Aussie Rules "Untouchable" is Finally Here!

On June 29th of this year I took part in a small but exclusive 1 day workshop designed to provide me with the tools to build and implement an online training program like no other.

After 55 days it's here!

Introducing the Aussie Rules Training Untouchable Training Program.

I made training manuals before but never anything as big as this.

Here's how it works.

Step 1 - Take the Speccy Challenge.

The Speccy Challenge is a 5 day program that will put AT LEAST 10cms on your vertical leap in a single 40min or so training session. If taking hangers is your goal (and why wouldn't it be?) then this will give you the tools to do that.

Step 2 - Join the Aussie Rules Untouchable Facebook Page

This is a closed group exclusive to all Aussie Rules Untouchable members only. This is where we will all discuss training for footy, playing footy, watching footy, dreaming about footy! It will be a place to log your training results from the program and an outlet to talk about the program and anything else footy among like-minded footy players, all eager to take their footy to a level they never thought possible.

Step 3 - At the completion of the Speccy Challenge you'll be offered a sponsorship from Aussie Rules Training that will dramatically decrease the initial price of the Aussie Rules Untouchable Training Program. This sponsorship will be available for the first 50 people to take up the offer available on the sign up page, or for 2 weeks - whichever comes first.

Phase 1 is the off-season training program which is where all career years start from. It's not enough to start training in November as that doesn't set you apart from everyone else that does it.

Starting your training in October does!

I've written about various off-season training topics in the past month or so which shows how big I am on this.

I'm 2 weeks into my off-season already and I'm 38 with nothing left to prove!

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/season-2016-over-season-2017-begins.html

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/improve-most-you-can-for-season-2017.html

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/what-your-footy-coach-doesnt-know-but.html

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/the-fk-all-difference-between-fast-and.html

This will give you an insight into what you can expect from phase 1 on the Aussie Rules Untouchable Training Program.

Even though I've tested this 174 times I'm sure there;s till some stuff I've missed or hasn't sequenced properly so if you notice something out of order or whatever then please let me know s this will be "a work in progress' for the short term anyway.

Let me know any questions you have on this over the Aussie Rules Training Facebook page.

The F$%K All Difference Between Fast and Slow

I've probably said this a thousand times on this blog but Speed is King.

AFL players do the same thing top amateur/local players do, but faster.

If there are 2 draftee's with the same skill level and same endurance level then the one who tests the fastest will get drafted earlier.

It's that simple.

What you might not be aware of is just how far in distance an extremely short period of actual time is.

Let's take 4 player times for a sprint over 20m from below:

Player 1 - 2.8secs
Player 2 - 3.0secs
Player 3 - 3.2secs
Player 4 - 3.4secs

Let's break this down to an actual meters per second measurement:

Player 1 - 7.14 meters per second
Player 2 - 6.67 meters per second
Player 3 - 6.25 meters per second
Player 4 - 5.88 meters per second

If you look at the times then the difference between player 1 and player 4 is a measly .6 of a sec!

How much difference can that make really?

Well over a 2 second sprint this how much distance is covered by each player

Player 1 - 14.28 meters
Player 2 - 13.34 meters
Player 3 - 12.5 meters
Player 4 - 11.76

As you can see player 1 will cover 14.28m in 2 seconds where player 4 covers a non-competitive 11.76 meters.

Unless player 4 receives a ball on his own that he can mark with minimal movement then I don't really see him have an impact in any game.

So looking at his speed requirements, if he improved his 20 meter sprint time but JUST .3 - .4 of a second, he would cover 1.5 - 2 meters more in a 2 second sprint and would almost be a factor in every contest he enters.

Speed is developed by performing sets of 6 seconds or less at full intensity with full rest which means 5 minutes or so.

Thinking back to every training session you've ever done when have you ever done this?

I'm thinking never.

But that's OK because the knowledge from coaches on how to train just isn't there but it isn't their fault, they have enough to think about anyway.

As of today you've got 9 weeks until mid November which is usually when team pre-season starts and NOW is the time train up the qualities that you don't at team training.

I'm pretty sure that this week will be THE WEEK that the Aussie Rules Untouchable Training Program is released that puts you in a great position to attain the elusive .4 of a second that will take you a whole new level in season 2017.

If you're keen to get in on the ground floor (i.e. get the cheapo rate!) then head to the Facebook page and like this post and tag a mate while you're there.

Aussie Rules Football Fitness Requirements (Article Summary)

This is a summary of a question and answer that appeared on Joe Defranco's site a few years back and to be honest I wasn't familiar with the terms used in it and thus couldn't really understand it.

It was then that I discovered that my energy systems training knowledge bag wasn't as full as I thought it was so I had to re-educate myself a fair bit on the subject - which I did.

The main question was how to combine training for power and endurance simultaneously without 1 affecting the other.

Here are the best points with the big rocks being in red bold:

- Aussie Rules Football is classed as an aerobic-alactic sport as you cover a lot of running distance + it is of long duration but mixed with short bursts of very high intensity efforts (jumps, tackles etc)
- Correct programming can result in both qualities being developed optimally
- What 99% of players think of fitness for football is the glycolytic/lactic system but if you have an excellent aerobic system then you shouldn't have to tap into your lactic system too often
- 80% of the game is spent at low to moderate intensities so a strong aerobic system is valuable to be able to replenish energy stores in between bouts of alactic/high intensity efforts.
- The majority of your training should be either aerobic or alactic
- Team training can train the glycolytic system so there's no real need for you to train it on your own and especially not before 4 weeks out from your first practice game
- The more powerful the aerobic system the  the better you can buffer the impacts of lactate
- The longer you can stay in an aerobic environment the less stress your body goes through to produce work
- Practice intensities that become too high always do nothing to perfect skill levels
- Lactic training is too slow for speed development and too fast to recover from in 24hrs
- Max Output = What You Can Do (top un-resisted speed in a non-fatigued state or kicking under no pressure)
- Operational Output = What You Have to Do (game speed or kicking under physical pressure)
-  By improving max outputs you expend less energy performing operational output (you can repeat your top speed, or a high % of, for longer or kicking level stays high even when fatigued)
- You can improve work capacity without doing endurance by simply improving max outputs
- Begin skill drills at a very low speed
- Whatever you are focusing on within a training block must be compatible with the other things you train in that block (not all strength and fitness qualities are compatible so you can't just train everything together and expect optimal results for everything).
- Good news for us is that alactic and aerobic qualities are compatible with each other
-  Lactic work is not compatible with either alactic or aerobic but again it should never really be the dominant quality within a training block or session (except in local/amateur circles that's pretty much all we do at training).
- Improved aerobic qualities improve speed reserve enabling you run at high speeds when everyone else is fatigued
- Follow a schedule based on the high/low system

You can access the full article here.

VFL Football Requirements and How You Can Use That Info

Last week I came across this article by Northern Blues Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Potter detailing the requirements of VFL footballers.

As great as AFL training programs are they're not really suited to local/amateur players and even AFL affiliated VFL teams like the Northern Blues is still probably out of our reach.

That being said it's still interesting to read about so here were my main take-away points:

- 20% of game time is spent at steady state speeds which is a speed that is the same as basic jogging
- High intensity efforts range from 158 - 208 total meters per game
- 100% of high intensity efforts lasted for 6secs or less
- High intensity efforts had a work:rest ratio of 1:2 to 1:6 meaning if you if you performed 1 high intensity effort for 3secs then you rested 6 - 18secs before performing another one.
- 80 to 85% of these high intensity efforts last 3 seconds or less in duration
- If you aren't already then you should really learn to look at your total work in meters per second (m/s). Walking = 0 - 1.66m/s, jogging 1.94 - 3.88m/s,  running 4.16 - 5.55 and sprinting 6.11m/s or more
- I assume that high intensity efforts are those in the sprinting range of 6.11m/s or more.
- The use of velocity based training for power testing
- Whether it's yourself or your team, work out your ideal plan of the work you want completed and then modify it on a player by player case
- Ideal world - real world = work actually completed (which is all that matters!)

So what can you do with this info?

100, 200 and 400m repeats are probably useless for us local/amateurs, especially the way teams usually perform them with short rest. For example I was doing some aerobic power runs about 4 - 6 weeks ago and my best run was over 190m where I covered that distance in 24.35secs for a m/s speed of 7.8.

This is above the high intensity effort minimum of 6.11 which is great and I didn't manage anything below 7m/s for the 4 weeks I did these runs for.

How?

Well for power, aerobic power in this case you need rest FULLY between sets in this case was 8 - 10mins. Yes, that's 8 - 10mins.

If I were to have rested only 60 - 120secs like most local teams do in their training I'd probably have not registered a single set at or above 7m/s.

1 - I wouldn't have gone all out for the 1st set knowing I wasn't getting full rest between them

and;

2 - My speed would have drastically dropped each set from fatigue.

So if I'm doing say 5 x 190m then it might look something like this:

Set 1 - 26.78secs / 7.09m/s
Set 2 - 29.45secs / 6.45m/s
Set 3 - 32.39secs / 5.86m/s
Set 4 - 35.63secs / 5.33m/s

In the example above I dropped 10% of my best time for set 1 then 10% of the previous set for the next but in reality I'm thinking my speed would drop a lot faster then that!

As you can see though I complete 2 sets at a high intensity, 1 set in the running zone and 1 in the middle.

So if I can only maintain a high intensity for 2 sets before slowing down then should I continue to do more?

I'd say no.

I'm not building speed. I'm not building endurance as that relies on the use of oxygen and by set 3 and 4 I have don't have any so I can't breath and I can't get oxygen to my muscles during the set, nor after it, when I'm supposed to be recovering.

The recovery you have between sets pretty much determines what the next set will look like.

As a coach this could be the key to getting your players as fit as they possibly can with minimal "junk" fatigue which can build fatigue over the short and long term and can both result in injury.

The article in fill can be found here:

https://medium.com/@InsiderTrainApp/insider-in-depth-strength-training-overview-for-australian-rules-football-ef3626f8b19f#.8epwdkbc6