Ultimate Fitness DVD Review

Hello all,

I purchased ($23US including shipping) a copy of the new fitness DVD that is being marketed through the UPA. The title of the DVD is Ultimate Fitness: Fitness Training for Ultimate Players. I only watched it once so I may mis-speak about a thing or two here. If I do please feel free to correct me. (Picture to the left used with permission of Dan Cogen-Drew) Here is the link for the website for the DVD: http://cogandrew.com/projects/upa_dvd.htm

Short review: Bryan Doo is a very very good trainer. It would most likely cost you more than $23 to do a workout with him. Buy the DVD and use it!

Long Review: I started coaching high school sports in 1992. Since then I have been to more than my fair share of Strength & Speed clinics (clock hours for HS coaches) put on at the University of Washington. Most of the clinicians had some good ideas and I always felt I took something positive away afterwards. One complaint was that beyond taking good notes there wasn't a way to see the presentations again and again. The Ultimate Fitness DVD changes that. Now I can get the clinic whenever I want. In 65 minutes I get a variety of exercises that would be covered in an all day clinic.

The DVD contains two warm-up sections (14 exercises), one speed section (6 exercises), one agility section (7 exercises), one quickness section (3 exercises) and one functional strength development section (8 exercises).

The warm-up section is good. It has the usual about reminding people to warm up incrementally and not just go into a full sprint. The exercises are demonstrated well and there are some good teaching points. One thing I would have liked would be a more complete warm up plan that could be used for starting a practice or before a game. It could have some sub-maximal stuff from all the sections of the DVD that would cover all the major muscle groups.

The speed section was also very good. Learning how to run with the proper technique is often overlooked by coaches because of time constraints, yet proper technique has so many upsides that it should be taught several times a season. (Joe Bisignano is always reminding me of this when I don't want to give up soccer kids for cross country in the fall). The one thing I would have liked in this section would have been a little more explanation on a proper drop step with a crossover (or not to crossover is a good discussion too) for the back pedal recovery when someone goes past you. That is nit-picking though because that is a small issue and there was a lot of great material in this section.

The agility section was all very good as well. I hadn't seen the Heiden Hop before but everything else was variations of common yet often overlooked agility drills. I would have liked a little more discussion/instruction on the side shuffle step especially in the T-Drill. It seemed to me that Bryan was using a basketball defensive slide technique while the others were having a little trouble with lateral balance and quickness because they were using an inferior technique. I am a big fan of the basketball defensive slide since I am a basketball coach in the winter. I often wonder why it is not taught more on the mark and on guarding the dump cutter. Again this is nitpicking a small issue.

The quickness stuff was very good. I really liked the ball drop. I thought there could have been a little more discussion about watching how people actually seem to step back or lean back when they are trying to take a quick first step. There seemed to be a few good examples that could have been highlighted a little more. I also would have liked to have seen more quickness exercises.

The functional strength section was very good. I really like the idea of body weight exercises for functional strength and not using a lot of weights or machines. There are some good examples of functional strength and proper form.

All in all this is an excellent DVD that I would highly recommend for people at all levels of ultimate and for that matter this material is very useful for soccer, basketball, football, lacrosse, etc. This is not an end all, be all DVD but there is a lot of useful material. If Bryan and Dan want to shoot for the moon I would love to see a fitness DVD with 30 minutes for each section making for 10-30 minutes workouts for each section depending on the number of repititions. I would also like to see a little more instruction and how often these exercises should be worked into a week of practices.

Hope this helps. - Mike Mullen, Boys Ultimate Coach, The Northwest School