Make it Rain

What an insane month!! I signed on to be the strength and conditioning coach for Seattle's first professional ultimate frisbee team, the Seattle Rainmakers, and have been head-down workin' since then to bring all the knowledge and expertise I have to bear for the benefit of the team. This is an incredible opportunity for me to put to use the knowledge I've gained in the past few years while working with frisbee players and my other clients...it's being amazing to work with a group of smart, high-level, hardworking athletes.

My first goal as a coach was to do an in-depth evaluation with each player. I created the assessment using my own work with frisbee players and athletes as a guide, ascribing to Gray Cook and Michael Boyle's theory: mobility first, then stability, then movement. I started by talking with them about their injury history, any current physical concerns, and their activity level at the moment. Then I assessed their movement patterns, identifying imbalances and pinpointing the places where improvements could be made to reduce the risk of injury and increase power. I took the guys through specific "fixes" for these areas, and sent them off with (hopefully) a better sense of the guy-behind-the-guy for issues they were having.

Here's an example of a diagnosis, a fix, and the follow-up I did with the athletes. Watching one athlete perform a series of free squats (no weight) I noticed that his low back was rounding under at the bottom. I pointed it out to him, asking if he could slow the movement down and keep a neutral spine the whole time. When he was unable to, I had him try a no-weight deadlift. I asked him to keep his knees slightly bent and his back neutral, hinging his hips backward until his body was parallel to the floor. He was unable to get close to parallel, so I was able to determine that the problem in the squat movement was poor hip mobility. I showed him the fix, the Frog Stretch (awesome movement), and later sent him a description of it, including how often/long/when he should do it. We went through a few different movements, with me looking for different things each time, and I ended up with a full body profile of each athlete and a sense of where to place them on the training continuum.

I'm gathering incredible data right now, and have just finished the first round of videos for the team workouts I'm leading this season. Thanks to the MLU for bringing me on, and I'll keep you posted about the work I'm doing with this awesome group of people. Learning a lot, giving a lot, super pumped. :)

Frog Stretch