BAD training this week

BAD HQ, still with the tarp from last week's flooding

BAD has a training regimen where the end of the month has the toughest drills because they do a monthly intake at the beginning of the month and get progressively harder. This weekend, we were trained by Jane Hammer on Saturday and Mindi on Sunday.

I liked saturday's fitness training. We did jump rope and high knees for 20 sec on, then 10 sec off (where you handed the jump rope to the person next to you) for  a total of 5 minutes or so. I like jump rope. It reminds me of being a kid, yay. Then we did lunge crawls across the room and some yoga stretches, so that we were all stretched and warmed up for when we put our skates on.

This week, the theme seemed to be positional blocking and getting all up in someone's face. (Not literally, although that would be fun.) First, we did sprints in 10, 15, 20, 30 sec intervals, and some lateral stepping (to the inside/outside line). Next, there was a quick head swivelling exercise to make sure everyone could skate forwards while looking backwards or sideways, and then it was onto positional blocking with partner. Basically, one person acts as the jammer and skates behind the other person (the blocker), and the jammer just goes inside/outside and the blocker has to mirror them and stay in front of them.

Sometimes we have the stereo on when we train.

Next, we did a positional blocking drill in a pack. There were about 12 of us, so we had 4 jammers and the rest were blockers. The blockers started by just skating and doing the lateral stepping drill so that it was more of an obstacle avoidance drill, and then later got together and moved inside and outside as a pack to stop the jammers. You had to be touching at least two other people, and could move people around as necessary. The jammers went through one at a time. Hammer also explained that there was a X-XXX system, in terms of contact for drills like this. I think it went something like this:

X: no contact, i.e. just positional blocking
XX: light contact, like nudging and holding people for a couple of seconds in a block before letting them go (if they're not going to be able to get out without smashing people)
XXX: full smashy smashy contact.

Not everyone was cleared for scrimmage (boo, and maybe phew), so we just did XX.

The drill was pretty fun. You really needed to communicate, and even though the pack was pretty big (8 blockers for one jammer), the jammers could still get through. I also got thrown into a jammer as a cannonball, hahaha. Actually, that happened to me a few times. It works great for stopping them!

I actually made this for a VDL training session a while ago, but it's still so true.

Then the session was over and we did a warm down with crunches, pushups and these oblique twists where you hold your helmet in front of you like a steering wheel and have to sit up but twist your body so you can touch your helmet to each side of you (next to your thigh) while your feet are facing forwards. Then we did some bicycles (lying on your back, touching opposite elbow to knee) and that was it! Then I went to Ikea and ate a bunch of Swedish meatballs and pork ribs.

Plastic tiles, and the agility ladder.
The plastic tiles take some getting used to.

Sunday was more of the same, only we were trained by Mindi and Edith Shredder. Shred was pretty cool; she gave me some tips on stepping in between people (since I'm little and that's going to have to be my move to get through gaps). We did the pack skating drill again, and this time I got really, really low, much to the chagrin of some of the other girls (some of them are over 6 feet on skates). I seem to cause people a lot of lower back injuries to tall girls. Sorry. :(

We also did agility ladder stuff, and this time I didn't step on my own feet. Yay, progress! We also worked on our ankle and knee strength by hopping in the ladder squares. (This was offskates; I think I would fall and break my face if it was on skates.)

Finally, we finished by splitting up into three groups: super fast people, medium people and people who were beginners (and had spent the session learning how to do crossovers). Basically, each of the groups does one lap sprinting, and then the next group goes, and so on, so that your recovery time is  whatever time it takes for the other groups to do their lap. That was pretty fun, until a stray leaky bit in the roof dripped water onto a spot on the track on the turn and people started falling all over the place. Then, we just did some situps and planks, and that was it.

Sunday training is at night until about 9pm, so afterwards there's usually some hanging out and having beers at BAD HQ. There's a vending machine with beers for a dollar, and then this week one of the girls brought two trays of little gourmet sausage things in, because she worked for a catering company and an order fell through. So it was like I trained really hard, then stuffed myself with beer and food. Actually, this seems to happen a lot. Hooray.

Here are a few more pictures of BAD HQ:

Gear cubbies!! The top left one says "FREE
WHEELS!" (also bearings, bushings, etc.) Surprisingly, this does
not stink as much as you would think it would from the picture.

BAD wins classy prizes.

More stuff next week! Next week is also the first week of February, so there'll be a nice big intake of new skaters for skating with.