Evaluating Your Season and Improving for the Next One

We're at the pointy end of the season now with some us already finishing up, some of us about to start finals and some of us (like me) with a few more home and away games to go.

At the completion of each season comes reflection in regards to what I need to be better at and what do I have to do to make that a reality.

Now let me emphasis just 1 word in that last sentence.

NEED.

What do you NEED to do to be better next year?

Now what this is usually up against is want.

What do I want to do to get better next year?

This usually results in you doing the same thing you did last year that gave you limited results the first time and you know what they say the definition of insanity is - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Lewis Jetta has done what he needed to do, not what he wanted to do, to become the an almost certain lock for All Australian this year, after barely getting a full game last year.

Once you have evaluated your 2012 season then it's time to do some goal setting for season 2013.

Actual goal setting is a much underrated process as it not only holds you accountable to your goals, but it can help you keep on track with your training.

You should write them down and say them out aloud. Put them on Facebook for all of your mates to see because if you're not holding yourself accountable, you know they will. Email them to me if you want to.

Now what I see a lot of happening is the wanting to increase each and every aspect of Aussie Rules as you can fit in which is not the way to go. Certain aspects will be further behind in development then others and thus will need far more attention then the things your're naturally and/or already good at.

Look at it this way, if you can run the tan in 15mins will getting your time down to 14:30 really help on the field? Or will that rehabbing that nagging hamstring injury you get each year during acceleration, causing you to miss 2 or 3 games, be a better choice for improvement?

So evaluate all of these things out of 10 (10 being perfect) for season 2012:

• Strength
• Speed
• Endurance
• Body Composition
• Agility
• Injury Resistance

You could add skills and other "field of play" options here like reading the play but that's work to do with your coaching staff rather then something you can do on your own.

Your first port of call is to prioritise what you need which is going to require great honesty. Most blokes will choose something they are already pretty good at but Aussie Rules is a very eclectic game and if you're only good at 1 thing, then that's not enough with the way the game is played now. You need to be versatile.

Now that you know what you need to improve on the most let's follow this to help us in dividing the amount of time and effort we need to really put into each point:

3 - Most Important (emphasis on improvement through specialised phases of training)

2 - Somewhat Important (some importance on improving through some specialised and general training)

1 - Important (low importance of improving and can be maintained or improved through general training)

So let's go back a bit and use our example from above of the player who has nagging hamstrings problems at some point each season.

He may have had an evaluation that looked like this:

• Strength - 5
• Speed - 7
• Endurance - 9
• Body Composition - 5
• Agility - 7
• Injury Resistance - 3

So it's clear to see that he has 3 glaring weaknesses; injury resistance, body composition and strength.

So now your training needs to reflect what you NEED to do.

3 - Most Important (injury resistance, especially the nagging hamstring))

2 - Somewhat Important (body composition and body strength)

1 - Important (everything else)

So you need to rehab that hamstring properly which will include plenty of massage, glute activation, gym strength work and low to high intensity acceleration sprint work, a decrease in body fat and an increase in muscle mass (subjective) from dietary measures and an increase in full body strength from work in the gym.

There's no point trying to improve his endurance which is a strength of his when it;s already at a 9/10 as there is minimal improvement to be made. The most improvements will be seen in what he is worse at, and rapidly if trained correctly.

So with the off season coming around, really have a think about what you NEED rather then what you want. If you can't really justify what you need to "get bigger" (how does getting bigger really improve your game?), then it's probably not a bigger need as you think it is.