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Sunday 30 August 2015

Off Season Day 60

27 August Legs, Ice (tech/sprints), Stickhandling
28 August Rest
29 August Rest

August 27 began with a morning legs workout before breakfast.  Brought back supine lateral leg lifts to the mix (ten each side for 5s) and traditional and figure four squats (sets of ten for the former, five each leg for the later).

In the afternoon I went down the Ice Arena for a fairly concentrated 45 minute session.  I did the various drills Corey had led us through on Monday, with the addition of several repetitions of my (wide) lateral line drill and three line sprints as an anaerobic workout.

In the evening I spent about twenty minutes on a lino floor with golf ball and hockey stick.  Am already noticing the difference in the softness of my hands and, correspondingly, in the increased degree of control of the ball.

I then went up country with the Missus on August 28 and 29.  I took the opportunity to concentrate on what was happening around me in the world, didn't even think of hockey for a couple days, let alone maintain my off season program.  As long as I get back into it sooner rather than later the break will do me no harm, and quite probably will add to my overall progress as I enter the final intense fortnight before the season starts.

Overall for Week 8 I think I did okay.  I have given the week a 'yellow' rating because for once I ticked all of the boxes, albeit didn't really reach required level for either aerobic (only one run) or anaerobic (counted my ice line sprints, but still did no hardcore interval training) activity.  It will be interesting if I can get back to green entries during the stretch.

Ice 31

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Off Season Day 57

Aug 23 Run, Agility, Stickhandling
Aug 24 Arms, Legs, Ice Power & Edges
Aug 25 Rest
Aug 26 Arms, Agility, Stickhandling

In the evening of August 23 I forced myself to get ready and go for a run.  More of a wind than there has been before, still daylight, cool to cold.  I hadn't ran for five days so I knew it wouldn't be the easiest.  Which it wasn't, I had four walking periods of varied length which I used by being 'mindful' of the breathing/muscle/heart/brain interactions as I recovered for the next running phase.  I did, however, push it harder during the actual running through the middle phases, reaching pretty high running speeds along the river, to the school and on the final short slope to home.  Total time was 21 minutes.

After getting my breathing fully back I moved straight into a set of Agility exercises.  I built up what I'd done last week except that I increased the reps to six for each set and kept count of my best score amongst those reps in each set.  Will be interesting to measure the improvement now that the actual movements are pretty well secured in my neuromusculature.

Later in the evening I took the opportunity  to do some stickhandling training  during a twenty minute break between other, more domestic, activities.  I limited myself to two 'sets' each of two simple drills.  I will try to get the neuromuscular imprint fixed before working up the speed (treating this as an extension of agility training methodology).

The first drill involves facing a coffeetable from about 3 feet away, lay a hockey stick on the table edge with the grip end at my feet so as to form a diagonal obstacle between the edge of the table and my feet, then tap a golfball from one side of the obstacle to the other, performing whatever variants on the basic pattern I feel like doing at the time.  This drill requires the upper hand to pull/push the stick through the relatively stationary lower hand to control the height of the blade off the ground.

The second drill has two tins on the ground about shoulder width apart and about 18" in front of me, using them to form various improvasitional deking patterns, again using the lower hand to both rotate the stick for forehand/backhand sides but also to raise and lower the stick through the lower hand depending upon where the golf ball is.

I did each drill for about two minutes, twice.

In the morning of August 24 I did an arms workout.  2 circuits of ten reps each set, 1 minute recoveries between sets.  I backed this up with an almost full circuit of leg drills (minus lunges and squats, though I did Sumo Squats).  In both legs and arms sessions I reached the stage of moderate fatigue by the end of most sets.

In the evening I went down the Ice Arena for a 'Power and Edges for Ice Hockey' session with Corey.  Besides the technical side of things it was also a good anaerobic workout.  A short slalom event of tight turns and stops, crossovers (lateral extensions and cross under), T starts (glides), outside edges, backwards take off and first step (cross under on first couple steps), transitions, several long 'sprints' around all the circles incorporating above, line sprints, balance, recovery, core strength. A good hour.

August 25 I declared a rest day.

August 26, in the morning I completed an arms workout paced by agility exercises during my 1 minute recovery periods, and then completed the agility circuit, with six reps per set.  Have now added the wide variant to the lateral line drill, which is introducing distinct pylometric aspect to training.

In the evening I had about fifteen minutes stickhandling on the lino in the kitchen with a golf ball and my Bauer stick.  The lino is conveniently marked out in a grid composed of 6" squares which makes it fairly easy to create standard (and not so standard) patterns designed to exercise the various technical components of the act of stickhandling.

Ice 30

Game Day - Wheelers (5) d Bumpers (4) - Finals Rd 1

We started our finals campaign last night with an intense one goal win over the Bumpers. 

The winner would go direct to the Grand Final on September 19.  Whoever lost this game would have to win an elimination game on September 6 against the winner of the game which followed ours (between the Rockers and Shufflers (Rockers won)) if they were to get there.  The winner of this first round would also have home rink advantage in the final (ie. able to change lines second at stoppages).

We had a full roster of Wheelers and Nicole between the pipes.  The Bumpers had four skaters, with Jana on IR due an upper body injury (received last week while playing up in Div I) and Kylie off to see her beloved Crows at Adelaide Oval.  They had Ashley as a fourth skater and Matt the Goalie in goals.

Our first line was composed of Crystal, Luke and Merrilyn.  Brenton, Natasha and I formed the second line.  The game featured frequent stoppages with few exceptionally long unbroken periods and practically no changes on the fly.  The lines themselves seemed to work well and we were all able to keep up a complete effort till the final siren.  The fact that the Bumpers only had four skaters and, due a major penalty, were then reduced to three with almost ten minutes to go (ie. no-one on the bench) certainly helped us on the night but I think that we would have coped just as well physically if they had had full lines (judging by the good condition we were still in at the end of the game).

The first couple shifts were pretty even.  That changed on the third, when Mel put one in for them from fairly close (deflecting in off of one of our players), and a minute later when Craig was given too much time and space near the centre line on the left flank and set up a crunching wrist shot that found a clear lane past all three of our skaters as it dipped and curved into the top left hand corner of the net.  A slashing penalty on Craig shortly afterwards didn't help our cause, and it took a single handed effort on Josh's part to score an unassisted goal and give us some hope as half time closed in.

We had three OZ faceoffs in the last thirty seconds of the first half.  We won all three and all ended in smothered shots on net.  I took the last face off, chipped it forward and burst past my opponent's sticks to rush the net with puck on stick, only to have Matt collapse himself onto the puck and hold it down until the half time siren whistled.  We were down 1-2.

The second half was one of the hardest periods of hockey I've yet played.  Josh opened the scoring off a pass from Merrilyn a couple minutes in to even the score, only to have Craig drop an impossible shot in from the corner a minute later.  Two minutes later Josh put in another equaliser, this time off a pass by Crystal, and the score was 3-3.  From our bench you could see them beginning to tire.

At this point the game got a bit stupid when a bit of verbal broke out on the rink.  I'm not sure exactly who started it nor over what the initial dispute was, but it resulted in an 2 minute minor against the Bumpers.  This was compounded shortly after by an initial refusal to leave the rink by the affected player, then by some bad mouthing of the referee, hurling of equipment and storming out of the barn.  This last resulted in a five minute major being levied.

While the theatrics played themselves out near the other team's bench we clustered around our gate, resolved to remain focused, make the most of our advantage.  Which we did with a power play goal a minute later (another score to Josh from a pass by Crystal).

At six minutes to go, the Bumpers called a time out to give their three skaters a chance to regather their breath.  We used it to reaffirm our intention to keep talking, passing, short shifting and pressing our advantage.

In the next play, things were starting to get desperate for them, resulting in their bear of a player (Craig) yelling a warcry as he approached the puck on the boards near our bench.  Not sure if his voice weapon was the culprit on its own or actual contact was made but Crystal went down and looked to be a bit in shock so I pulled her off on the fly and skated briefly with Merrilyn and Josh until the next whistle brought my own line mates out.  Next play, Natasha is down the OZ and puts in the game winning goal.

The last couple minutes were crazy with the Bumpers running on pure adrenaline and desire and on the attack.  This resulted in a single desperation goal from Mel, but there was nothing left in their tank during the final minute and we skated out winners 5-4.

My game was as good as its been in a puck possession sense, not surrendering any loose pucks without a massive struggle, pushing hard against their snipers in the neutral zone, kicking and scrapping on the boards to ensure forward motion, charging the net from the faceoff.  In my shotblock attempts I managed to make at least two minor deflections that probably weren't noticed by anyone but were sufficient to tip the puck over the net.  Had a couple comments made to me after the game about an apparent increase in my speed on the night (an artifact of skating practice at the Ice Arena the day before?).

Again, no points in a playoff game for me but, again, a valuable backup role and good last line player.

We go straight through to the Grand Final on September 19.  The Bumpers will have to beat the Rockers in the Semifinal next week if we are to complete a best of three end of season series against them.  We'll have to increase our intensity another notch if we wish to repeat this performance.

Inline 52

Sunday 23 August 2015

Off Season Day 53 - Week 7 Summary

Aug 21 Ice
Aug 22 Wheelers Game

On August 21 I went down to the Arena for an hour's skate in the afternoon.  Had half the ice due Ice Factor team practice on the other half.  Shared the space with a couple figure skaters.  I spent about ten minutes in recovery time.

Individual drills which I did were sideways walking, stops, first 'stride' backwards, first stride from transition (backwards to forwards), power stride recovery action, pivots.  Most technical was the exit from forwards transition onto the left leg.  Most measurable gain was power stride recovery. Least satisfactory were the pivots.

On August 22 I played in the Wheelers' Round 1 win in winter season finals.  We played with six skaters and thus were able to avoid double shifting.  Had a lot of energy left in the tank for the final minutes, could have played out another period.  Very physical game where strength on puck came into it, leg and core up to the task.  Several comments afterwards about apparent increase in my 'speed'.  I didn't think this while playing. 

What was noticeable to me, however, was that I spent more of my time in a 'high energy state' than is usual (ie. race to shut down uncontested space, open up a lane, etc).  This elevation in intensity came about due to increase in ability (physical strength and first step technique) as well as willingness to do so (no holding back energy for potential double shift, fact it was a final), wasn't an increase in speed per se.  That's what I think, anyway.

Week 7 Summary

I have only given myself an 'orange' rating for this past week.  Again, I didn't make quota on anaerobic conditioning (interval training) nor on Off Ice Technique (stickhandling).  I did make the cut on everything else, however, which wasn't too bad considering it was a rather busy week.

Ice 29
 

Friday 21 August 2015

Knights Training

On Thursday night I packed my armour and went down the Ice Arena for a Knight's training session.  It went for about 70 minutes.  There were close to twenty players, all from Div I (Bombers), Div II (Knights) or the Ice Academy so the skill levels weren't as far apart as they have been during some sessions in past.  For a change I donned my North Vikings I.H.C. jersey, it fits quite well over full armour on the ice.

As is usual with Justine's sessions, our time was divided pretty evenly between an opening game of 'baseball' to warm up and kick the aerobic system into gear, a three player free form passing game, defence (1 on 1) and breakout (3 on 2) drills to push us anaerobically and a quick blast of 3 on 3 hockey to pull it all together.

My baseball game was good. 'At bat', I got the puck into the backzone and myself across the line before the 'fielders' were able to score a goal   In the 'field' I picked up several deep hits and passed them into the OZ (only to see the rest of my team waste the opportunity to pass - pass - score by lack of communication and puck chasing).

My passing game started poorly due the fact I wasn't looking properly before making my pass.  I got better once I started concentrating again.

My defence game was inconsistent.  I was not getting good backwards acceleration, letting simple shots through my legs, not keeping a close gap to the better skaters as they cut across the ice or put on the afterburners to get by me on the transition.  Encouragingly, I seem to be developing a reasonably active stick, stripping the puck from more of the skilled players than not (nothing glorious, but neutralised their attacks).  The trick to doing this seems to be quick pokes, keeping the central ice, not stretching or committing too soon.  What really pleased me was that, even with only four defenders (ie work-rest ratio of 1 to 1 due drills being run simultaneously each way), I had a lot of legs left and didn't tire at all.

My favourite moment in this drill was 'standing up' on a big fast skating forward who got mesmerised by his own puck as he cut across the ice on the forward diagonal.  All I had to do was apply a small amount of deceleration and brace myself before he slammed into me.  Quite legal, probably looked good (it drew a bit of applause from the sideline).

We then moved into the breakout/rush game, where D passes to W on the boards, chips it out to C as forwards leave the zone, then the three turn around and return into the zone but this time the D is trying to stop them.  I played in a forward line with Cam and a new Knight, Richard.  Cam played C (he wants to move there this season from D).  We actually got it together quite nice a few times, weaving and tape to tape with our passes, someone on net and someone else in the high slot for outlet passes and so on.  Quite funny when you think we're a defence unit.

For a final drill we played a few minutes of three on three.  I didn't get out there overly much as some of the younger ones seemed much keener.  It wasn't that I wasn't able, more that enjoyed watching.

My skates didn't cause major issues in either slippage or comfort.  They should be right for start of season.  Fitness and conditioning held up, I would have been in the top third in this regard.  My skating technique needs to sharpen up and I will need to adjust to the relative speed of play in contrast to inline.  Apart from that, pretty happy with the session.

Ice 28

Thursday 20 August 2015

Off Season Day 51

Aug 18 Rest
Aug 19 Agility, Arms, Vikings Training
Aug 20 Knights Training

On August 18 I had finally had a rest day.  Although I moved some big furniture around and up stairs the rest of the day was casual and relaxed.  Calf muscles were almost crippling first thing in the morning, but within a few hours the tenderness had reduced to some quite specific points deep within the lower calves and there was no pain to speak of for the rest of the day.  I am thinking it was an extreme case of 'muscle soreness'.

I took advantage of the mild winter weather on August 19 to do my agility drills out under the back veranda.  Took about 20 minutes to go through sets of Forward and Backward Line Drills, Lateral Line Drill, Split Leg Shuffle and Split Leg 45' Shuffle.  Reps were between five and ten seconds each for the line drills, five seconds for the much simpler shuffle patterns.  I did five reps per set and kept the rest intervals between sets to 25 seconds.  The patterns were less confusing to my feet than they had been the first time I tried them.

I went straight from my Agility circuit to my arm strength circuit.  Kept up patterns of twin circuits of ten reps for each type of lift.  I am trying to increase the tempo of the lifts themselves, and have now reduced recovery time to 1 minute.  I might hold it here for a while as this was a challenge at a couple of moments in the circuit.

A couple hours later I set off for Vikings Training at Gawler.  There was a fair stress on anaerobic conditioning, with two sets of 'suicide sprints' (line sprint interval training) and a couple commando crawls.  My upper body strength was quite handy for the pushups and the commando crawl but my anaerobic threshold needs to be raised to be able to compete at the higher intensity of sustained anaerobic activity.

On August 20 I limited myself to going to Knights' training.  Don't want to inadvertently overwork myself in the leadup to Vikings finals and the season opener on the ice (besides, I was pretty darn busy sorting things out around the house). Coped pretty well with the aerobic and energy demands, lacking a bit in core strength (sore afterwards) and will need to brush up on skating techniques.

Vikings Training

This evening I went to Gawler for Vikings training.  I wasn't able to get there the past couple weeks due to work commitments (no longer a problem :)) so it was nice to make the trek again.  I hadn't been able to have any of my usual solid meals, so made the most of having a snack of this and a snack of that through the day.  As it got me through the training session this might bear looking into as a game day food strategy in future.

Session began with everyone bar one having a puck and skating randomly around the rink.  The one player starts trying to steal puck off another player and shoot a goal with it.  If puck goes in goal, original skater now joined by previous owner of puck in trying to get hold of other pucks and doing the same with them. Aerobic exercise mixed with stick work and puck management.

Then a set of suicide sprints.  Pure anaerobic torture.  Using this as my chance also to pratice inline hockey stops.  I haven't got them to the point that I can use them this season, but maybe next...

Then a series of one on ones, players racing to get puck and score goal from various starting scenarios.  This drill exercised the ATP-CP system as the sprints lasted no longer than a few seconds.

Then a passing game, ring of players around whole rink, two players in middle aiming to intercept the puck and trade positions to become one of the circle of passing players.  Rules were applied to the ringside players by the coach, these altered when he called out changes every few plays (eg, move your feet, don't move your feet, one touch only on the puck, stand on one foot, backhand, one hand only, hold your stick left handed if right handed, and vice versa, turn around on the spot before accepting the pass, etc).

Then a series of shots on goal from different spots around the rink, with those who don't get the puck in net having to complete a 'punishment' chosen by those who did.  The last of these punishing drills, and the one the session ended with, was a commando crawl 'for the whole length of the rink'.  Much to my surprise, I got further and faster than anyone else had before I stopped, gasping for air.

Again, all the training is starting to reveal its payoff?!

Inline 51

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Game Day - Shufflers (5) d Rockers (2)

On Saturday night I played a second game of inline hockey at Gawler as a reserve for the Shufflers against the Rockers in their last regular season game.  Each team had five skaters.  The Shufflers had two 'oiginals' plus Crystal, Josh and myself from the Wheelers with Ethan in goal.  The Rockers had Nicole donning some skates as a reserve to join with Mel and Kylie from the Bumpers and two 'originals'.  They had Andy in goal.

The Shufflers scored three goals before the Rockers scored their first near the end of the opening half.  In the second, the Sufflers put on another two before a late answerer from the Rockers.  End scoreline was 5-2.

Me and Josh rotated pretty often off the bench, feeding minutes to the two Shufflers on the team.  It was, afterall, their team!  (Crystal came off when she remembered to, she admitted to me that she gets hungry for goals when playing and can forget about these things).  I found myself often changing direct with Mike, he played relatively short minutes and let me double shift several times in the second half.  I think his conditioning is down but that is not surprising considering his late start to the season as a skater and his preceding injury (he'd been the original Wheelers goalie until he cracked his wrist, requiring several months of recovery).  I would have been on the rink about 25 minutes.

My game was spent mainly playing the 'reset' option as the defensive point, often to Crystal and Luke as they went deep in the offensive zone.  I think I managed to save a couple goals for our team by backchecking hard against rushes from all three of their hard skaters at different times.  The physicality of the previous game repeated itself in this one, without the penalties, and we all enjoyed it.  As always, me and Pauline had a few clashes that ended up with one or both of us on the floor.  No harm done.

It was the Shufflers only win of the season.  Pity it was the last regular game.  Pity also that their most reliable player, Bec, wasn't there for this of all games.  I had been really looking forward to playing with her.

Inline 50

Tuesday 18 August 2015

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).
 

Monday 17 August 2015

Game Day - Wheelers (2) tie Bumpers (2)

My 50th game of inline hockey (including when I have been a reserve for other teams)!

On Saturday night I played in the Wheelers' game against the Bumpers.  It was a top of table end of season clash.  Top spot on the ladder was theoretically up for grabs (if we won by eight goals or more we would enter the finals series with home rink advantage, an almost but not quite impossibility). 

Both teams began the game with four skaters.  This occurred due a prior engagement for Natasha and back injuries through the week to Brenton and Craig (Bumpers).  We had Nicole in goal, they had Andy.  They had Greg acting as Bench Manager. We had Josh on the gate and performed our usual act of anarchic democracy in managing it.

Before the game we determined amongst ourselves to keep to short shifts.  We did pretty well in this regard, essentially rotating ourselves in a disciplined turn-taking fashion.  As the second half progressed I noticed that the more fatigued players were tending to the less active roles on the rink as they waited their turn for a breather, gaps between plays were utilised for aerobic recovery by mutual consent, the pace slowed down considerably, and the rotation order became a little more fluid to cater to individual capacity in the stretch.  I was very pleased with this aspect of our game.

I scored the first goal, unassisted, in the eighth minute but I can't recall much about it.  I do recall triumphantly punching the air and pointing my tick towards my team mate who had originally taken the shot that bounced high off the goalie to land back in the crease, where my stick met it on point of landing to poke it over the line just ahead of the open net closing.  Sweet garbage goal!

Two minutes later, Jana scored, and then two minutes after that, Mel did.  The Bumpers had two tripping penalties called against them in the closing two minutes.  I drew the second of these.  Unusually, it was against their goalie, I having 'teased' him with the puck as I moved across the goal front, tempting the pokecheck attempt that contacted my wheels and sent me to the floor.  

The last play of the half was amusing.  I came off the bench with only about 20s to play, took the faceoff and charged the net.  I think both Josh and I hammered in shots from reasonable positions for rebounds, and a third shot was let loose as the siren sounded.  The referee saw the blitz that we were trying to create for what it was and joined me in a wry smile as the half ended.

The second half was a more dour affair, four on four hockey is pretty exhausting!  Luckily, Merrilyn combined with Josh to shoot an equaliser with five minutes to go.  No one scored after that and the game ended in a 2-2 tie, the only tied game in our division all season!

 I often didn't make time for passing lanes to open up, resulting in Jana (in particular) blocking, deflecting or intercepting many of my attempts to create a play with a team mate in good position (often in the central slot zone).  This was the main way I surrendered possession.  I found out later that they were trying to put her on the rink when I was on, presumably to use her good defensive play to counter what they perceived as my threat.  This made for an interesting game, but I will need to work out a counter-strategy by next week.

There was a fair bit of puck protection going on, with attacking forwards keeping the puck on the outside of the more central defender, pushing and shoving against use of the hips to force separation in close, screens and scrums and wide deking to those who could do so (Josh).  I fended off all of their players at different times, I think at some point I both knocked down, and was knocked down by, each of them.   Against a player coming in close with good agility, such as Mel, I could easily find myself having to hip check, stick check, poke check, kick and otherwise use body position to fend of a rapid weaving attack.

Both teams used the rearwards pass to good effect.  These were rarely intercepted though I grabbed at least a couple long backpasses to create a rush.  We will have to keep in mind that if Craig is playing for them next week he will often be lurking in the neutral zone, waiting to collect a back pass and take a shot.  He has grown fitter through the season, content to sit back as their 'defence' and snipe and able to do this for large portions of the game if not forced out of this comfortable groove.

Crystal took a lot of our faceoffs.  She won the majority of those she took.  I think that she is a good second centre behind Brenton in this respect.

I was on for one of ours and none of their goals.  I think I had at least ten shots.  Will need to learn to raise the puck rather than just hope for the rebound.

GP 12 G 11 A 14 Pts 25 +20 8/3/1

Inline 49

Sunday 16 August 2015

IH Season announcement resets Off-Season plans.

The date of the start of C Grade competition has been announced to be Sunday, 13 September.  Registration/orientation will be Monday, 7 September.  Cost is $166 for IHSA membership, season fees won't be about $470.  I am assuming Div II will have the same number of games as last season, 18 regular season and two playoff rounds of up to 3 games each.

This is good news.  Less than a month to go!  It is a little sooner than I had expected when setting my off-season schedule so I will need to rejig it a bit.  Perhaps best to work backwards...

Sat Sep 19   -  Vikings Grand Final
Wed Sep 16 -  Vikings Training
Sun Sep 13  -  IH season commences
Mon Sep 7   -  IH registration/orientation
Sat Sep 5     -  Vikings Finals 2nd Round
Wed Sep 2   -  Vikings Training 
Wed Aug 26 - Vikings Training
Sat Aug 22  -  Vikings Finals 1st Round
Wed Aug 19 - Vikings Training

As you can see, that leaves four weeks to get ready, starting last night.  If I extend the current weekly period of my off season program ('Week 7'), commencing on Wednesday the 12th of  August, to end on Saturday the 22nd, I can fill in the gaps on what will for all intents and purposes be a 10 week schedule (though actually 74 days), with the last two weeks being effectively a blur between off season preparation and pre season training.

Wk 10 - S1, Ae2, An1, A1   Ice Team Training/Shinny 
Wk 9   - S1, Ae2, An2 intervals, A2 pylometrics   OffIce shooting,   Ice Power
Wk 8   - S2 increase tempo, Ae2, An2 intervals, A2 pylometrics,  OffIce shooting,   Ice edges
Wk 7   - S2 reduce recovery, Ae2, An2 intervals, A1 conditioning, OffIce stickwork, Ice technique

I've updated my sidebar schedule to include the above schedule in abbreviated form.

Saturday 15 August 2015

Off Season Day 45

12 Aug Run
13 Aug Legs
14 Aug Arms

In the evening of 12 August I went for a run.  Despite being much better weather conditions than the night before I found it to be relatively hard yards.  Several small walk periods, mainly to rest the legs as I recovered breath fairly fast.  No strained breathing, but not as rhythmic as the night before.  Total time 23 minutes.

In the morning of 13 August I did a 25 minute legs work out.  I minimised recovery periods to bare seconds, added one new exercise (Figure 4 squats, ten each leg).  In the time available I couldn't fit in all the exercises I now have in repertoire that target legs.

On 14 Aug I began my day with a double circuit of weights with the arms.  I am changing it up, having heard that it is now only a month till the start of ice hockey season, pushing the tempo of the reps and cutting recovery time to 90 seconds.  Definitely feel the load fatigue in the arm afterwards more than I have previously although during the lifts themselves I felt no increase in either rate of fatigue or intensity.

Friday 14 August 2015

Game Day - Bumpers (11) d Shufflers (2)

I played a second game of Hockey on Saturday night, as a Reserve filling in a fourth spot on the Bumper's lineup.  I replaced Jana, who was at the Adrenaline game at the Ice Arena.  I'm told we play a fairly similar game and that made me the natural choice.  Brenton and Merrily were playing in opposition as reserves on the Shuffler's team, and Nicole was  in goal for them, so it was interesting to play against my team mates and see what they look like from the other side of the hill.

I took it relatively easy during the game, giving as much hockey time to the other three as I thought they could handle.  They were all hot and bothered at the end of the game, I was pretty cool by comparison.  Despite the cool, I did my best when on the ice to grab or keep control of the puck and shut them out of the game.

The game was a blowout at 11-2 of which I contributed 2 goals myself, both assisted.  I can't remember the first of them, but do recall the second.  I grabbed the puck in the corner and walked it in towards the goal, then danced across the goal face just out of reach of the goalie who was in a bind between trying to take the puck and fill his goal.  I was in a sense playing games with him, waiting my moment, which I seized when I had the chance.  I hit the pipes twice.

As for team tactics, they were pretty straight forward.  Craig hovered around the midzone, provided a good reset pass option and he was constantly calling for it.  All of his shots were from this outside zone.  Mel, on the other hand, deked and dangled her way in from the flanks, tended to score in close.  Kylie also scored in close, but came down the centre.  Handy to recall for next week.

As is the fact that Merrilyn and Brenton are not easy players to play against, their checking is very close but not too close and they skate faster than they look.  Another thing I learned in this game, as they were on the opposing team albeit I didn't clash against them too often.

A worthwhile experience, second reserve game for me this season.  It was also a handy recce on the Bumpers, our opponents probably for three of the next four games.

Inline 48

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Off Season Day 42 - End of Week 6!

Aug 8   Vikings Games
Aug 9    Rest
Aug 10 Legs / Arms / Core
Aug 11 Run

On August 8 I played two forty minute C grade games of inline hockey at Gawler.  From a fitness and conditioning perspective the night showed my progress to date as I had energy to spare after playing the Wheeler's game early, enough to fill in competently as a reserve for the Bumpers in their game against the Shufflers.

During the first game it took about a minute on the bench after each shift to regain my composure.  Generally, I was right to go from that point and would get to my feet to indicate that I was ready to go out again.  While waiting for my next shift I would try to constantly keep my feet and legs moving on the spot as a means of minimising and delaying the onset of lactate build up.

For the second game I put myself onto pretty short minutes, essentially giving my team mates as much of a run as possible (it was, afterall, their game).  I didn't feel exhausted at all and put on the afterburners a few times on the rink to keep the game locked down for the team I was playing for.

That evening, once the endorphins had worn off, I felt the onset of fatigue.  This evolved into an overall physical tiredness the next day.

Therefore, on August 9, I declared the day to be a 'rest day'.  Which it wasn't really because I spent about five hours moving furniture in the afternoon.  Still, there were no extreme loads and I know my body appreciated it.  If I'd done Interval work as originally planned I'm sure that I'd be done for days.

In the morning of August 10 I realised that I was again at risk of falling behind schedule so spent a bit less than half an hour going through a basic Legs workout, stopping for only bare seconds between sets of the different exercises.

In the evening, due a combination of being delayed for over an hour at work and the passage of a cold front, I decided not to go for my planned run and instead do my arms workout (now two sets of ten reps each for each lift, often a killer effort required for the last lift) interspersed with core exercises in between.

I limited the periods between lifts and core exercises (and vice versa) to between five and fifteen seconds, but was careful to ensure that I didn't work out the same muscle groups on consecutive exercises and so managed to get away with it.  I spent forty minutes on the routine, making it about an hour of high density work for the whole day.  Quite productive.

Not bad for a day that wavered from being limited to a run, to being at risk of washing out in the threatened rising tide of 'rest days' (this despite the frequency of these days decreasing if I look at my activity log).  Afterwards, a general tiredness, particularly in the upper body and arms, less so through the core region (but still noticeable), and below-awareness-level in the legs (though I can feel that they got a workout recently in the weaker muscle groups).

It was a rainy evening on August 11 and again I so nearly decided to call off my limited plans and have another 'rest' day that it's scary in retrospect.  Stubborn pride, however, intervened and saved me from myself and I set off through the wet suburban streets.  I kept to the road mainly, because I could (most people, even in cars, stay inside on nights like tonight) and because it's a more stable and less potentially slippery surface than the varied materials from which our footpaths are constructed.  Didn't see any other pedestrians for the whole trip, and only about four cars in the 21 minutes I was gone.

It's been a while since I last ventured forth so I was careful to pace myself for the sake of both my breathing and my leg muscles.  There was an initial knot in my right calf muscle, not debilitating but enough to be aware of and 'manage' as I worked my way down to the river, where I ducked under a tree during the heaviest shower and did some stretches.  No more knotted muscle.

That initial period of running was probably the most painful, but it was made easier by the fact that within metres from home I was glad I was doing this (I think I actually like running for running's sake, truth be told).  After that, things got a little easier, I didn't drive myself too hard and gave myself short walks on several occasions.  My stretching stop at the school was a lot shorter than usual, and I ran the last kilometre (the hardest, hilliest kilometre) without too much effort except in the legs as I paced myself up the hill.

When I got home, my heartrate didn't seem to be elevated too much, and my breathing was pretty normal within a couple minutes (at no time had I laboured in my breathing, though as the pace picked up over the period it had definitely grown a lot more rhythmic and deeper).

With my run I qualify Week 6 on my schedule (see sidebar) as a 'yellow' pass, pretty good but didn't achieve all I had planned.  I will have to make a real effort to get some interval training underway over the coming week.

Sunday 9 August 2015

Game Day - Wheelers (6) d Rockers (3)

On Saturday night we played the Rockers in the early game for Round 11 of the Vikings Div II Inline Hockey Winter season.  We had our full roster turn up.  The Rockers had four of their regular skaters, with young Rachel playing up as a reserve and Andy in goal.  If we won we remained in touch with the Bumpers at the top of the ladder, a loss and they'd clinch top spot.  If they won, the Rockers would remain in touch with us for second place and a valuable second chance in the playoffs.

Our 'Young line' opened both halves, scored within the first half a minute of the game.  The Rockers responded with two goals in the ensuing 12 minutes, giving them the lead and me a slightly sinking feeling.  Brenton then scored to tie up the game, and Natasha hacked in another with a couple minutes to go.  We led at half time 3-2, having outshot them 17-5.

In the second half, the Rockers equalised with their first of five shots for the period, resulting in the game being tied 3-3 until the 14 minute mark when Crystal put one in unassisted.  Rather than go into defensive mode, we stepped it up, resulting in a one timer off my stick from an offensive faceoff win and another unassisted goal from Crystal with two minutes left.  We totalled 23 more shots for the period against their 5, skating out clear winners 6-3.

*

We played a better team game than last week, generally down to functioning dyads or triads in each line, and a lot more communication.  We also put more emphasis on taking shots, with a greater tendency for at least one skater to be rushing the net or holding their ground in front of the crease.

We ran two consistent lines through 90% of the game, only minorly mixing it up when a couple shifts needed to change on the fly (returning to standard lines shortly afterwards).  Shift length was pretty evenly spread, with both lines taking short shifts on occasion.

Our only overly long shift was at the beginning of the second half, when the Young line was stuck on the rink for about five minutes (not the first time we've started the second shift like this) undoing the good work that we had done earlier when we gave the Old line a short one minute shift at the end of the first period so that the Young line could have a three minute break over half time to be relatively fresh for the beginning of the second half.  We have improved a lot this year in how we do this but there is still more work to do.

In the Young Line, Natasha tended to be the 'third skater' back behind the centre line.  I think she needs to trust herself a little more and play more forward, putting herself into the sights of Josh and Crystal as they create havoc deep in the offensive zone.  To her credit, nothing dangerous got past her and she wasn't afraid to carry the puck in for a shot when opportunity presented.  Josh and Crystal got into trouble occasionally by finding themselves too deep without an effective reset option, so if Natasha came more forward it would fulfill a number of needs.

Our Old line played slightly shorter minutes than the youngsters.  We were a pretty fluid trio and didn't play fixed roles, rotating off the backline as opportunity presented.  Playing with our third skater still above the redline, nothing dangerous got past us.  We had enough energy left at game end to know that we could have gone longer and stronger had the need presented (in fact, all three of us played as reserves in the second Div II game later that evening).

*

As seems to be the case these days, I was happy with my game.  I had no issues with any of my various injuries, gave myself no new aches or pains.  I didn't put myself into any major anaerobic breakdown, kept my feet moving as soon as I had aerobically recharged at the end of my shifts.  I was back in control of myself and ready to go again generally after a minute.

The training is paying off in other ways also.  For example, I had a couple physical matchoffs with Matt (ex Wheeler) and didn't lose any of them.  He is significantly heavier and more bulky than me and is not afraid of using his strength so holding my ground while protecting the puck, instead of relying on my skating to get clear, was in itself a marked improvement (as it created options).

I was involved in our second goal, getting a point for my assist pass to Brenton who scored from the slot.  I had gone on a rush down the boards but faced a congested centre when I entered the zone.  I held up the puck briefly, advanced, held it held it held until a passing lane opened into the slot and Brenton had come in with stick primed for the pass and his second favourite type of shot (gather, stop, aim, wind up, shoot).  Goal!  Besides the pleasure of this type of hockey, it also shows the benefits of varying my speed to suit the situation and create opportunities.  I'll have to pay more attention to the concept of slowing down in future.

I scored my own goal with a one timer from a faceoff victory pass by Merrilyn from the right offensive faceoff dot.  I hit it sweet and it rocketed in above the Goalie's pad and beneath the glove.  Like most of my other shots, it was a hard shot from middle distance.  Unlike most, it went through above floor level.  Some of the other shots were lovely aimed snaps, but moving on the rink surface slows the puck down, allowing the goalie further time to get pad or stick in the way.  If I could only lift the puck at will ... must figure out a practical practice set up to allow me to master this.

*

Next week we play the Bumpers in a top of table end of season clash.  We can theoreticcally take top spot (if we win by 8 goals or more).  This would be extremely unlikely but, if it were to happen, it would also not be inconceivable that I could score a career high six points more than Craig to take our Division's individual point scoring title from him (though his 25 goals easily ensures he will be the Division's leading goal scorer, unless Crystal scores 8 goals to take that title from him).  As I said, extremely unlikely, but one of the reasons we play sport is to dream!

GP 11 G 10 A14 Pts 24 +19 8/3/0

Inline 47

Friday 7 August 2015

Off Season Day 38 - Back on Track.

Aug 5   - Arms, Legs
Aug 6   - Knights Training
Aug 7   - Legs, arms

By the morning of 5 August I was feeling reasonably confident about my right arm again.  It'd been four days since I had slightly strained the lower bicep and there was only a slight sensation of 'difference' so, after deciding that I hadn't had enough sleep and therefore wouldn't go to Vikings Training in the evening, it was a fairly straight forward choice to pick up the weights again.

My session lasted a full fifty minutes and was moderate to high density.  I worked my way through my entire weights circuit, peforming each set twice before moving to the next, allowing two minutes minimum between sets, all sets now of nine reps (except the overhead and chair lifts, which are ten reps).  I found myself fatiguing on the last lift of each set, though not totally.

It will be interesting to see what ten reps per set achieves, which should be by this time next week.  After that I start to shift emphasis from power to endurance, reducing recovery periods and increasing the tempo as I head into pre-season training and a maintenance schedule for the strength.

In between sets of weights I performed a complement of core exercises that worked primarily on the legs (sumos, squats, lunges, high lunges, single led balances, hamstring suspensions, sideways lying leg lifts).  I did two sets of each or on each leg, as appropriate (one during each weight recover period).  This usually left less than a minute for complete rest between the end of a drill and the start of a weights set.  Thus the 'high density' for the session overall.

At the end of it I notice that my right arm was a little more tired than the left and that my legs have returned to what passes for their normal state ('normal' since I did my PCL last year, that is), in that the right leg is more challenged than the left by most of the activities.

On August 6 I limited my exercise to a training session at the Ice Arena with fellow Knights and friends.  From a strength and conditioning perspective I coped with it much better than I have to date, most recently about a month ago.  My core feels exercised but not under done, and my leg strength was not the limiting factor to my skating.  Aerobically, I stayed within the zone, muscle fatigue was more of a challenge than running out of breath.  Anaerobically, my recovery time was 2-3 times that spent in the battle zone.  It was deficiencies in skill and technique which let me down the most.

Note to self: Progress!

August 7 was originally going to be a rest day.  This had been an easy decision as I was feeling a little stiff and sore from the night before and had a dinner engagement in the evening.  I did however manage a short twenty minute leg session in the morning (squats, high lunges, single leg balances, hamstring suspensions, side lying leg raises, sumo squats).  I did twin sets of all exercises, of each leg where appropriate.  For the leg raises, I did ten raises of ten seconds each on each leg.  And then I got home from work a bit early and so managed to do a full arms workout (10 reps in first set of each lift, 9 in the second, hitting fatigue on most) before going out for dinner.

Knights Training

This evening Justine took a group of Knights and friends for a training session at the Ice Arena.  Close to twenty showed up.  They varied in skill from hockey academy rookies to youngsters verging on A Grade.  I would have placed myself somewhere in the middle of the pack, though that was probably not justified by performance.  I say this because I could compare what I know I am capable  of against the actual performance of others, what I could do against what they did.  I ranked myself favourably in comparison to quite a few that outwardly appeared to be fairly equal to me, mainly because I haven't touched the ice more than a half dozen times over the last five months whereas many of the others are on it several times per week.  Whatever.

Drills included a 'baseball game' for a warm up (plus ten push ups) followed by ten minutes of simple skate technique; forwards, backwards and transitions.  Then the 'defence game' (when I played a few rounds as defence and the same as a forward).  Then a few 'body bouts', with the puck on a faceoff dot, a defender in the circle and an attacker trying to 'break in'.  Then a three on three 'basketball style' shinny to wrap things up.

No great moments for me, more a feeling a basic competence and potential usefulness.  The work I've been doing this off season, limited almost entirely to strength, endurance and fitness, has certainly freed up my play to some extent.  I will have to step up the off-ice training a bit, though, if I want to be able to play hockey games with such a noticeable improvement evident throughout the game.  And, of course, skating and stick skills need to be sharpened up considerably.

My skates were not an issue, perhaps for the first time.  Although I wasn't skating at full power I was still being pretty agile.  Previously I would have had my boots sliding out from under me on several occasions through the session.  This time, all good.  Similar with the pain perspective, I was totally unaware of my boots for 90% of the time I had them on and I didn't have sore feet when I took them off.  The original cotton Bauer laces that I put back on might be making the difference, combined with a more refined approach to tightening them.

Ice: 27 

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Off Season Day 35 - End of Week 5

3 Aug - run, lower core
4 Aug - run, core

On 3 August I returned to my program.  Or at least those parts I felt safe doing.  I was able to do this because the pain in the butt that resulted from Saturday's game was almost all gone this morning and my leg movement was almost entirely free of adverse sensation (eg. when mounting the stairs).

I took my run at a slightly slower and regulated pace, keeping to a fairly inefficient technique for the running itself to shelter my muscles.  I felt I've taken quite a large step forward with my running as I managed the entire circuit with only a short break for some basic stretches in the middle.  Apart from that, I ran the whole way.  Perhaps not surprisingly (as the run consisted of smaller than usual steps and less spring in my step) my time was a good but not great 20 minutes.

Upon return home I counted my heart beats and averaged it up for a full minute.  The result was 100 beats per minute at the end of the exercise.  If I'm average for my age this is about 60% of my maximum and the least required to derive a training effect from the exercise.  Next time I'm out I'll aim at extending my paces a little, perhaps lope a bit more, push the heart rate up and the time down.

After I'd performed a few stretches at the end of my run I moved straight into a round of leg/core exercises, still respecting the fact that I am sheltering my arm muscles after their weekend strain.  Total time for the evening's exertions was 50 minutes.

 On 4 August I still was not confident regarding my arm muscle, though they could carry weight without pain in the morning there was still a discomfort.  So I gave it another rest and more or less followed the same plan as they day before, though with a greater emphasis on upper body and abdominal core exercises and a total duration of 55 minutes.

My run time was approximately the same as the day before, but heart rate had dropped significantly in comparison.  I am aware that there can be quite marked gains in the early days of any exercise program, but to drop from about a hundred to about sixty is ridiculous.  Admittedly, I felt a lot less fatigued and a lot more in control of my breathing throughout the journey, but even so...  Perhaps I need to get some sort of objective heart rate monitor?

For exercise routine, I added sumo squats and most of my Swedish ball exercises to what I did the day before.  I must have stepped up the intensity because I managed to fit it all in and still be at it only five minutes longer.

That completes week 5 of my program.  I have coloured it Yellow on the sidebar to mark the fact that I didn't complete all elements according to plan (didn't perform any interval training).  Partly because this lack was due to injury, partly because I managed to perform all other routines required, I didn't colour it orange or, worse, red, and still feel I am making significant progress each and every day.

Monday 3 August 2015

Game Day - Wheelers (6) d Shufflers (3)

On Saturday night we played the Shufflers.  They only had two roster players plus a 'new' one, two reserves (both Bumpers) and Andy in the net.  We had five roster players and Nicole in goals, so let Jana play with us as a reserve to fill out our lines.

We started with our 'old' line first, being Brenton, Merrilyn and me.  We played a vigorous two minute shift, were pretty knackered at the end of it.  Josh scored a neat singlehanded goal at the end of the next shift, and then it was about ten minutes of trading chances with them before Craig first equalised, and then put them in front a couple minutes later.  Lucky for us, Josh again closed his next shift with a singlehanded goal.  Near the end of the first half there was a pair of penalties against them, which we sadly failed to capitalise on.  We went into half time 2-2.

Almost immediately this was over early in the second half when Brenton got stung for tripping after probably the longest board battle I've seen (him and Merrilyn for our side), the puck never leaving the board as it was battled around from one centre wing, behind their goal and up to the opposite central wing.  We saw off the penalty kill (I didn't play at this point) and then Brenton hit the rink with a vengeance out of the box.  This was the only time our lines got 'muddled'.

Josh gave Crystal an assist to give us the lead after about five minutes.  She scored again (on her own this time) a couple minutes later for what was to prove ultimately the game winning goal.  Me and Merrilyn combined two minutes later, Craig dropped in his third for the Shufflers, and Merrilyn and I repeated our combination goal with one and a half minutes to go to close out the game 6-3.

We outshot them 10-8 in the first half and 15-5 in the second.  Nicole's goal tending continued to improve, with her basic body positioning and butterfly technique starting to occur 'naturally'.  She says that she's organised childcare for the rest of the season, so she should be in something approaching her standard form by the time finals come around.  Excellent.

Josh continues to improve, going like a runaway train almost the whole time he is on the rink (as Merrilyn puts it).  The changes he's made to his lifestyle in the last month are really showing their effect in his skating and general game play, let alone the consistency of his scoring output.  Crystal also took a significant step forward, showing how hard she can skate in the last couple shifts of the game.  I think maybe when she learns to trust her decisions a bit more, this will become a feature of her game.  She's actually quite quick when focused.  Jana played generally with Josh and Crystal, added a little defensive stability to an otherwise improvisational line.  I only played the one shift with her, and managed to block her best shot at goal.

Brenton played a stirling game, taking all of our line's faceoffs and winning them all.  He might not have gotten any points but he saved a few goals just by his faceoff performance.  It's a pleasure playing wing to him when he does this.  Merrilyn was her usual hard playing self, taking it close to her physical limit every time she goes out on the rink.  I played the mobile sweeper for our line, complementing the positionally sounder play of my partners.  It was really nice to start connecting passes again to Merrilyn in front of goal (we haven't played on the same regular line for several games) and feel the chemistry work.  Both her goals came off tape to tape passes by myself on the wing/corner, the second after I had held the puck waiting for a passing seam to open.

I was pretty chuffed with my game.  It didn't quite have the physical element the last game had, though I did have to exert my strength a couple times against Mike and Craig to ensure they didn't muscle the puck from me.  I didn't take faceoffs because Brenton was on fire with them.  I put several good shots on goal, one of which was apparently quite memorable.  I think it was the one where I dodged my way through traffic to cut across the face of goal just outside of reach of the goalie until it seemed that I was too wide to shoot, and then flicked a no look backhand with a lot of power right on the net (barely saved with a deflection of the goalie's blocker).

But the chemistry evident in the passing game with Merrilyn (and to a slightly lesser extent, Brenton) was my highlight.  Together with the fact that I had more than sufficient energy once the aerobic system kicked in at about the five minute mark.

It was about half way through the second half that I felt a loss of power in my left leg, associated with upper rear muscles.  Not knowing better, I thought it might be a hamstring strain, took it a bit easier, considered even stopping.  Played it out and then worried about what I'd done.  Turns out it was all okay.

Very pleased.

GP 10 G 9 A 13 Pts 22 +18 7/3/0

Inline 46

Sunday 2 August 2015

Off Season Day 33 - Injured Recovery

2 Aug - Rest

On Sunday 2 August I had an enforced rest day due injury.  The night before I'd been thinking that due the leg muscle strain from the game the night before I wouldn't be able to do anything that activated the upper hamstring / glute interface, but I could do specially selected core exercises and strength work.  Definitely no interval training until I am ready.

Alas, this was not to be.  Because I have become naggingly aware of a right inner lower bicep strain (minor aggravation of previous hyperextension of the elbow?).  This is probably due something I did in the wee hours, lifting a bunch of heavy music gear around.  Bottom line of this, is that has put paid to arms and upper core work also.  Which basically cuts out pretty well everything.  So I spent quite a while lounging around with about twenty minutes of icing on the leg for every two to four hours.  As for the arm, am just observing the strain as I work through daily life, try and figure out if simple rest or a more active treatment is advisable.

Assuming I don't get back to the program in the next day or two, this week will be a relative write off in terms of off ice progress.  So it won't qualify for a green highlight on the sidebar chart that is up presently.  However, it's not like I've slackened off or anything, so I won't colour it red.  Maybe a neutral yellow will do.  We'll see.

In any event, I obviously didn't take up on the offer to skate as a reserve in Division I.  Hopefully I get another chance when able to take up on it.


Off Season Day 32 - hamstring

July 29 Vikings Training, Arms, Legs and lower core
July 30 Rest
July 31 Arms, Legs (core)
Aug 1  Wheelers Game, lower Core

On July 29 I went to Gawler for Vikings Training.  Upon my return home I did a workout lasting 40 minutes.  It consisted of 2 cycles of my six 'arms' sets, using 6 kg weights (plus the bars) for curls, butterfly raises and overhead lifts (10 reps for these), 4kg for forwards and sideways raises, and the coffee table for my 'chair' lifts (10 reps).  Between each of these strength exercises I performed various of my leg/lower core drills.  Namely two Sumo Squats, 2 sets of ten squats, 2 x single leg balances (3 reps per leg), 2 x hamstring plank (40s each leg), 2 sets of nine lunges (used to fit ten into the stretch of floor I use).  So it was a pretty dense session.  Had meat and bread afterwards.

I had a rest day on 30 July.  I hadn't originally planned to do so but was absolutely knackered after work and decided not to push myself any further that day.  Perhaps just as well, because the next day I felt rested and more healthy.  Just as the recovery time during a workout is perhaps the key time of the whole session, so in some ways a rest day in a longer term program.  Life gets busy for me the next couple of weeks, so I'll probably have a few more.

On July 31 I pretty much repeated my exercise routine from the 29th, with the added pleasure of performing nine reps in the second set I did of any particular strength exercise (except for those exercises which I do ten reps for anyway), and carrying weights when I performed my squats and lunges.  I'd originally planned to also go for a run, which would have given me over an hour of exercise, but time and practicality intervened so I was limited to the stay at home exercises.  I seemed to cruise through the forty minutes so I might need to step it up with something else on future occasions.

August began with a forty minute core workout, picking up on most of the exercises in my usual routine which I have not done for a few days.  I upped the intensity of the session by limiting recovery to 15 seconds between sets most of the time (up to 30 seconds if the next set of exercises would work the same or similar muscle groupings).  Thus I did 2 high lunges per leg, 2 sets of 3 seated twists, 2 side planks per side of 45s, 3 sets of 10 leg lifts, 10 McGill Curls per side, 10 thigh rock backs, 3 10s bridges, and 2 45s Swedish ball plank leg lifts per side.  I have thus extended my plank times by 15 seconds (both on floor and ball) and doubled the number of leg lifts over the past month.  I guess that's success.

In the evening I played with the Wheelers at Gawler.  In this post I will limit commentary about the game to the health and fitness aspects only, and even then only as much as they affect my off season program (and the fact that we won 6-3).  Of most significance is the fact that I appear to have strained a muscle in the upper rear leg, just beneath the big glutes.  I am icing it as I write this about six hours later, having also put an ice pack on a couple hours after the injury and a liberal dosing of arnica shortly afterwards.  I had been asked to play as a reserve in Div I game tomorrow but I think I'll have to give it a miss.  As with any other running activiy, and exercises that drive the hamstring muscle group.  If I'm lucky, I'll be back on track by Monday.  If not then, Wednesday training might be the next best restart time.  If not then, next Saturday's Wheeler's game.

Until the injury, I had thought the challenge was to work in sprints and runs as well as workouts, work and family commitments over the next few days.  Sigh.  I'm sure there's some other things I can do in the meantime however.

All part of the meta-drill.