Background

There are two main ultimate seasons in Finland. The outdoor season lasts from April to September and indoor season from November to March. The women's and open divisions are playing three tours and finals during the Finnish championship season. Mixed season lasts only a weekend. However, this might change in the future so that mixed contains tours as well. Some teams also participate in international tournaments and championships.

In short

Take a calendar and mark

• Tournaments/games (include practice tournaments)
  
• Trainings (booked field sessions etc)
  
• Possible holidays (Do you want to take off Monday after tournament or not?) -> now you know how much time you have together Think about the structure and goals of your team. Some

topics to think about:

• Do you need to spend more time with the basics or can you start to build team strategy from day one?
  
• What is your strategy? Do you want to concentrate on your strong points or the weak ones?
  
• Are you sharing responsibilities? For instance players responsible for warm up, throwing, cool down etc.
  
• What are the most important topics and in which order you want to proceed? How are the topics connected to each other? Think about how you can measure progression
  

Remember some pedagogical aspects

• It is good to divide topics into subtopics and concentrate on a few subtopics at a time.
  
• Be sure you have a clue how much the players can learn in short amount of time
  
• Trust the process, however adjustment can be made
  
• Document as much as possible and reflect after the season
  

Some questions in order to improve engagement

• Are you a mixed team and you want to try 7v7 women/open? Is it possible to team up with a mixed team near you and offer single gender practices?
  
• Do your female players need more challenges? Would it be possible to get them to visit open practices? Or if open and women teams have new players, could it be possible to have a throwing clinic together?
  
• Could seasonal planning also offer a light option for commitment? For instance to participate only once a week? Players have different kinds of situations in their life
  

Case Study

We asked comments related to seasonal planning from three different teams.

Team 1 (women's team)

Not many years ago we trained at open parks. During that time the practices were not that planned because we never knew how much space we had. Luckily the situation has improved and now we have two training sessions per team on ultimate specific turf.

During the years the planning has become more structural. After the club has selected coaches for the season, the coaches will start planning. Practice times are equally divided between open and women. Both teams send a questionnaire to possible players about the level of commitment and desired amount of practices.

After that, start the scheduling. We put the tournaments, practices and holidays on their places. Then the coaches look back to the previous season and the structure of the team. Usually at this point the coaches think about the strategies as well. Important questions include for instance: Do we want to stress defense or offense, what are our strengths, what is the skill level of the players?

Then the coaches divide the practices into blocks and decide what to improve, maintain and introduce to the team during that specific block. After the tournament the plans are checked and some adjustments can be made.

All these are also discussed with the players and their personal goals.

Currently we are not that organized on what comes to physical training. There is not that much cooperation with the open team but that is something we probably change in the future

Team 2

This club plans activities as mixed but they also play single gender.

The club has people in charge for both the open and the women's team, but during the last few years the person responsible for the women's team coach, has been a part of the open coaching team. The practices are mixed.

This club has the main meetings in February/March and July/August. In these meetings they outline the projects, practice schedule and coaching. Then the people involved in coaching make the training plan for that specific season. They have documented the themes from the last seasons and coaches can use that as a starting point. There are some unplanned practices after each tournament just in case they noticed that something not planned needs to be improved.

Physical training sessions are organized before ultimate sessions. This summer they are introducing a separate group for physical training. This group also performs testing. Coaches have planned the main guidelines and the goal is to profile the program according to the type of the player.

In the official meeting this club also plans player recruiting, communication and off the field happenings.

Team 3 (women's team)

Before each season, this women's team makes a plan that includes main themes and responsible coaches, tournaments, pre-season games, summer holidays etc. This is then shared to the whole team and discussed together. Usually this team has had a responsible player for physical training but there has been a short break.

Relevant Links

• Define a coaching plan template and standard play book
• Menstrual cycle and training
  
• Create seasonal milestones for your team_ Start of the season, Mid-season review, End-of-season celebration
• Junior Mixed Clubs - Have additional open and women's practices and tournaments
  
• The benefits of developing leaders in your club
• Define seasonal budgets and goals as a team and plan how you will achieve them
• Adopt pedagogical methods in training
  
• Give beginners short-term goals
• Organise social events during the off-season
• Ensure that the training facilities have the necessary infrastructure