Analysing My Off - Season Training

I did my last off season training session today with our first practice match tomorrow (wouldn't mind the rain holding off either to be honest!).

Now that all the work is done it's time look to analyse my results.

My off season was broken up into 4 main sections as you'll see below.

Section 1 - Knee Rehab Part 1 for Strength

As discussed in multiple blog posts since last August, I suffered a severe hyper-extension of my left knee in the last game of the season. It was quite severe as far as hyper-extensions go I think as I ran a little tonight at Auskick and I can still feel it a little. If I didn't have tree trunks for less then it might have resulted in a knee done good and proper as the action of the injury is how an ACL can be torn. So section 1 was rehabbing the knee and get it back to full, or near full strength before anything else.

Aim - Front Squat 100kgs + Pistol Squat to Parallel

Result - Achieved + Achieved

Section 2 - Knee Rehab Part 2 for Running

Once the knee was at the strength level I wanted to get back to it was time to start running which I hadn't done at all for 88 days! I've written all this previously but I started with hills progressing to resisted sprints and finishing with flat sprints so high force/low velocity to low force/high velocity like all rehab and early off-season training should be.

Aim - Run W/Out Pain + Achieve 90% of Speed from Last Year (10m sprint x 1.81secs, 20m sprint x 2.94secs, 30m sprint x 4.57secs, Fly 10m sprint x 1.19secs)

Result - Achieved + Achieved + Achieved + Achieved (10m sprint x 1.60secs hand timed, 20m sprint x 2.93secs, 30m sprint x 4.71secs, Fly 10m sprint x 1.41secs)

Section 3 - Energy Systems Conditioning

Post Christmas it was start to hit the main conditioning block. I had already done a tonne of aerobic capacity work pre-Christmas in my rehab blocks so I was ready to hit it pretty hard been if I hate it with a passion But of you're going to aim to do something you've never done before (win a premiership) then you must train like you never have before. This was the bane of my existence during this 34 days where I trained 19 times.

Aim - Beat 12min Run Distance from Last Year (2600m)

Result - Achieved (2808m which included 24 changes of directions which could have equated to another 50 - 100m maybe if ran in a continuous fashion)

Section 4 - Speed

The final block is my favorite one - max speed! We're talking 100% sprints with full rest (2 - 5mins between sets). I timed each set with a little iPhone app I use so the times were a lot more "real" then the handheld stop watch times I used in the past. I kept lower body strength work to about 1/week during this phase only pushing heavy loads towards the end of the block and I actually missed the last strength session as I got a cold last week and took a day out of my schedule I couldn't catch up but no big deal.

Aim - To Equal or Better 10 (1.60secs), 20 (2.93sec), 30 (4.71secs) + Fly 10m (1.19secs) Times from Last Year or Previous Block (whichever was fastest)

Result - Achieved + Not Achieved + Achieved + Achieved (10m sprint x 1.66secs electronic timed, 20m sprint x 3.44secs + 30m sprint x 4.53secs, Fly 10m sprint x 1.16secs).

I haven't actually retested these yet as these were the times I set during the training block but once rested and then re-tested should hopefully test better, especially the 20's that never felt fast at all during this block!

So seeing that I have pretty much achieved all I set out to do it should put me in a pretty good position to have another solid season at Full Forward even at 168cms. The best part is that I know my preparation is probably better then half of our senior team who may have done a tonne more ball work (I've kicked the footy once since last August!) but I had 30 sessions under my belt before some of them even got off the couch, let alone the blokes in the ressies I'll be playing on.