Week 1: Oct 30 - Nov 5

#GettinYettiForSarasota

Introduction

Lets focus on the following 7 pillars for this off-season program to keep your mind and body healthy and focused: mindset, flexibility, cardio, strength, agility, nutrition, and footy.

  • If you already have a program you’re happy with, please continue with it and even share with the team. There isn’t a one size fits all, so my goal is to provide a progression of some baseline workouts you can do, maybe offer some things you haven’t seen before, and generally help to come into next season ready to go.

  • The season doesn’t start until April so I’ll do my best to come up with ~25 weeks of content. This is week 1, so focused on doing an introduction to each pillar, providing resources to use throughout the program, as well as a relatively light week to wake your body back up.

  • Feel free to modify the workouts to fit your current fitness level… For example, my running suggestions will have you starting at ~10 miles per week and working up to 20/25 over 12 weeks. If you want to do more, change the workouts to x2 or add an extra day and have the progression be from 20 -> 40. Just pay attention to the weekly hard days as these will progress week over week as well as I have some workouts shared with the Revo’s that will be worked in.

  • With this first week, try and think about how to establish a work/life/workout routine that fits your schedule. This week is nice but daylight savings time is around the corner, winter is coming, holiday season will be here in no time… but if we put in the time now, we’ll come out the other side stronger

  • Listen to your heart (rate)… If you have a fitness watch, try to pay attention to your heart rate, body battery, and VO2 max. You can learn a lot about what your body needs by tracking and listening to your HR. If you run for 5 days and your pace is the same but your average HR during the run keeps climbing, take a day off and let it recover. Same thing if you HR while sleeping steadily climbs above your usual average. Lastly, night’s when I’ve a few beers, my HR during sleep jumps from 45 to above 60 so there’s a noticeable difference if you find yourself worn down.

Mindset

Start this week with a positive and growth mindset. Picture the growth as a person and an athlete you’d like to achieve over the next 6 months.

  • Join the Strava group https://www.strava.com/clubs/627147. The idea behind this is to build this team truly into a brotherhood. There is a lot of attrition and new faces throughout the season but being able to have a level of confidence and trust in each other will build exponentially seeing that everyone has been putting in the work. We can use this tool as a community to motivate and cheer on our brothers throughout the off-season.

  • I am a basketball fan and was Watching The Redeem Team on Netflix the other day... I liked it and found myself thinking that there’s no reason next season we can’t be successful and with a little hard work, come home champions. I started messaging Coach Weaver and here we are :) so ask you to watch it and see what you think

Flexibility

You’ve heard about this your whole life, decreases chance of injury, increases range of motion, etc. but still often overlooked and ignored. Continue a couple times a week to do the dynamic stretches that we do at practice before exercise. Include it as part of your warmup on the harder days of the week and can be a cross training session on it’s own for the days off. Secondly, after your daily exercise try to include a cool down stretch.

  • Download the app : "Stretch Exercise - Flexibility" from Play Store or Apple Store. There are a couple ads but not bad and I like the content they offer.

    • After each run follow the 5 minute “Post-Run Cool Down”

    • This app offers many targeted stretching routes so if you have other area you’d like to work on, open it up. They usually range from 5-15 minutes.

  • Find your tight spots and massage/roll them out

  • Coming up, Friday will be providing additional content during the program for recovery and stretching.

  • Anyone have a yoga instructor connection who’d be interested in hosting the Freeze a couple times a month?

Cardio

My pastime has been running over the past 20 years so it’s what I like to do. The need for cardio is also self-explanatory, but wanted to mention a couple points.

  • Cardio can come in many forms (run/swim/bike/etc) and they compliment each other… but swimming isn’t biking, which isn’t distance running, which isn’t sprinting, which isn’t footy. In my program, I am going to include different types of running working to hit each of these areas, so just ensure that you’re putting in the time doing what you're training for in the end.

  • If your route has hills, try to run up the hill and recover off the top… don’t stop at the top of the hill. This is to simulate during a match you run and your heart rate is high, try and get your HR to come back down while still on the move.

  • I am going to post mileage suggestions and workouts for a 12 week plan for couch ->5k, followed by a 2nd 12 week plan for 10k. The volume starts at 10 miles per week and makes it's way up to 20 (2-6 miles generally) across 4 runs... 2 easy runs, 1 long run, 1 workout included. My thought is, if you’re able to race a 5k, you’re ready for 20 minutes of footy… 10k is equivalent to 2x20s… and so on

  • Workouts trend towards quicker repeats. If you already are at a higher volume than 10 miles, feel free to x2 or x3 the daily mileage and/or run an extra day or 2. Just try to work in the workout days as these will increase in frequency and intensity week over week.

Strength

Declan, Friday, and Tiger have put/are putting some things together for us to work on. In order to not overload on week one, chosen not including them quite yet… but the meantime, I have a couple suggestions on where to begin if your already spending time in the gym or looking for a way to do strength training at home and build a base.

  • Gym: More to come from the experts but high level if you want to start this week

  • If going 4 days :

    • Legs -> Back/Core -> Chest/Shoulders -> Arms.

  • If three days :

    • Legs -> Back/Core/Biceps -> Chest/Shoulders/Triceps

  • Home: Download the "Home Workout - No Equipment" from the Play Store or Apple Store and start the Full Body 7x4 challenge. There’s a couple ads but not bad… I like the content and they are about 15 minute workouts that adjust and progress week over week for the whole body or a targeted muscle group.

Agility

Fundamental skill for footy… quick feet, change of direction, etc all can give you a leg up on the competition

Nutrition

Be smart, eat healthy, and drink water. I don’t have much to contribute here but something that should always be on your mind.

  • Not sure anyone on the team has some nutrition background that would like to contribute?

Footy

The game we are playing at the end of the day :) I have form and skills videos that will be shared in the coming weeks but once again, not too intense here for a little while.

  • You guys saw the success the women had this year with even with many new faces… let’s continue the recruiting effort and draw in hard working and talented people.

  • Take 5/10 minutes couple times during the week to do 1000 Touches

  • We are lucky enough to have a photographer, so take a look and self-reflect on your form, compare with the veterans, and think about what you’d like to work on…

  • Might be had, but watch some of the games from this past years nationals:

#GettinYettiForSarasota