Training Program Article

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 07 Nov 2007 07:52

TRAINING PROGRAMS

** About Training Programs In General **
The main idea of a training program is that you concentrate on certain subjects and don't "waste" any of the session time. In a training program you have a planned structure of the whole session, and you repeat the same program certain amount of times. A program requires playing alone, you cannot follow the plan in a circle and you get distracted easily when playing with others. With programs you optimise the time used to practice.
These programs are designed for players who have a foundation for several components. For a complete beginner of freestyle footbag, a special training program is not usefull. This is because every movement is new to your muscles and learning them systematically is very hard, since there's no foundation for muscle memory.
Effective way to learn footbag is down to four factors: Right technique, Concentrating on the execution, Recognising flaws and Repetition. Training programs are based on this.
On the programmed sessions the spot and its vicinity should be interference-free and there should be enough room. Having music on the background is ok, and necessary on some programs.
When planning a program choosing the right number of tricks, combos, etc and numbers or repeats is very important. Too much different concepts and too much repeats overloads the muscle memory and is no use for learning, and the same thing for reapeats. Too long session ends up to a low energy level towards the end and it's not effective for learning.
Breaks during sessions are a must but cannot be too long. You should not cool down in the middle of a session. Also going for too long without even a tiny break is very energy consuming and after that the breaktime in need is very long. So take tiny breaks (30 seconds to 2 minutes) often enough so you don't suddenly need a ten minutes long break during your session. - Except when training program includes long freestyle strings / routines, then the breaktime is of course longer.
Off days between programmed sessions are needed, because muscles need to recover and muscle memory needs time to process learned moves. Depending on the program, sessions on 2-5 days in a row, and 1-2 days off is recommended. Also depending on the player.
Warming up and cooling down must be included in the program. Warm up with basics using tricks that you can handle well. Go for long easy strings and some short stretches to "wake up" your muscles and break a sweat. Cool down with some easy short combos and some kicking. Remember to stretch after session for 5-15 minutes - after you've cooled down. Remember to drink water during sessions.
Don't wander off from the program. Take a list from plans of your program with you to your session and stick with it. Depending on the lenght you should end your session after you've completed the program for the day. If it's a short program you can continue freestyling after the program.
It's good to switch the order of the different executions on each session, so you have different energy level each time. If you always leave a certain thing as the last, you'll progress the least on it.
When planning a program you should minimise the number of failures. The harder the concept is, the less repeats you should have. This gives more importance to concetrating on each of the executions individually. Also make clear goals you want to achieve with the program, so you'll know afterwards if it worked. And if it didn't, you either didn't carry out the program well, planned it wrong or had too high goals.
Amount of repeating the same programmed session varies for the program, and should be decided before starting it. The amount should be enough to get a good amount of repeats all together from all the sessions summed together. But should not be too long so that the rest of your game is harmed by the program and the lack of just freestyling.
Don't do many different training programs in a row, your freestyle game might feel a bit awkward after finishing a program, so use a few session of just freestyling, maybe trying out your new limits and stuff. Then plan a new program if you feel like it.
Live healthy while doing a program. Eat well, and not just hamburgers. Make sure you get enough sleep. Don't take alcohol after a session or if you plan to play the next day.

Any questions about Training Programs can be sent to paradoxtorque at hotmail.com

** Training Program for Run Consistency **
The main idea is to strenghten your basics, so moving on to more advanced tricks becomes easier, and make basic techniques more solid.
Goal of the program is to increase your freestyle run consistency and getting more comfortable feeling with basics.
There are two different ways to carry out the program that vary from each other. They can also be mixed.

Playing To Music
[!This program requires music. You should have a possibility to play with Stereos, MP3-player or other music.]
The main idea is to "outshred" songs with as little drops as possible. If you have a CD player, make a CD with good footbag music or your favourite songs. Approximately 5-10 songs is good, with the length of around 2-4 minutes each.
You are not supposed to have a choreography on the music, you just play the song through without minding the number of drops. Playing 3Â½ minutes straight is exhausting, so you'll need long breaks between each.
The trick selection you use is supposed to be your "bread&butter" with the little twist that everytime you drop you take the level of difficulty down - Untill you only do dexless tricks, and you'll propably be too tired to do anything else at that point. On each song you start with your basic safe freestyle game, using as much variety on tricks and links as you can. On each drop you start to use more safer and safer moves.
This program is not good to mix with other programs, because it needs so much energy. Shredding through ten songs that last three minutes means playing thirty minutes.

Long Basic Trick Drills
[This is a simple program that can be mixed with other training programs.]
The main idea is to create different repeat combos that you can drill over and over. The drills should consist of tricks that you handle well. Links should be chosen to be usefull for the practice, and so that all the linked concepts are different in each drill.
Number of the different repeat combos and contacts varies. If you have other programmed rehearsals on the session you shoudn't pick many drills.
>EXAMPLE>
(Four repeat combos to go along with other program)
Pdx Illusion > Toe Whirl > Swirl > rpt
Pixie ss Pickup > Atomic Mirage > rpt
Spinning Mirage > Drifter > rpt
Barfly > Stepping Clipper > rpt

** Training Program For Routine Choreography **
[!This program requires music. You should have a possibility to play with Stereos, MP3-player or other music.]
Start with short choreograhpys. First 1 minute, then 1Â½ and finally 2 minutes. You should push yourself on to two minutes as soon as your ready, because it's still easy to go back to 1Â½ in competition or demo if you need to. When you master two minutes, you might also want to consider moving on to practicing even longer routines.
Create a routine choreography to the song of your choice. Write down all the cues. Decide how many times you'll be going through the routine per session, 4-6 is good. When planning a routine you need to start with easy. The goal is to be flawless, that means no bailing or dropping. You'll need small breaks (preferably on cues) to be able to go through the whole performance without failing.
After warm up go through all your cue moves a couple of times, to get a good feeling of them.
When you start going through the routines, it is absolutely necessary that you keep your thoughts to what you are doing and on the planned moves. Don't start freestyling. If you drop, take a deep breth before you continue, and be like you hadn't dropped. Concentrate on every move equally, or as Milan Benda calls, keep a "cold head".
Practicing the routine, make mental notes on your drops and go through all the dropped moves and links after you've finished the routine. If you keep dropping the same moves, you might need to change it easier. You can keep track on your drop/bail count of each session, so you see your progress in long time terms.
Practicing routines needs a lot of energy, so you need to take longer (2-5 minutes) breaks between each. Also mixing routine practice with many repeats with other programs is not a good idea, due to the loss of energy level. If you wish to mix, do only 2-4 routines per session.
Depending how much you've practiced routines before, around 7 to 21 sessions is a good amount for practicing routines. With four times each session and 21 sessions all together, it means repeating the same routine 84 times.

** Training Program For Consistency On Advanced And New Tricks **
Advanced
Choose three to six moves from different concepts, that you can do back-to-back with alright consistency. On session you go through them one by one with "marathon style" till you hit a certain number, meaning that you count the contacts and when you reach your goal you move on to the next move, and of course when you drop you continue where you left, instead of starting from zero. With number of repeats 40-100 is good, don't go over a hundred, because at that point its efficiency is low for muscle memory.
You can do the same thing with tricks that cannot be hit back-to-back, to make a repeat combos, that you do over and over untill you reach certain amunt of contacts.
With advanced tricks, that you struggle linking to anything, you can start by doing single executions to a hand catch seal both sides. Remember to pay attention to the control, because you need to start linking them. When you feel ready, you can start doing them back-to-back or to another move (that is not an easy bail). Start with 10-15 repeats per session, per side.
Doing repeat combos from advanced tricks are also good, because they help learning to link the tricks with others. Make up short drills, with maximum of four repeated tricks. You should be able to complete a full circle with at least five tries. Going through the drill altogether 3-6 times per session is a good amount.
>EXAMPLE>
(single tricks)
Ripwalk x80
Pdx Whirl x60
Pickup x100
Drifter x60
(drills)
Spinning Clipper > Ducking Clipper x60 contacts
Mirage > Pixie Legover x50 contacts
(repeat combos)
Blur > Atomsmasher > Legbeater > repeat x4 times

New
[This is a simple program that can be mixed with other training programs.]
With learning a new concept it's important that there's only one new concepts involved on each session. If you are still an intermediate player having many newer concepts on each session, it is not recommended to have a special program for any of them, since muscle memory is already overloaded with new information every session.
The main goal in learning new is to keep your mind on it and have all the focus in each attempt. Giving random shots for new tricks every once in a while with barely trying is very unpractical. If the new concepts is a set, try to hit it to a Mirage or Butterfly instead of a hand catch.
Don't try to learn a new trick the easy way. Meaning you try to execute it with a bad form because it feels easier, or so that you're not able to play out of it with control. You should learn every trick so that you can link it to any other trick.
Ask tips from more advanced players for the concepts. Don't stop the program on the very first session you nail the trick the first time, it does not mean you learned it. Or even if you can't hit the trick even once on the first couple sessions, count good tries as success. A prefered amount of good tries or sealed tries is 10 for each session.

** Teaching Yourself **
Teaching yourself is very complicated and hard. It's important to always regard your technique and execution style on certain critique, untill you're perfectly satisfied with it. You must learn to acknowledge your own performance and "see" what you're doing wrong if something doesn't feel right.
It's good to have a video camera on solo sessions, so it's easier to see what you're doing. Also asking an advanced player to check out your game live or on video is helpfull, since more experienced players have encountered the same problems and got over them. Don't be embarrased to ask help if you're struggling with something.
In common freestle moves the most common problems are set height, timing and foot work. I claim that not being able to execute a trick because of lack of speed is a common misunderstanding.
When searching the problem, start with set height and try them out. Next pay attention to footwork. Switching support feet too slowly is usually big problem in moves with uptime dexes. If your trying a new move with a set you don't quite handle, pay attention to the footwork rather than set height.
Dexing properly is also important. It's both matter of trick cleanliness and landing properly, without unnecessary high impacts or stress to knees. Wrong dexing technique may also aggravate links.

I tried to keep it as short adn simple as possible!
Thanks for all the players taking part in the research,
-Anz

Asmus · Post by **Asmus** » 12 Nov 2007 22:11

Hey Anz

Im injured at the moment but when I get back I definitely wanna try this.

I will get back to you.

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 14 Nov 2007 10:48

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Anz · Post by **Anz** » 20 Nov 2007 08:00

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EoghanMcDowell · Post by **EoghanMcDowell** » 27 Dec 2007 16:13

Are you going to be doing another thing like this? Because i think this could really help my game.

mannel rox · Post by **mannel rox** » 28 Dec 2007 13:23

Yeah, I'd wanna do one too..

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 30 Dec 2007 15:02

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Benzilla · Post by **Benzilla** » 30 Dec 2007 16:43

Lol, i finished mine in less then a week. I was the first one done too

Post by **Zac Miley** » 31 Dec 2007 20:03

I'm down for doing one too.

PoisonTaffy · Post by **PoisonTaffy** » 28 Jan 2008 09:25

I'll sign up for the new one. I'm very interested in practice methods.

calemccoy · Post by **calemccoy** » 05 Feb 2008 23:11

can i still do this? PM me if i can.

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 21 Feb 2008 09:37

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gatapia · Post by **gatapia** » 21 Feb 2008 12:09

What were the results of phase 1? Any interesting observations? Are there going to be any observations?

Guido

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 22 Feb 2008 12:45

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Anz · Post by **Anz** » 15 Oct 2008 06:58

BUMP

THE RESEARCH IS COMPLETE AND INSTRUCTIONS ON CREATING YOUR OWN TRAINING PROGRAMS CAN BE FOUND ON THE VERY FIRST POST OF THE THREAD!
Enjoy.

I know, it's a bloody long article, but there's everything you need. And I'm pretty sure there's no questions left to ask, so read carefully before asking anything.
But if you have a question, you can PM me.

I'm interested on hearing results. So if you care to let me know how you experienced a program, I'm happy to hear.

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 15 Oct 2008 10:17

Very cool Anz. Between this and your trick tips on youtube, you've really done good things for the players. Much appreciated.

I especially like your idea about improving run consistency by playing all the way through a complete song. I will definitely try that.

I think you're also right on the money when you said:

Switching support feet too slowly is usually big problem

That's definitely something I've noticed more and more.

80 ripwalks eh? Yikes, I've got my work cut out for me

Thanks again!

PoisonTaffy · Post by **PoisonTaffy** » 19 Oct 2008 07:25

You said that one of the four factors is "Right technique". Unless I missed something in the text, I didn't see any discussion of this.

I find that sometimes it's hard to know what's the right trick to learn next.
Other than being separated to "basic" and "advanced", your videos don't contain any guideline on how advanced a move is, and what skills are needed before attempting a trick. I personally know that trying to learn an advanced move too early can be very frustrating.

Do you have any suggestions or guidelines for finding out what is the right trick to learn?

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 24 Oct 2008 07:05

InfecedTofu wrote:You said that one of the four factors is "Right technique". -- I didn't see any discussion of this.

You're right. The article is about training programs, not right technique. I constructed the article so that there's nothing that can cause strong arguing. Right technique in execution is something where's almost as many opinions as there are players.

Do you have any suggestions or guidelines for finding out what is the right trick to learn?

Yes, but that's a topic I don't want to bring up here. Though I have been planning to bring my thought up about this. I'm sure I've seen topics about this in the Trick Tips subforum.

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 07 May 2009 10:36

BUMP

I'd like to know how many players have used training programs to practice footbag, and what kind of experience has it been?

Please post in this thead or PM me.

Also, I'm still willing to help anyone who's interested in doing a training program. Just e-mail me and ask for help.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 07 May 2009 20:58

I actually do the one where I'm focusing on repeatable combos of 2-3 moves that I can do individually, but not yet consistently in strings linked together.

I'd not seen this post 2 years ago. Good stuff.