Posted by
Hilu on
9 March 2010, 9:00 am
In my first post on this site, I pondered about the strains that tournaments put on our body and mind. The solution for body was covered, and is nothing new, but what about the mind? Again most of these ideas are presented in other channels, but I see them important enough for repetition.
The mental side of paintball is often thought to be a totally different animal and it’s training somewhat unquantifiable. I think this only partly right. Physical training, when done well is about getting you to push through those mental limits that we all have. This constant “overdoing it” prepares the mind for the torrential rains of London, the heat of Malaga and the top players of the game. It really is the old platitude: No pain no gain. Continue reading ‘Thoughts on Physical Training, Mind Games Continued’ »
Posted by
Hilu on
5 March 2010, 9:39 am
I’m the first to admit that I hate winter. Especially this one where all warmth has left us Finns to the embrace of record snow falls and at worst -25 degrees Celsius temperatures and gusty winds. This has been a time, when I’ve doubted my sense to go jogging into the bitter cold. Thank the maker for gyms and central heating.
I believe that physical fitness is something Finnish Paintballers aren’t concentrating enough on. Of course we, the competition paintballers, have left behind the time, when our back players were all over 30 BMI. Still, Cyclones target for this year: getting to play all the games in the final day of all the Millennium tournaments, is something I think few of us Finns are equipped to deal with. It really takes endurance both from the body and mind to keep pushing through those snakes point after point and game after game.
Continue reading ‘Thoughts on Physical Training’ »
Posted by
Jii on
16 April 2009, 9:35 pm
A few weeks ago Cyclone had a nice chill-out weekend over at my place watching the PSP Phoenix webcast and munching through a pile of burritos. Having a big part of the guys over and watching the ‘cast was a good way to spend a weekend out of harms’ way but it also had a more profound meaning in revealing some aspects of training that I had not considered in such depths. Hearing Matt Marshall mention game momentum and mental tenacity time and time again really resonated with me, and a thought stuck to the back of my head. How can we as individuals and as a team achieve the proper mentality to be able to turn games around?
Continue reading ‘Beyond Sweat’ »
Posted by
Jii on
15 February 2009, 10:15 pm
The expertise shows. Our PT held his first session today and boy was it good. He brought in so much new stuff that we were astonished. Not one of the things he included in the session was something that we had tried on our own, and the session was exceptionally diverse. It was also at a substantially higher pace, and we really felt like true athletes in training. Can’t wait to see where he will take us over the next couple of months. Can’t even wait till next Sunday!
Posted by
Stark on
15 February 2009, 10:13 pm
Helsinki Cyclone is delighted to report that we now have a personal trainer in house! Matti the Machine will now be killing us every Sunday in the Kisahalli athletic center. That said, we’ll certainly continue to do our own killing on Tuesday and Thursday as usual. Welcome to the gang, Matti!
Posted by
Stark on
1 February 2009, 10:17 pm
A surprisingly high number of players have attended the sessions all three times, and the momentum seems to be catching on in others as well. The team had decided that for best possible development, the use of a professional would be in place and we got a personal trainer to assist us. Today he was with us to meet the guys and give some pointers. We agreed that he would do some research on paintball and draft a training program for the team. He will take coaching responsibility of the Sunday sessions in a couple of week’s time.
Posted by
Jii on
1 February 2009, 4:05 pm
Physical fitness. Those still seem to be two words that lift the eyebrows of Joe Paintballer. That’s right Joe, if you want to hack it in the game today you need to lose a few kilos.
After season 2008, we went back to the drawing board. The season had been successful to say the least and most of our goals set pre-season were met. Still, we know that to take ourselves to the next level we need to be better. And by better we mean better on all the levels. We figured that all the snapshooting drills, all the hours spent fine-tuning technical aspects, all the great kit we get to use is not enough unless we commit to the sport fully as an extreme sport. We need to be quicker, stronger, leaner and more agile. The tone for the winter training has been set. We will take ourselves to the next level.
Citius, altius, fortius.
Posted by
Stark on
20 January 2009, 10:18 pm
A couple of weeks has shown that it’s actually more difficult to arrange two sessions than three, and we decided to start having three sessions a week, so most people will have more alternatives for scheduling and the ones willing can attend every session. Due to Hilu’s promotion and workload increase the coaching responsibility has shifted to Jii.
Posted by
Stark on
11 January 2009, 10:20 pm
After a few weeks of somewhat passive effort, we got the first official Team Session on the way. The forced vacation did its trick and the turnout was surprisingly high. We had a bit of trouble in finding a good venue, but everything worked out well. Hilu had planned a nice set, challenging enough but still not overkill. We agreed to have the team sessions a couple of times a week.
