My Footy Off Season Training So Far

Last year finished with a house move immediately after Christmas hence my absence but now that the Internet is up and going I'm back!!

You might  remember my post from Sep/Oct last year detailing my goals for my off season training.

My immediate goal from way back in October, as always is to increase sprinting speed which I detailed my plan to do so in the post linked above.

My other immediate goal was to build a foundation to increase my aerobic capacity which will then move to aerobic power and some then lactic power from late Jan onwards until mid March for our first practice game.

As the plan dictated I had 3 blocks laid out:

Block 1 - High Force, Low Velocity (max strength) x 6 weeks

Block 2 - Moderate Force, Moderate Velocity (power) x 3 weeks

Block 3 - Low Force, High Velocity (max velocity) x 3 weeks

FYI, max strength is the highest load you can lift irrespective time. Power can be broken up into strength speed and speed strength referring to moving a sort of heavy load with a moderate amount of speed or moving a light load with pretty high velocity. Max Velocity is a light load, or unloaded in regards to bodyweight, moved as fast as you possibly can.

I trained each quality with the same exercise for 3 days in a row then rested for 4 days before changing exercises.

For the 6 week max strength block I used the following exercises:

Half Back Squat Lockout working up to 155kgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWlguUlyFF0

Half Front Squat Lockout working up to 135kgs

Front Squats working up to 90kgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2whXpLWys

Bottom Front Squat working up to 75kgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WnZVzAqyag

Front Squat with 3sec Isometric working up to 82.5kgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0r20g5Wxjw

Timed Front Squats 5 reps in 5 secs working up to 40kgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWMrqsSxytM

I used a load drop off of 7% meaning once I hit my 1 rep max then I dropped the weight by 75 and continued to do singles until I rep quality dropped. For times squats I dropped 7% and continued with 5 reps in 5 secs.

If you look close enough the theory is to start with high force (meaning highest load) and work down so the load decreases and thus you're velocity increases slightly each week. You'll see one week I predicted my order wrong and slipped back and then going back up the next week but no biggie.

Block 2 moved to power where I did these exercises x 3 weeks:

Trap Bar Jump Squats with minimal knee bend - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iojCKlfEQtU

Steep Hill Sprint with a best 30m sprint time of 5.84secs

Resisted Sled Sprint with my fastest time being with just the sled itself (obviously) over 15m for 2.69secs.

My drop off for this power phase was different for each week. For jump squats I gauged on jump height and absorption to output time, for hill sprints I seemed to get faster each day so once I hit the previous days best time then I called it quits. For sled sprints I had a load range I worked in and then did some back off sets each day.

Block 3 shifted to max velocity sprinting with my 3 exercises being:

Slight Hill Sprint over 30m for a best time of 5.03secs

Flat Ground 30m Sprint for a best time of 4.03secs

Slight Downhill Sprint over 30m for a best time of 3.01secs

I did upper body using the same principles on 3 of the 4 days I rested legs.

The theory behind the entire set up is that you over train max strength for 6 weeks, which should theoretically take 6 weeks to 'bounce back" but at a higher level.

Then you overtrain power x 3 weeks which takes 3 weeks to bounce back at a higher as well.

So once you hit the back end of the max velocity block, you're max strength and power levels are increased from where you started at the same time, essentially peaking your performance.

I have since moved straight to a conditioning block which I'll detail in a future post but 5 - 10 after my last max velocity session (Christmas Eve) I posted had these results:

40m Sprint in 5.00secs (personal best - did a 5.56sec last year and 6.22secs the year before).

30m Sprint in 3.72secs.

20m Sprint in 3.00secs (couldn't better my 2.94sec I did just after my 10,000 Swing program unfortunately).

I have nit yet been able to test in a definitive non-fatigued state yet and won't get the chance for a little while yet either.

My current conditioning program is 16 workouts usually done over 4 weeks that I'm squeezing into 24 days, which included 3 days while I moved house so really closer to 3 weeks.

Then I launch into more aerobic and lactic power stuff until March which I could condense a down a bit more as well I think which will hopefully give me the chance to do 1 last speed block before our first practice match.

Remember most of my pre-season training is taken from the Ultimate Footy Training Manual which has a full years training from off season to finals all covered in it - you just do the work minus the planning! Head to the Paypal link at the top of the page to order.

You shan't be disappointed!