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Tomorrow night marks round 1 for the mighty South Yarra where we play under lights at a place called Hallam which I'm still not really sure where it actually is except on the outskirts of Melbourne!

The last 3 weeks we'll had practice games where I continued on with a rather high load of training leading into this week. Unfortunately last Saturday some arsehole deliberately pushed me while I was in full flight taking a mark hew wasn't good enough to stop. It resulted in me flying into an on coming player who otherwise wouldn't have made it to me which resulted in a compressed AC joint of sorts.

It's still a bit sore but range of motion is there so I'm battling on. I've been assured that it can't get any further damage and a bit of tape (which I hate and NEVER wear) should be my course of action.

Anyway it put a bit of a dent in what I had planned for this week which was a new training schedule I have been playing with for about a week in regards to the best way to set it up.

So my thought was to ramp up towards Saturday in regards to high velocity activity.

There is a thing called the force-velocity curve which looks like this:

Max Strength is referred to as 90 - 100% of 1RM, Strength Speed is referred to as 80 - 90% of 1RM, power is referred to as 30 - 80% of 1RM, speed strength is referred to as 30 - 60% of 1RM and max speed is 0 - 30% of 1RM.

Basically the heavier the load, the slower your velocity (speed of movement) will be so it's a 1rm bench press attempt (high force / low velocity) vs a bench press @ 30% of your 1rm (low force/high velocity).

To set this up you'll need to start your week from Saturday, or game day. This is not only main day, but the day you build up to every week which is also the day where you display the highest force of velocity.

So we played Saturday and even though my shoulder was still pretty sore, I simply did some lower body stuff to see how this would work. Most days consisted of a stiffness exercise, a glute exercise and a main exercise for the focus of the day (max strength, strength speed etc).

My week looked like this with each day increasing in the speed of velocity by exercise selection

Monday - High Force / Low Velocity Day

• Skipping + Trap Bar Deadlifts x 3RM

Tuesday - Strength Speed Day

• Ankle Jumps + Trap Bar Deadlift 8 x 1 every 30secs @ 60% of day 1

Wednesday - Speed Strength Day (the official start of high velocity training for the week)

• Overspeed Swings + Band Assisted Jump Squats (1:35) + 10m Sprints from 3 point stance (acceleration dominant)

Thursday - High Velocity Day

• 1 x 10, 20, 30, 40m sprints from 3pt stance + 1 x 10, 20, 30m sprints from standing stance (max velocity dominant)

So breaking it down you probably see more clearly how I went about it:

• Skipping to ankle jumps to overspeed swings (greater stiffness requirements from greater eccentric stress)

• 90% to 60% Trap Bar Deadlifts (high to medium force + low to medium velocity)

• 3 point stance to standing stance sprints (the greater torso angle you have the longer the ground contact time you'll have so compared to max velocity sprinting it's medium to high velocity)

As a side note I set a huge personal record in the 20m standing sprint today with a crazazy 2.72secs! Handheld stop watch but I'm taking that, especially at 35 and a 1/2 years old. Yesterday I hit my fastest 10m in a while getting a 1.78sec where I couldn't get past 1.81 a week or 2 below. 

So maybe a bit of recovery setting in, my new fandangle program or a bit of both.

I'll do this again next week with some improvements put in and see how it pans out results wise but the end result is to peak for game day so it will be all about how fast and explosive I am tomorrow night.

My programming rules there's no doubt and you could be a beneficiary of it by signing up to the Aussie Rules Training Online Consultancy and Training Program where I'll first assess what you need then program for it for YOU, not some generic program that 50 people do, tailored to your training schedule and equipment requirements.

You can't not afford to do this because the bloke flying past you after that loose ball probably is!