I don’t claim to be a personal trainer by any stretch, but I have been playing sports my whole and have been successful at every sport I’ve played – a large part of which is due to my speed so I like to think I know what I’m talking about.

For ultimate, there are many elements which will contribute to your success and nothing will be a substitute for having good disc skills (throwing & catching) but the one skill that you can control absolutely is your fitness.

There are tons of different workouts (P90X, Crossfit, Air Alert, etc) but really the one(s) that will work best for you are the ones that you enjoy, that you have time for and that work for you. Listen to other people for sure but ultimately it’s your body and noone knows it better than you do. Some people don’t need to do much off season training and can get fit for the season very quickly while others aren’t so lucky. Find out what works for you and do that. Don’t burn yourself by training too hard in the offseason so that by the time outdoor season comes you’re too tired or already hurt and can’t play. Make sure that you’re taking care of your body – yoga, pilates, stretching – as I said, whatever works for you.

I do find a few things will be important to your training success:

1. Eating enough – especially important when you’re training is to eat healthy. I wouldn’t recommend going on some bullshit diet (ie cut out XX for a few weeks). Eat a balanced diet (you should ideally know what you need to eat to feel healthy by now) and if you’re not sure what that is, go talk to a nutritionist. There are a ton of books that give you suggestions but again, it will be the meal plan that works for you.

2. Proper technique – this is huge. I’ve seen so many people who don’t have good form and they’re not as fast, they get hurt more often and they’re not in as good shape as those with good form. Watch videos that teach you the proper technique, go to a track coach who can help you or talk to someone who have good form. You will notice an immediate difference in your performance. This also applies to doing weights and any sort of training

Above all, enjoy it. Just like a job, if you commit to a workout program that you don’t enjoy then you don’t be putting all you have into your training sessions. I’ve tried to keep this brief for the sake of attempting to reiterate a few key points that I find are sometimes easily overlooked when considering offseason training.

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