TEAM / PLAYER PREP IDEA'S & THOUGHTS PART 2

Part 1 can be found here.

HINDBRAIN / SUBCONSCIOUS DOMINANCE (JOEL SMITH)

– Is the ability to switch off the conscious mind as much as needed in game play to allow the power of subconscious to take control of the body

- Set up drills that require you to think/make decisions but are easy decisions to make and easy skills to perform

TRAINING v PRACTICE (JOHN TOWNSEND)

– Practice is a method of learning of existing skills

- Training is the acquisition of new skills

- Improving kicking requires drills designed for kicking, not necessarily holistic play

- Training’s main goal is lodged in the push for marked and measurable improvement of a specific skill through your performance output

- Performance output is the quantitative and often, exhaustive measure of a player’s ability to perform a specific skill/task or a series of tasks

- True training tests performance inputs such as a players capability/capacity to learn combined with new concept retention derived from the demonstration of max levels of productivity and performance in task based activities by a player

- Technical work falls into the category of training while a players application of that learned/acquired technical ability is true practice

- Players have a limited amount of time in a training session to train before that ability "runs out" and at the end of the session the athlete should feel physically and mentally pushed and thus the increased frequency/duration they can train well at when depleted, results in a bigger, stronger and better player over time

- Less talented/experienced players have little idea about mastery whereas the most  talented/experienced players will dip a toe in the waters of mastery but usually stop short of full immersion from not wanting to fully exit their comfort zone

- Elite players live in the non-comfort zone

- All sport specific skill sets require learning, retention of skills/methods, repetition/deep practice and practice prior to meaningful competition and revisiting fundamental skills to increase performance output

- Good players survive on effort, great players survive on ability but effort will only take you so far

- Valuing effort over skill/technique hides gaps in your game that are shown up against higher competition which can result in disproportional attitudes of proficiency where something exceptional for player A is only entry fee for player B and everyone needs to reach the same level

- Instead of modifying a drill to fit the skill level of your players, develop their skills enough to perform the drill first

- Train skill specific technique and get it to a specific level prior to introducing game tactics which are built off high skill anyway

- Without a high skill level players won’t play with the speed and creativity to excel

- Practice sessions at the elite level are basic tasks carried out with speed and intensity requiring you to carry out high skill under duress with high rates of success (output), but if you’re skills aren’t up to par at training under sub-maximal speed conditions then you’ll fall apart during these drills

- Repeated skill work in isolated sessions away from match play is the fastest way to technical mastery

- Practice and training both require a balance ratio of instruction and activity performance

- Assess your training sessions on not just the amount of activity time players get, but how much non-activity time they get as well

- Drills must align with the ability of the collective

- The player must improve on their time, not the team's time

- Bored players become disinterested players which can decrease total team session output

- Stagnation is the result of inaccurate coaching prompts/coaching so unless there’s more value in players watching a drill, those not directly involved gain little from standing off to the side for prolonged periods of time

- Effective coaching methods has players engaged in secondary involvement where active rest is performed with balls

- He watched some soccer academy sessions and the 90min sessions had 23 and 27mins of down time/session, training time you don’t get back

- Details of any set play tactics should be provided ahead of using them at training in an absorbable format

- If you want players to be responsible and well-versed on the sessions objectives then coaches are responsible for giving them a means to make this happen

- Strength training is called that instead of strength practice because the specific training is geared towards an athlete’s ability to address their weaknesses an route to yielding max performance output

- As a coach you can use this information by determining who needs practice and who needs training? Can they be grouped up for training? Can you measure their skill level somehow?

- Effort needs to match skill level and vice versa so each player needs to know what they need to improve on

- Try and take data on several training sessions tracking actual running/rest times for players of various abilities/experience as well as how many touches of the footy they actually get

SUBCONSCIOUS MIND (HARRY CARPENTER)

– In the zone is playing in the alpha state where you are relaxed but ready to react using only the necessary muscles and movements and no more

- Nervousness and over-reacting causes tension and unnecessary muscle use which impedes fluid motion

- Athletes rarely remember how their records happened and often say they don’t really remember it because thinking only messes with your subconscious mind and hinders play

- To avoid choking stay in the present, execute everything the best you can, don’t judge your play, relax, take slow deep breathes and be confident

- Silly cues can often be more effective because your conscious mind is mature and logical but your subconscious mind is immature and illogical

- Both minds communicate with you differently

- The subconscious mind talks to you with emotions and images where the conscious mind talks to you in words

- Create a simple affirmation of words that evoke emotions and images, the sillier the better

AFL 

– Midfielders cover the most distance

- Forwards and backs do more high speed running

- Can you train players by position to fit this profile?

ANXIETY = INJURY (TRACY PEDERSON)

– A player is 5 x more likely to get injured when anxious about illness/injury

- This makes it vital that players admit to any injuries they sustain

- Not reporting injuries and sore spots is not manly, it’s selfish

FATIGUE (IAN MCMAHAN)

– The brain collects physical sensations from the body like burning legs and heavy lungs then decides how much is too much

- Mental fatigue can reduce your time to exhaustion

- Mental fatigue also increases rate of perceived exertion for the same workload

- Insert mental training in rest periods of intense activity

- Use relaxation techniques out of training to reduce mental fatigue

- Try relaxation breathing as soon as you come to the bench to facilitate faster recovery and to clear the mind/brain dump

MOTOR LEARNING

- Block practice involved 1 exercise for a certain volume with all reps being completed before a different type of exercise

- For example you would do 40 stationary kicks, 40 stab kicks, 40 kicks to a leading player etc

- Learning usually occurs with the 1st successful rep with minimal learning from subsequent reps

- Random practice are tasks following an unpredictable order with multiple exercises per set for 1 rep each

For example you might have the coach call out the result of kick (type of kick, player, area etc) as you pick the ball up so stab, leading player, stab, stationary, stab, stationary leading player etc

- Each rep has a different movement where the player may take time with each one with the focus being on feel feedback not form feedback

- Involves high levels of contectual interference

- Serial schedule of practice can be used to promote moderate amounts of contectual interference which would be a pattern such as a stationary kick, stab kick, kick to a leading player x 1 rep of each for a series of rounds

- Systematic increases in contectual interference can be achieved in a session using an order of block, serial than random practice

- Block practice is not as good as random when it comes to retention and transfer of skill

- Neither are as good as serial schedule of practice

- None are are as good as systematic increases in contectual interference

- Start with block practice then do blocks of random practice and finish with completely random practice to have the highest retention of transfer

- Serial schedule of practice is king

- Set up this drill by having specific kicks at different stations within the same drill

WANTED: 5 LOCAL/AMATEUR FOOTBALL COACHES

I'm after 5 local / amateur football coaches from to take part in a little exercise in the development of  a game model which when completed essentially makes up your coaching philosophy.

So if you would like your team to have:

- Increased Team Cohesion

- Improved Decision Making

- Greater Technical Skill

Then give this video a watch and let me know your interest via Facebook or Twitter PM.

TEAM / PLAYER PREP IDEA'S & THOUGHTS PART 1

Everyday I compile different articles and social media tidbits on all things training then at the end of each footy season I gather all the "best bits" that i can use for my own and my team's footy training and go back through them to see what I can use and what I might be able to use.

Here's part 1 of my idea's and thoughts that I based this years training on.

PRE-SEASON INJURIES

- Will occur from players doing too much too quickly so players who start later then the rest will not need to do the same duration ad/or volume of training as everyone else as they build up to full training

DECISION MAKING (PADDY UPTON) 

– In high pressure moments, decision making is more important than skill and as a coach do not preach a fear of failure/repercussion of failure as then players will not try that skill again and that will halt mental/physical development. 

- Don’t focus on stopping the opposition because then you’re asking your players do things they might not be very good at in high pressure situations, essentially setting them up to fail. 

- Work to the strength of each player finding what they are comfortable at doing in high pressure situations. 

- In high pressure situations it will be the quality of the decision made under pressure that will get you in trouble rather than actual skill itself, as the skills are practised repeatedly but high pressure situation only occur rarely. 

- Your job as a coach is to provide all the physical, psychological, tactical and technical resources for the players, giving them the responsibility for their preparation and you're main job is to get them in the right frame of mind to carry it all out. 

PRE-SEASON SMALL SIDED GAMES PROGRESSION

– Use a 7 week lead in small sided game progression of 12 v 12 x 6mins, 12 v 12 for 3 x 6mins, 15 v 15 for 4 x 6mins, 15 x 15 for 4 x 6mins repeated, 18 v 18 4 x 6mins, practice match #1 then practice match #2. 

- Small sided games would be performed 1/week in the last session of the week, preferably working on whatever tactical aspects you want to practice in a game a game in the first session of the week. 


TRAINING (CARL VALLE)

– After every team training session players must walk off the ground with 2 units of gas in the tank 

– 1 unit for lifting and off-field work and another unit to reduce the risk of residual fatigue from practice 


HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (JEFF MOYER)

– If you try to get fit by initially going straight to high intensity training (repeat 400's, interval/fartlek training at max pace with incomplete rest), then there is no coming back from it and the neuroplasticity of the central nervous system stiffens so that the only way you can keep improving is by using higher intensity and/or more volume of the same intensity which can impair skill acquisition and drastically increase injury risk so as I've mentioned in the past, raise the floor before raising the ceiling.


INDIVIDUALISE (JOE DE MAYO)

– Determine what is required at each position, makes a player special at their position and what separates them as a player and work that aspect harder. 

- By simply focusing on weaknesses the pay off is not equal to increasing your strengths even more, especially at local/amateur level.


EFFICIENCY (JAMY CLAMP)

– Fatigue is not the point of exhaustion but where force production/proprioception decreases which inhibits quality contractions, efficiency and increases metabolic demand, thus increasing injury risk


CONDITIONING (KEIR WENHAM-FLATT)

– The best way to increase conditioning is through increasing technique as movement efficiency increases and you waste less energy. 

- It can also be the fastest way to improve conditioning without volume, wear and tear etc. 

- By increasing maximum outputs (strength, speed, power etc) relative to the demands of the game, you can work at a smaller % of your maximum output during games so you can sustain the same effort with less fatigue allowing you to maintain burst speed for longer. 

- Only after you've completed skill/technique conditioning do you shift to game specific conditioning and stand alone running.


CONTINUED PROGRESS (KEIR WENHAM-FLATT)

– Train above the intensity of a game (sprints etc) and below the intensity of a game (skills, aerobic etc) but don’t train at the same intensity all the time


RELAXATION (JOEL SMITH)

– You win the warm up by being more relaxed then you are during competition. 

- High skill requires specific sequencing and relaxation assists with this because if there is tension then you're timing can be off. 

- Many times our subconscious brain just needs an opportune distraction so that you’re subconscious mind can work its magic so think of something similar to your action, such as how the footy feels in your hand, how it feels coming off your foot etc. 

- Focus on taking as much tension out of the working muscles as possible and perform efforts at 60, 70 and 80% in your warm up. 

- Try and do drills on the hind brain or unconscious level and it will have greater transfer to competition.


TECHNICAL RESERVE (MARTIN BINGISSER)

– Strength hangs around without direct training it so it’s not the reason you choke during competition but technique is as it can disappear in an instant. 

- You need to build technique reserve so when the pressure is on you have your technique to fall back on. 

- Strength will be there for you all the time but you can only perform when you have the technique to get the most out of it. 

- You can create it by dialling in technique so much that you can replicate it in any situation so specific kicking drills (kicking variation/repetition without repetition) is what you need in this instance.


AROUSAL (LINDSEY WILSON)

– There is a level of arousal suitable for various tasks. 

- New/difficult tasks require low arousal as your actions/movements will be slow and deliberate as your decision making process takes longer. 

- Most tasks require medium arousal. 

- Well-learned/easy tasks can be performed with high arousal. 

- Develop routines for decreasing, increasing and maintaining arousal for teams and individual players.


MENTAL STRENGTH (ALEX HUTCHINSON)

– You don’t slow down from fatigue factors (lactate etc), but by how your brain perceives the messages the brain sends about them. 

- The effort of running is only as hard as your brain perceives it to be. 

- Absolute physical limits are imposed by the brain not the body and it’s why you finally break a personal best then break it again and again 

– the barrier has been broken. 

- Train the brain to become accustomed to mental fatigue so it adapts and then a fast pace feels easy. 

- Swishing  a sports drink in your mouth sends the brain signals of "more fuel coming in" and in turn can decrease the rate of perceived exertion. 

- Facial expression can add perceived rate of perceived exertion


MASSED PRACTICE 

- For strength development pair your mass practice exercise with every other set for all sessions each week x 3 weeks at least

- You want 20 – 25 exposures each time at a high frequency

- This can easily be modified for skill acquisition for footy


STRESS (CRAIG PICKERING)

– Everyone has a different response to the same stressor because of training history, residual fatigue, genetics, epigenetics, nutrition and life experiences- Sprinters will running harder then it actually is and vice versa


FATIGUE (MLADEN JOVANOVIC)

- Fatigue is a brain derived emotion that regulates exercise behaviour to ensure the protection of whole body homeostasis

- By modifying the way we perceive work, along with other factors this can influence our behaviour and thus biological/training effect

- If players know the end point then they’ll tend go harder then when they don’t as they are saving themselves for worst case scenario

- So you might have 30secs on/30secs off @ 100% max aerobic speed but 3 x 6mins, 3 x 7/6/5mins and 3 x 5/6/7mins all look different to different players in terms of how much effort will be required

-A neat little trick is to tell them that they’ll be doing 1 more set then they actually will be

STRUCTURING YOUR COACHING SESSIONS (COACH SPECIFIC)

I've done a post or 2 on this in the past referring strictly to the physical side of training but this will also take the technical and tactical elements into consideration.

My #1 rule is to not waste even 1 second of training if you can avoid, making every second count because at local/amateur level you've only got about 3 hours a week to adequately prepare your players for multiple qualities so this structure is developed with that in mind

PRE - TRAINING

- Now is the time to have a joke with your mates, make plans for the pub afterwards and hang shit on them in general

- I've also instructed our players to do any static and specific stretching they want, or feel they need to do, before we officially start training.

- Once you're handling the footy my preference is for this to be the "official" start top footy training where every player is to handle the ball as much as they can in the time they have (kicks and handballs) with a focus on skill execution and psychological focus and intent to get you in the frame of mind for training

FOOTY ONLY TIME - WARM UP

- Gather the group and let them know what they'll be working on so they can start to mentally prepare - even better let them know beforehand

- Instead of wasting time and just jogging a lap that will encourage non-footy behaviour, incorporate your dynamic stretching drills into it

- This week on our initial lap we incorporated drills such as side steps, walking lunges, backpedalling, ground touches, long lunge hold + thoracic rotations, walking high knee pulls, forward ankle pops, backwards ankle pops and walking hamstring mobilisations all mixed in with jogging

EXTENDED WARM UP

- Preparing hats ahead of time we then headed straight into speed work over 10 - 20m from various positions (ground based to standing)

- On 1 training night you would focus on acceleration over 10 - 20m and the other max velocity over 30 - 40m

- To keep the players minds on football I also introduced some ball pick up sprints where they sprint 5m, scoop up the ball and sprint away to the finish lines and over time I'll introduce more reactive stimulus to these to make it game simulated (sprints on demand, change of direction on demand etc - a future post in itself)

- We'll use groups of 4 - 5 for these depending on numbers with WALK BACK REST, not jog back rest because if you're gonna do speed work than you might as well do it correctly

- All up this should take about 20mins from start to finish with players minds and body primed for high intensity work

DRILL 1 - DECISION MAKING

- The most sport specific demanding drills should be first in line after the warm up

- There's always talk of skills and decision making under fatigue but you HAVE to be able to perform without fatigue years before you should be worrying about performing with it

- Keep the focus solely on decision making keeping fatigue to a minimum

- To keep player focus and to avoid time wastage, use multiple drills at the same time either of the same drill or run 2 - 4 different one's at the same time

- Probably the best thing you can do is to develop a decision making drill and then make up 3 - 4 ways to increase the chaos but without changing too much from it;s original form which will make it easier for you to progress the drills over time (or in-session) and also for players to remember the basics of the drill to decrease the learning curve  -we want them to focus on decision making not how the drill works.

DRILL 2 - TACTICAL DRILL

- Tactical drills are next after decision making has ramped up, which should enhance the these

- Start with very specific game moments here (clearance from deep in the backline to the wing for example) 

- Trying to include 40 blokes in a tactical drill can be a nightmare so you could split in half, using 1 half for the tactical drill and the other half could continue with decision making drills and switch

- It wouldn't be a deal breaker if you had to start the session post warm up by splitting the groups here either as both drills require high cognitive demand and will probably complement each other in the end

- Over time you can expand to multiple game moments (clearance from deep in the backline to the wing into tempo footy to stretch their defence and bring them out and then you can add the inside 50 component after that

DRILL 3 - TECHNICAL/SKILL CONDITIONING

- This part usually goes at the start of training sessions via lanework or something similar which can work but it could always be done better

- This is your initial conditioning phase of the session as the previous drills focused on decision making an tactics, elements that need to be trained in non-fatigued states

- I've put together a bunch of skill conditioning drills that I hope to use with our players and it involves combining skills and conditioning in the same drill because it's not about your running conditioning that matters if you're skills fall apart long before your lungs do. They are 2 very separate qualities.

- An example of a drill here is to set set up with 3 players, with 1 at each end about 20m apart. The 3rd player is the "worker" who has 2 markers about 10 - 15m apart. They will work within that zone for 10 - 30secs as hard as they can. They'll run towards the first player, receive the ball and quickly handball back, turn 180 degrees, run towards the other player, receive the ball and handball back and so on as hard as they can for the allotted time

- Players simply exchange roles and perform 3 - 5 sets each

- What you'll see is players who are great runners but super skill wise, potentially fail these drills as handballs become loopy and they start fumbling as fatigue sets in. They are conditioned physically but not technically.

DRILL 4 - PHYSICAL CONDITIONING

- The very last thing you should do is your physical conditioning which is your running element

- Even though conditioning should be taken care of a great deal by the previous drills above I still think there needs to be a dedicated running block at local/amateur level of which I have a 5 - 10 session program developed for

If you have any questions let me know over on the Facebook page. 

THE ACUTE:CHRONIC WORKLOAD RATIO (ALL COACHES/PLAYERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS)

The acute:chronic workload ratio revolves around acute and chronic workloads and how they affect your players fatigue levels.

Acute workload is the rolling average of the last 5  - 14 days (footy can use 7 days) and represents your level of fatigue.

Chronic workload is the rolling average of the last 4 - 6 weeks (footy can use 4 weeks) and represents your level of fitness.

All workload is determined via workload (distance ran/weight lifted etc) / rate of perceived exertion (rpe).

The basic premise is that if you increase acute loading too quickly, and too far over your acute:chronic workload ratio, you'll more than likely suffer from fatigue related issues i.e INJURY!

Here a few numbers to give you a look at it.

The last 4 weeks you've done 1 run for 30mins each week:

- 30mins (time) x 8 (rpe) = 320 (load) x 2 runs = 640 (load)

- 30mins (time) x 7 (rpe) = 280 (load) x 2 runs = 560 (load)

- 30mins (time) x 7 (rpe) = 280 (load) x 2 runs = 560 (load)

- 30mins (time) x 6 (rpe) = 180 (load) x 2 runs = 360 (load)

Total Loading = 1,610 units

As you can see the same run got gradually easier (relatively) pretty much each time it was repeated.

All good so far for chronic loading.

Last week footy training started so you did 2 nights there + another 2 runs on your own:

- Footy Training x 90mins x 9 rpe = 810 (load)

- Footy Training x 90mins x 10 rpe = 900 (load)

- 30mins x 7 (rpe) = 280 (load) x 2 = 460 (load)

Total Loading = 2,270 units

Hmm quite a big week when you see the numbers.

The first footy training was pretty hard not 100% as you were fresh off the break.

2 days later you had footy training but you were still sore and tired from day 1 and even though the training was pretty much the same, the fatigue present in your system made everything else harder than normal and it pretty much pushed you to the brink.

A few days later you decide to "run it out" but again fatigue was still present from the 2 footy training days and thee same run that was a 6 rpe last time, shifted up to a 7.

The second run also registered a 7 rpe from the weeks fatigue build up.

What we're left with is an acute loading of 2,270 units and a chronic loading of 1610 units.

Now let's look at what the results can tell us.

A ratio of about 1.3 is the sweet spot where this week you've performed 1.3 x what your chronic loading is.

In this case we have 1610 x 1.3 = 2093 units

As you can see this player's workload reached 2,270 units which is actually an a:c ratio of 1.41 

What are the implications from this you ask?

A spike of 1.5 and higher is what has been determined to be related to SIGNIFICANT INJURY RISK.

In week 1 this player has already reached 1.41 of his maximum 1.5 loading ratio and as the training ramps up, if his fitness doesn't come along at a greater rate then his fatigue build up, they're in trouble by February, if they make it that far.

A the very top end (probably not what us local/amateur types need to be worried about) you're 50 - 80% more likely to sustain an injury with a training load of 3000 - 500 units but to stay on the safe side and reduce any potential soft tissue injuries aim for a ratio of .8 and build up to 1.3 over time, not increasing loading by more than 10% for any given week.

The injury will come 7 - 10 days after a spike in load and can come as late as 21 - 28 days.

As a player you need to maintain a minimal chronic workload at all times, especially on breaks.

As coaches you need to have this in the back of your mind when deciding what types of drills you run and then what running work you add on top of that.

You also need to know the players that do extra training and grouping your players can also help you run the drills to the loading that they need.

Thanks to Mladen Javanovic and Tim Gabbett.