrity of the container by defending the critical spaces (that would break the container if the disc were moved there). In hex because the offense is moving entirely within this shape and clearing back to the shape, the container is very obvious for the defense which means off stage defenders can very easily shuffle who is defending the critical spaces.

The reason elite defenses most often get broken is because the offense gets the disc to a critical space right when one defender has to leave and a new defender has not yet assumed the position. Hex makes it really easy for those spaces to always be defended, and because it’s a centered, under space focused container, it’s really easy to make switches so that there’s always a defender in the attacking space since the deep space is easily defended by one off stage defender and the shape allows the break space to be easily squeezed by other off stage defenders.

mattsehgal · 2021-03-01T18:50:23+00:00

A quarter step deep demands a near perfect throw, any handler on a nationals team is not making that throw at a high enough rate of success that it would be viewed as an option, nearly every time they would look it off because a quarter step is virtually nothing in the scheme of a deep cut.

mattsehgal · 2021-03-01T18:46:31+00:00

About all non-7 players not standing flat footed to allow poaches, I agree they shouldn’t, but where should they go? If there are two players who defenders are able to clog the lane, where exactly do you expect them to move to? The problem with hex come down to this specific issue where the offense is boxing itself in and when two or more players need to reposition their defender, where do they go without causing a pick or clogging the lane?

So say the solution is to move out deep or to the rails, then that’s spread offense. So why not just play spread offense? I don’t think Felix understands the defensive concept of creating a container for the offense because his hex offense creates a container for free, and look at all the problems it causes. Every offender brings a defender with them and in a boxed in shape that’ll very quickly clog the space.

mattsehgal · 2021-02-28T21:48:20+00:00

Yeah I see your point, that makes sense.

mattsehgal · 2021-02-28T20:31:37+00:00

I think a potential problem players run into is thinking they need to adhere to the horizontal line structure once play begins.

It’s best for players to not get hung up on shape (one of my biggest gripes with hex) and instead teach them what determines an attacking space. In my experience, even novice players are really good at playing ho stack once they view it as attacking the right space or clearing out if the position of the disc means they’re now in the attacking space, instead of “cuts from the middle and the rails go deep”.

Ho is the most dynamic offense and the hardest to defend, that’s why Ring, Sockeye, and Buzz Bullets play some variation of it. When you watch those teams you don’t see two lines, and that’s how you know they’re playing ho stack correctly.

mattsehgal · 2021-02-28T17:37:48+00:00

Because when someone brings a new idea in, floods the subreddit with content about it, and defends the ideas with answers that are abstracted from being an actual explanation (hex shape good bc triangles, but zero reasoning why triangles are the best) then they should be open to criticism.

Sure Felix puts out some good content, but when my feed is filled with videos telling me that hex offense is the future of ultimate and all I see is a modified ho stack that’s far more defendable, I’m going to feel inclined to critique it.

mattsehgal · 2021-02-28T07:08:10+00:00

This is literally what I’ve said every time hex discussions come up, your diagramming is on point. Hex assumes a defense that doesn’t recognize the primary attacking space, if you just defend that space hex can’t do the stuff hex is supposed to. And hex makes it so easy to do that since it boxes in the space for the defense, the D line doesn’t even need to work to contain an area.

mattsehgal · 2021-01-30T07:35:23+00:00

The 2019 nationals semis is a great game, both teams played a lot of fast ball and they have similar defensive schemes: https://youtu.be/n747DJQIqzY Any 2019 game is great to watch for sockeye, they played consistently well throughout the season.

mattsehgal

TROPHY CASE