On Injuries or Why Lifting is So Important for Ultimate Players

This weekend was many things. It was fun. It was epic. It was an adventure.

It was also incredibly brutal on my body.

Game 1 vs. Polar Bears. On the mark, the thrower tries to break me around, steps out, knees me in the side of my knee. Hard. I collapse, leg at an odd angle, scared that I have re-injured my old ligament strain. By now, I'm sure we all know the fright that comes with knee injuries. I ice, the trainer sees me, he says if I can jog and feel stable, do some squats and sprints with no pain, I can play. I stay out the rest of the Polar Bears game, but warm up and get right back to it in a game vs. KillJoy.

A few points into that game, I'm guarding my girl really tight as she cuts towards the sideline about 10 yards from the thrower. The throw goes up. I'm in perfect position to get the D. As I reach out I see out of the corner of my eye that the dump had cut up the line. The dump cutter is a tall, strong, guy. I throw up my arm as he slams into me, I feel the hit, and then I land on my back on the ground. Instantly I'm trying to scream from the shock but I just had the wind knocked out of me so it's coming out in high pitched gasps. I do a quick mental evaluation: no broken bones, no sharp pain, my previously injured knee is alright, my head feels okay. I start to laugh - of course I'd just come back from an injury to get laid out by a dude. I stumble off the field, sit down somewhere, catch my breath, and get back in the game. And yes, he caught the disc.

As if that wasn't enough, Sunday rolls around. Of course, the first game (vs. Bi-Winning), my neck and back are incredibly sore. Warming up is pretty painful, but I'm determined to fight through it so I'm able to play. The first game goes great; during the first point I even get a handblock on our endzone resulting in an easy score. We win that game. All is good.

Our next game is against a team called BigFoot. Tough looking girls, really nice people, and I recognize a friend on the team. We know they're better than us, and as a team we're determined to make this game fun, and learn a lot. Well, we're pretty much trading points for a bit, and we all get really pumped up. The next point I go on, I'm determined to leave it all on the field, and as my girl jukes to the open side front corner of the endzone, I try to dive and knock the disc out of her hands. Okay, maybe it's because I've never really done that before, but I aimed really poorly, and her cleat ended up catching my knee (the other one), ripping my underarmor leggings (do you know how expensive those are??), and causing me to let out a few curses and limp off the field. Today, that knee still hurts much more than the one with the potentially strained ligaments.

On to my point. Ask anyone on my team, these weren't light hits. In fact each one pretty much took me out of the game for at least a point or two. You know what let me recover so quickly? Strong quads, and hamstrings, and calfs. You know how I could land flat on my back and be okay? Squats, deadlifts, pushups, pullups, core work. In general, what keeps a body stable? What keeps joints from blowing out upon impact? Support from the surrounding tissues, the muscles. I can guarantee if I hadn't been lifting in the past, I would have been in serious pain after this weekend. I can also guarantee that if I had been lifting all season, I would have been in even less pain than I was. Do you want to get hit by people bigger than you, get up, and walk away? Lift. Lift, lift, lift. With weight is the best, but if you're not at least adding some strength work (situps, air squats, and pushups don't require a gym membership!) into your ultimate training, you're doing yourself a disservice.