What are Tonya Blanks workouts and what is CrossFit?

To answer these questions, we've asked our friend Lori "Awesometown" Eich, current Nemesis player, and a CrossFit Level 1 Certified Coach to tell us how CrossFit training improves your athletic ability on the Ultimate Field.

The weekly Tonya Blanks workouts are designed around CrossFit, which is a training program designed for general physical preparedness. CrossFit is often defined as High Intensity, Constantly Varied, Functional Fitness. "High Intensity" means we go big, go hard, always giving 400% in every workout. "Constantly Varied" means the workouts are different every week, which keeps your body from getting settled into a routine."Functional Fitness" means we use the whole body to do work just like in real life -- for example, if I'm getting ready to pull the disc,I'm not going to just stand on the end zone line and flick my wrist --I'm going to take an approach, rotate my body around, and explode with all of my muscles to send the disc flying.

You can think of "high intensity" as the sprinting stamina part of the workout. Regardless of whether or not you're actually running, if you are going as hard as you can, as fast as you can, your heart and lungs are being trained for sprinting. You are pushing your VO2max (aka sprint endurance), and the harder you push now, the longer you can last during marathon points on the field and throughout the final games on Tournament Sunday.

"Functional fitness" applies directly to the ultimate field. Think of the last time you laid out, missed the catch, and had to jump back up to immediately play D -- that's a burpee. Or when a huck goes up and you're already in position, waiting for it to sink so you can D the crap out of it -- fast air squats build your hip/thigh/butt muscles so you can explode off the ground and win in the air. The movements in the weekly workouts are designed to build strength that is directly applicable to ultimate.

The end goal is to build power output. When you're doing a set workout for time, you are doing the same amount of total work overall -- 50 pushups in 2 minutes takes the same amount of force as 50 pushups in 20 minutes. The difference lies in the time spent working. Strength and speed combine for power. If you can do more work in less time than your opponent, you are generating more power, which translates to running faster, jumping higher, throwing farther, and winning more.

To get the most out of the weekly workouts, treat each one as a sprint workout. It's okay to scale the movements (e.g. pushups from knees) if it means you can actually complete the workout in a reasonable amount of time, but remember that when you scale you are doing less work (so try to work toward not scaling). Also think about how the movements of the workouts might apply to your ultimate game, and try to be as fast and explosive as possible. The more strength and speed you build, the more power you can output, and the more you will tool up on opponents and win.

This week's workout:
3 rounds of:
100m sprint 5 burpees

100m sprint
10 pushups

100m sprint
15 squats
Rest 90 seconds between rounds (yes, you actually get a rest in this one!)