Ultimate Shape

Me making a play on the disc at Beach Nationals, 2019. I picked up with Borderline, a great group of guys from the northeast/Canada.

Now that I’ve given a basic overview of what ultimate is and how it is played, it’s time to get into some of the more extreme aspects of the sport. 

So an ultimate game consists of teams of 7 on 7. Each team usually tries to bring at least 14 players, and for official tournaments you are allowed up to 26 players. At pickup, and league, often there will not be many, or any, subs and you get to run around for the entire game. I personally love that, but it can wear on you.

In a typical game, with enough subs that you only play every third point or so, you can still run around 2 miles. And, again, this is starting and stopping and cutting and sprinting. Most points only last a minute or so,  but sometimes the ultimate gods conspire against you and a point will go on for several minutes. This happens often if it’s windy.

In a tournament, you usually play 3-4 games a day for 2 days. In the past few years there have been efforts to lessen the amount of games played in tournaments, but 20 years ago it was “play as many games as you can cram into a weekend”. Often 5-6 on Saturday and another 4-5 on Sunday. It’s possible to run between 20-30 miles in a weekend.

There’s a saying that goes “you can’t get in shape for ultimate just by playing ultimate”. Elite teams take time to practice and run and stay in “ultimate shape”. Most non-elite teams attempt this, but with mixed results. There will be a handful of people in great shape, and usually more that are just adequate.

Outside training is vital if you plan to play in tournaments. No matter how hard you run at practice or pickup, it cannot prepare you to do that same amount of running for 6 more games.

Back in the 2000s, I attempted to start several club teams in Greensboro. It usually went like this: I’d recruit 20-some people, and announce the practice schedule. 10 people would show up for practices, but rarely was it the same 10 at any practice. 

We’d get to a tournament and have 18 or so players, all raring to play that first game, and sprinting onto the field between points. The second game, the enthusiasm would wane a little and there would be less sprinting. By the third game, I’d look to come off the field after playing a couple points in a row and no one would be moving to come on. By the final game of the day, I usually would play every point. Needless to say, we wouldn’t win many games.

And after that first tournament, enthusiasm for the team would be gone. It’s hard to go from wanting to play for fun (which is a great reason to play) to the amount of effort it takes to play a weekend’s slate of games.

I don’t know of another sport that crams as many games into a weekend as ultimate does. Lorraine was stunned the first time she witnessed it. We were at Beach Nationals (oh yes, sprinting on sand adds a whole other level of tired) and she cousin’t believe we played as many games in a day that we did.

And this is after efforts to lessen the amount of games played in “official” tournaments. At Nationals, for example, we now can only play up to 3 games a day, and we start play on Friday to help spread it out. They try to put breaks in so there’s time to recover, too. 

One of the main reasons I work out as much as I do is so I can continue to play ultimate at as high a level as I can as I get older. I’m rarely the fastest, or highest jumper, or best player. But I can maintain the same level of play from the first point of a weekend tournament to the last point, and that usually means I’m faster than most other players after a couple of games. 

Next time I’ll talk about some of the ways I’ve kept in ultimate shape over the years.