Pre-Gaming Off Skates

Tigre Force's guest blogging series: 5 drills from the Skater Progression Diagram.

As the topic says, this post is about learning roller derby off skates. All the new skaters are always very anxious about getting to play. But since not everyone of us are talented skaters when we start derby, we must keep safety in mind and make sure we know the basic skills well enough before starting to scrimmage.

Nevertheless, roller derby is a sport that requires multi-talented focus. That is one reason why skaters should start doing pack drills, blocking and all possible derby drills both off and on skates. You can actually play roller derby off-skates as well. Keep in mind that you must learn to do those moves on skates later on, so don't focus on knocking your teammates down like a boss, if you are not able to do such a killer job on skates yet. Rather have your focus on the right technique so that you can build your muscle memory.

Footwork drills are also good to start off-skates before putting the gear on. We just had a practice with Helsinki Roller Derby (Tiina Kimari as our trainer) that we started off-skates, doing jumps on the stairs (after a proper warm up!) and ice-hockey footwork drills before putting the skates on and doing the same drills on skates.

I started this guest blogging series by posting the Skater Progression Diagram (link above) which will help you explain to your skaters why derby takes so much practice before you get to play. I decided to choose five drills to give a few examples of what the different sections could include. So far we've made it to the step three.

1) Basic Skills and endurance - the example drill for this section is the Quick Feet Drill
To this subject I'd like to add another link from the All Derby Drills -blog, and that is of course Showercap Derby aka "Sock Derby". You can do this outside, inside, in any weather!

2) Blocking: positional and contact - check out RMRG's Blocking Drill

3) Pre-Gaming off skates - this is the section that the Human Shield Obstacle Course is for (and I know 2x4 Roller Derby from Argentina has tried this drill out with an on skates variation but I encourage you all to keep it off skates! Murder City Roller Girls from Adelaide, South Australia has also tried the drill out)

Off skates derby with Helsinki Roller Derby

These two off-skates drills are a perfect choice to ease down the anxious skaters who wish to already get to the next level of practicing their derby skills. If you can play derby well wearing sneakers, it will make it easier to get comfortable doing all that on skates.

I will post the last two drill examples of the Skater Progression Diagram soon, so stay tuned and keep following All Derby Drills!

Eat what, when, and why?!?!? My game plan for WFTDA Western Regionals

Most of us have a game day routine that we follow leading up to a bout. I get lots of skaters asking me what to eat on game day so I thought I would share how I got through an epic weekend of skating at Besterns.

Regionals this weekend could have been a challenge if it hadn't been for some good preparations and packing most of what I needed to eat with me.  ACDG had some tough teams to go up against and I wanted to be fueled and ready! I stocked up on Formula 1 sport, Hydrate, Prolong, Prepare,  "Magic liftoff cookies" as Duchess has now coined Liftoff (my healthy energy drink), and some bars and little snacks. This way I knew all I had to find was a healthy meal or two and I was good to go! We skated 2 games Friday (WASATCH and Rose City) with no crashing feeling in between them.  On Saturday we skated against Rocky Mountain and thankfully I had taken Restore Friday night because otherwise I might not have been able to walk the next day. Sunday was our final game against Sac City. Every game was challenging and I am so proud of my team and so thankful for having a kick ass nutrition program to get me through my very first Regional Tournament.

Here are the basics of what I did each day:

It took me a bit of trial-and-error with my diet to come up with a plan that works for me, there are a few key points that all athletes should keep in mind when trying to match their meals and snacks to their activity. Carbohydrates are primarily what the body relies on for energy. The body needs a fairly steady source from the diet, since there’s only so much carbohydrate the body can store – in the form of glycogen – in the muscles and the liver. This doesn't mean carb loading the night before on 7 lbs of pasta is going to make you skate any faster. Keep it healthy the days leading up to a bout but powering down massive carbs the night before is not necessary. It’s important to ‘top off the tank’ with some carbohydrate before an athletic event.  In choosing what to eat, all athletes need to consider how much time they have to digest before they start an athletic performance or event.

Key Points to remember:

• Foods high in fiber and fat delay digestion time so save them for after your bout.
• Light or liquid meals digest more quickly than solid ones.
• During continuous activity that lasts longer than an hour, athletes need to keep the carbohydrate coming in.  Specially designed sports drinks are ideal for this purpose, since they provide fluid and salts as well as the right amount of carbohydrate to keep muscles well fueled; some also provide small amounts of protein that help with muscle recovery.
• Post-exercise, athletes must consume plenty of carbohydrate to replenish the stores in their liver and muscles.  Ideally, athletes should try to eat within 30 minutes or so after their event or workout is over.  Fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans and dairy products are all terrific recovery foods. This is the time to load back up on the higher fiber carbs since digestion time is no longer a concern.
• Whey and casein – proteins derived from dairy products – are also needed after exercise to help promote muscle recovery.  A protein smoothie made with milk and fruit, a sandwich on wholegrain bread with a glass of milk, or some yogurt with a piece of fruit are all excellent post-exercise meal ideas

More than 3 hours before the game.

Planning ahead is key!  Eat a regular, balanced meal no less than 3 hours before the bout.  Just keep it healthy and avoid the heavy stuff.

Between 1 and 3 hours to start time.

If you have only an hour or two before your event, then enjoy a lighter, solid meal, maybe some cottage cheese and toast, or a bowl of low fiber cereal. I usually have a chicken and veggie wrap or snack on a protein bar. If we are getting close to game time I down a Formula 1 sport shake.

Less than 1 hour until you compete?

For athletes who have only an hour or less to digest before an event, choose something that will be easy on your stomach such as a smoothie or a yogurt. I drink Formula 1 sport before my bouts. 30 minutes prior to my game I drink 1/2 a Liftoff with 2 scoops of Prepare.

During the event?
Keep topping up – water and use a specific sports hydration drink are both important. During the first half of the bout I drink water with 1-2 scoops of Prolong to ensure my blood sugar doesn't crash before the second half. Then I drink water or Hydrate for the rest of the bout.

Just completed the bout?
Dig into some healthy snacks like fruit, raw vegetable sticks, and hummus, or a Rebuild Strength.

When you are doing strenuous exercise, paying attention to what you eat – and when – can have a big impact on your athletic performance, so don’t let eating become an afterthought.

This is Krissy Krash, signing off! You can always hit me up with questions, for advice, to give feedback, or for a free nutrition and performance profile at krissykrash.derbalife@gmail.com.  Plus, if you want to try out anything I mentioned above or you are are ready to get your ass in gear, you can get 10% off plus free 1:1 coaching from yours truly by hitting up www.goherbalife.com/krissykrash by using the coupon code AllDerbyDrills.

DO YOU EAT LIKE AN ATHLETE?

Whether you’re fresh meat or an all star, you food choices can have a huge impact on your performance.

When you’re really active, you can burn through a lot of calories – so much so, that it often seems there’s no way to satisfy your appetite.  So many skaters these days cross train, play other sports, and live an incredible active lifestyle. Pre workout and post workout can often be the danger time: when your appetite is out-of-control, it’s tempting to let yourself eat whatever you want – thinking that you will ‘burn it off’ later.  Remember though – even when your calorie needs are high, you don’t have license to eat foods with little nutritional value.

To eat like an athlete you need to think about food as fuel.

Ask yourself about the benefits of a particular food: is it protein or carb based, does it contain the nutrients you need?  You can’t let yourself be tempted by only thinking about the taste, or by constantly giving into cravings for sweet or fatty food.

Getting fueled up for activity means having the right pre workout meals, staying hydrated, and properly refueling after an event or workout.  If you’re a picky eater, vegetarian, or vegan, meeting these goals can be challenging, so think about your athletic aims and keep in mind that that a healthy diet is vital for a good performance.

An athlete’s body is like an engine – one that needs the right fuel to run properly.  Healthy carbohydrates – from fruits, vegetables and grains (like whole grain breads, rice and corn) – are the body’s preferred source of fuel, not beer and french fries... I know its hard to believe.  These good carbs help to not only sustain exercise, but they are needed afterwards to help replenish body stores.

The body also needs healthy lean proteins – from foods like lean meats, poultry, fish, milk, yogurt, eggs and soybeans – to help build and repair muscles after exercising, and small amounts of healthy fats (from foods like avocados or nuts) to help meet calorie needs.

Try these basic tips for healthy eating to keep you properly ‘fueled up’ for exercise:

Before a workout

You need to ‘top off the tank’ with some carbohydrates to provide energy.  The best choices are foods that are easy to digest like a fruit smoothie, a carton of yogurt or a small bowl of cereal and milk.  Keep meals low in fat so they’ll be easy to digest.

During exercise

Staying hydrated is key.  Water is fine if you’re exercising for less than an hour, but a hydration drink is great for extended exercise or when the weather is particularly hot or humid. High or low carb hydration drinks will depend on the duration of your workout.

After exercise

It’s important to refuel muscles with some healthy carbohydrates and protein.  A healthy meal replacement shake is an all-time favorite recovery food since it provides fluid, potassium, carbohydrates and protein – all of which the body craves after activity.  Other great post-exercise foods are sandwiches, fruits, yogurt.

Your body needs fiber, but it’s best to eat high-fiber foods after exercise, rather than before, to avoid stomach distress.  Save the wholegrain breads and pastas for after your game, race or workout.

If you have high calorie needs, make healthy higher calorie choices that are also nutrient-rich like nuts, 100% fruit juices, dried fruits, peanut butter and trail mix.

Click here to contact Krissy Krash with questions, comments, or for more info

Building your strategies

Alternative names: --

Objective: To create customized strategies and counter-strategies for your own team; to practice thinking strategically about roller derby

Typical length of drill: 2 hours

Materials needed: Your team, a secretary to take detailed notes and send them all out to team members in a timely fashion

Skill level required: A basic understanding of the game and rules

Description: There comes a time in every team's life (perhaps as often as every season) when the whole team needs to sit down and think about /  discuss / develop / improve / edit / write down their strategies.  We do this so that we are all on the same page, so that everyone in the team knows what to do in every situation (or so we hope).  Learning new moves is great, practicing different moves is great, but without a plan of execution, these are basically just that: moves.  Not strategies.  A strategy (as explained by Wikipedia) "is a plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal.  Strategy is all about gaining (or being prepared to gain) a position of advantage over adversaries or best exploiting emerging possibilities.  As there is always an element of uncertainty about future, strategy is more about a set of options ("strategic choices") than a fixed plan."

So how do we begin to put our moves to good use, to create plans of action and sets of options?  How do we ensure that all of our teammates know that in situation A the team will execute strategy B, and in situation X the team will execute strategy Y?  We have to start from the hypothetical situation, think of the goal we must achieve in that situation, and devise a strategy for achieving that goal.  For example:

Situation: We're up 50+ points, there is 15 minutes or less remaining in the game
Goal: Don't give the opposing team an opportunity to score by playing for time
Strategy: [insert strategy here] 

To help my team work out strategies, I created a questionnaire of sorts.  We thoroughly analyzed all the different potential scenarios on the questionnaire, thought in depth about what we needed to do to maximize our chances of gaining an advantage in those scenarios, and then created a plan of action using the moves we had learned and practiced at our training sessions.  From this we got our strategy hand-book.  The hand-book was a living document that got updated as strategies developed and rules changed, but it was a really important tool for the team because it helped us with our teamwork and unity -- we all knew what we were expected to do in what scenario.

So without further ado, to help you out with your own strategy hand-book, here is the questionnaire that we used:

What do we do when:

• We are losing in the first half? Losing in the second half? Losing at the end of the game?
• We are winning in the first half? Winning in the second half? Winning at the end of the game?
• We are outnumbered at the beginning of a jam?  In the middle of a jam?  At the end of a jam?
• We outnumber the opposing team at the beginning of a jam?  In the middle of a jam?  At the end of a jam?
• We have lead jammer?
• We don't have lead jammer?
• Our jammer is in the box?
• Their jammer is in the box?

When do we:

• Play offense?
• Play defense?
• Force the jammer whistle? Do a knee start?
• Play for time? Start the game slow?

As you answer these questions in your group, also keep in mind counter-strategies: What do we do when THEY do a knee start?  When THEY play for time?  Cover all your bases.

Additional notes: When we did these strategy sessions we basically all sat down in a teammate's living room and went through each question in meticulous detail.  We did not watch anything as we were drawing from what we already knew from bouting and scrimmaging a lot.  The sessions would take a long time but we felt confident with our plans after we finished.  Because roller derby is still developing, and at a fast rate, any and all written plays and strategies must be living documents; what has worked this season may not work the same next season.  Even though we like what we have now does not mean that we're going to use it in the game after next.  The sport can change quickly so all of your strategies and plays must be adaptable. Not to mention, other teams' strategies change quickly so you must change yours so as to know how to react in a new situation. Know that some times you gotta "kill the baby" -- the strategy you so loved last season and spent hours perfecting might be totally obsolete (or even illegal) this season.  Throughout the season my team would work on the strategies we had written down, improve upon them, edit them, but since we already had that initial written document from our first session the improvements were simpler as we could just work on them during our on-skates practice time.  I also have to say that I think working on the strategies as a group can be more useful than having a strategy hand-book just given to you by your captains/coaches to study.  Being part of the process of breaking down the situation and building up the plan can really help a person execute the strategy well and at the right time.

The questionnaire in this posting is also a living document -- if you feel that something should be changed / removed / added, just drop a line in the comments below!

Simon Says

Alternative names: Simón Dice / Kungen Befaller / Kapteeni Käskee / Kommando Pimperle

Objective: To practice basic skills; to practice paying attention and listening to your teammates; agility; communication; warm-up

Typical length of drill: 5-10 minutes

Materials needed: None

Skill level required: None

Description: This is simply the classic Simon Says game with the added bonus of being on skates and thus being able to practice some basic skills while having fun.  Decide first if you alone will give commands or if you'll be giving the skaters turns to do it too.  Also decide on the punishment for doing something at the wrong time -- I like to give 5 or 10 push-ups.  Once the skaters have spread out around your practice space (everyone will need some room around them to shuffle and move around), face them and start giving commands.  For example:

• Get low
• Lay down
• Jump
• Shuffle left/right
• March in place
• Run on your toestops
• Drop to a knee

The possibilities are endless!  Make sure you enforce the punishment for any time a skater does something when you have NOT started the command with "Simon says...".  For an added challenge, have the skaters do multiple commands at once and dole out punishment if they stop doing one of the tasks to start the next one (e.g. "March in place" and "Get low" -- skaters should continue marching while getting low unless Simon has said to stop marching).

For more advanced skaters you can remove the "Simon says..." aspect and simply have a commander-in-chief who tells the others what to do in rapid succession ("Jump, down, shuffle left, shuffle right, down, up, run, stop, back, shuffle right...").  That can transform this into a conditioning or endurance drill as well.

Additional notes: This is a fun way both to start and to end practice, and it's a good way for a skater to practice doing what they are being told (that sounds wrong but bear with me here).  Derby is a team sport and it should show when you are playing.  Even if you disagree with the strategy your teammate is commanding the pack to execute, it is better to fail as a team than to go it alone.  We need each other on the track -- the jammers need the blockers to make holes, the blockers need the jammers to score points, the blockers need the blockers to protect points.  When you are on the track it is almost *always* better to do the wrong thing as a team than the right thing by yourself, because it's like we used to say in NHRD: "When you're alone, you're a loser." As a team we can accomplish anything.  And hell, if we fail, at least I didn't fail by myself.

Obstacle Course

Alternative names: Popsicle Horse

Objective: Customizable, but a basic obstacle course is great for developing agility

Typical length of drill: 15 minutes

Materials needed: Whatever you can think of!  Lots of cones to jump over, people to juke around around, pads to step over, lines at which to perform a fall, etc.

Skill level required: None -- you can customize every obstacle course to the skill level of your skaters

Description: Decide in advance if you want your obstacle course to be a continuous loop or a one-at-a-time set up where the other skaters do squats (or something similar) while waiting in line for their turn.  Set up obstacles around the track that create situations for skaters to practice something that you have been working on recently or something that they need to work on in particular (e.g. weaving, jumping, hopping, crossovers, backwards skating, falls, slides, stops, communication, sideways skating, stepping, etc.).  Once you are finished and have demonstrated for the skaters what they should be doing through the course, let them have at it!  Run the course for as long as needed, or until everyone has gotten to try it a couple of times.  The illustrations below show examples of obstacle courses.

Illustration of a one-at-a-time obstacle course.

Illustration of a continuous obstacle course with TWO paths to choose from.

Additional notes: This is a simple classic that can be customized to whatever your needs are.  The obstacle course can incorporate both simple and complex exercises, from toe stop walking and double knee slides to hits and turns.

Ref Pace Line

The following drill was submitted by Riff Reff of the Stuttgart Valley Rollergirlz.

Alternative names: --
Objective: Getting used to make and pick up calls while skating
Typical length of drill: 15 minutes
Materials needed: --
Skill level required: --
Description: Form a pace line on the outside of the track. Skate at a moderate pace a good arm's length behind each other. The last person in line makes up a call (colour-number-verbal cue). The person in front repeats the call, then the next and so on until everyone has repeated the call. Once the first skater in the line made the call s/he takes off around the track and re-joins the pace line from behind. Then s/he makes a new call and so on.

You can increase the pace with every round. You should also change to non-derby direction halfway through the drill. Remind the participants to look back over their shoulder in the turns, towards the center of the track. The more experienced the participants are, the higher the call frequency and pace.

Variation: Form another pace line in the infield and zig zag the call across the track. Swap groups from inside to outside every couple minutes.

Additional notes: This is a good drill to take new and intermediate skaters' focus off their skating and getting them used to communicate calls and to look and listen for things around them. Also, this drill can be done while skaters are on the track.