The Anatomy of Marking

This is part 2 of our anatomy of football series and this time we'll focus on marking.

Instead of braking marking down into it's different phases, we'll break it down into the different marks that you often take during a game.

1 - mark taken on a lead

2 - pack mark

3 - stationary one-on-one mark

When I think of a mark taken on a lead I think of the Chief, Jason Dunstall and Barry Hall, 2 of the great lead up players I have seen, and who both kick a lot of goals from marks taken on the lead.

If you are this type of forward then you'll need explosive pace right off the mark. I actually did a Need for Speed series a couple of months ago detailing a program I was doing for this exact quality.

For this you'll need to work on your max strength through squats and deadlifts and couple them with sprints in the same session as the potentiation from the heavy lifts can increase your speed immediately.

If possible get your hands on a prowler like the one in my video so you can basically do loaded sprints without any impact to your joints.

For a pack mark like this:

You'll need some great single leg jumping ability which can be achieved through strength training and plyometrics if you don't have natural spring. For strength training you'll again focus on squats but I would also do some single leg exercises such as lunge and step up variations in a strength rep range (5 - 8 per set) to provide you with single leg stability via the ankle, knee and hips.

For plyometrics, bounding for low reps and sets (3 - 5 x 3 - 5 etc) is a good exercise to use but make sure that you adequate strength levels to be able to do them properly or they may do you more worse then good. And only do them on grass!!

For a 1-on-1 contested mark you need both core and lower body strength where you need to be able plant yourself and be able to push against your opponent to hold your position.

As discussed above you'll need a combination of deadlifts, squats and single leg exercises here where I think the deadlift has the best carryover from the bunch as you actually have sit back and hold yourself in the correct position under a great load.

For core strength anything taken from my Core Training for Aussie Rules Training videos (part1 and part 2) will serve you well. Once you have mastered some of the lying variations in part 1 then the standing variations in part 1 and 2 is really where you'll gain benefits for contested marking.