*NEW* Tonya Blanks workouts

Here we go!

1 mile run (not jog, actually run)
then 5 rounds of
-15 pushups
-5 burpees
-15 situps
Then another...
1 mile run (not jog, actually run)

REMEMBER NO BREAKS, go straight through until complete. If you're moving at a good pace you should be done in just under half hour!

Tonya Blank's Pre-season Workout Week 4

As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 12 minutes
200m run
10 push-ups
15 Squats

Tonya Blanks wants to remind you that a full squat mean that when you go down you finish past parallel, if you stop short you are cheating yourself!

Also don't forget, Knock Out! and DUDE will be hosting a women's mixer for all levels this Sunday from 1-4 PM at NTC Liberty Station Fields.

BOOM BOOM POW!

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!)

KO Workout of the Week

Great job to everyone who participated in our workout last week! Did you feel the burn in those sit ups? Don't forget, Tonya Blank says if you want to do your sit ups legit, your hands touch the ground behind your head when you reach the ground and your hands touch your toes when you're up. You should be doing these with your legs in the butterfly position to center the workout on your stomach muscles and take the pressure off of your hip flexers! Here's our next Workout of the Week:

As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 10 minutes:

5 pushups

10 jumping lunges

15 sit ups

The goal is to see how many rounds you can complete in 10 minutes...and no rounding up the count...you must complete all 3 exercises for it to count as 1 round. 10 jumping lunges breakdown to 5 on each leg. Start in a lunge position, jump up, and land in a lunge position with the opposite foot in front. Again, we encourage you to put the number of rounds you’ve completed in the comments. Good Luck and have fun!

#10 Krisztina Jozsef

Knock Out's pre-season work out of the week

Knock Out Ultimate is gearing up for the 2011 season and will be presenting a weekly dose of Tonya Blank's workouts to get you ready to rumble as well! Each of these workouts are crossfit-esque which means they are intense short trainings with no rest unless specified. The goal is to do these workouts as fast as possible while maintaining good form. What's great about these workouts is that you can easily squeeze them into your day and it makes you feel so good once you've finished them! A friend of ours once wrote, that

sometimes you need to flirt with pain in order for your body to know how to overcome it. There's no reason why we shouldn't be pushing ourselves in everything we do...why wait until tournaments to feel so sore...why wait until tournaments to have to dig deep to run hard those last few points. Similar to anything we do, our body needs to be trained on how to react to pain and exhaustion so when that time comes, we know what to do.

KO's 2011 season training begins now!

Workout #1 Warm up jog/bike ride: 5-10 minutes

5 burpees (see video in comments below)

10 push ups

15 squats

20 situps (see tonya sit ups described in comments below)

Repeat for 5 rounds, no rest and time how long it takes you to complete. Although the goal is to try to do this workout as fast as possible, please remember to ease your body back into exercising if you have not done much in the off season. At some points in this workout, it may take you 10 seconds to do 1 burpee correctly or you may drop to your knees during a set of push ups. That's okay as long as you keep moving the entire time. Also a great way to start running again is to do some Out-and-Backs. Run out to a fixed location and time the run, then try to get back faster than you got out! BOOM! We hope you enjoy these workouts and encourage you to post your results in our comment box!