It's unfortunate, and it's gone so quickly, but AFLW is coming to an in 8 days.
With last home and away round this weekend, and the Grand Final for next weekend, all AFLW players will go back to their local/amateur football clubs and go back to their lives of pre-October 2016.
Here in Melbourne we have 2 powerhouse women's team in the local comp being Darebin and Melb Uni.
Both of these teams have 15 - 20 players on AFLW lists with each player essentially doing a full winter season with them, then going into AFLW in November (training harder and longer then they ever have), into the season proper in 30+ degree heat most games and at intensities that must almost double what they encounter at local level.
The Victorian Football League Women's Season 2017 starts May 6, will run for 14 weeks plus another 4 weeks finals, with the grand final being played on the weekend of September 16.
There is 1 week off early to mid June.
So AFLW girls will have played footy for 22 weeks (if you made finals) in 2016, had 6 - 8 weeks off, into AFLW in November (but surely training before then to prepare), then pretty much head straight back to the VFLW for another potential 22 weeks.
That equals about 65 weeks off footy out out 75 at or above levels most of the players will never have even knew existed, let alone trained or played at.
This will result in fatigue - local and systemic.
And this fatigue will need to be carefully managed by their VFLW teams to 1 - have them all firing come finals in August and 2 - have them ready for AFLW pre-season in November this year.
Here's what needs to happen for all of these players in some shape or form.
REHABILITATION
The AFLW season might not have been long but it was intense and players will have been pushed to their limits week in and week out which was evident with the injury list that we see right now. L/A clubs will need make sure that any ailments from AFLW have been 1005 cleared up before returning to training and playing. They will also need to look at restoring muscle function in regards range of motion immediately. I can only assume some women are holding on just to survive at this point of the season so my biggest thing would be to get the body back into a parasympathetic state which facilitates recovery before doing anything of any real intensity. Which leads me toooo...
HEART RATE VARIABILITY
Heart rate variability can sow you how short and long term stress is affecting you and your ability to perform at a high level. Footy has developed a terrible habit of seeing how much you can do, with no rest for as long as you. This results in a very poor quality of output in regards to max speed (sprinting speed), sub-maximal speed game running speed), skills and decision making. I've said this 100 time but no one gets better at anything when they're tired, except being tired. I would assume that the AFLW clubs would have been tracking something similar to this so it would be handy if they passed on this information to L/A footy clubs to continue with and then they can exchange data at season's end for continuity.
WELLNESS SURVEYS
Once again I assume AFLW clubs were runnign something along these lines to get subjective scores from each player on each day which when coupled with an actual HRV reading, can provide great insight into a players readiness to train and thus game performance improvement. If you're feeling like shit and complete a huge session then it's almost guaranteed that you're performance in the coming game will be subpar as you're simply piled fatigue on top of a pile of fatigue which takes time, and rest, to get rid of.
TRAINING RESIDUALS
This is important for all players, not just AFLW players as it refers to how long a specific quality (strength, speed etc) stays with you before you need to train it directly again, to "top it up". This is a god send for coaches who can then plan they're training sessions around what needs to be and when - not just haphazardly throw in some 400's as you think your players need a fitness boost. That's stupid. This also means you can have more time to dedicate to skills, tactics and game sense. For AFLW players it means you....
GET THE MOST FROM THE LEAST
The activity that you can get the most benefit from with the least amount of output is always the best choice during the in-season, and often all the time. The AFLW girls probably won't be up for the hard slog of training, nor will they need it like the other players, so being extremely efficient in regards to training them will be vital in keeping on the park and interested in footy having played for 12 months straight pretty much already.
MAINTENANCE OF A QUALITY IS EASIER THEN BUILDING IT
Once again I assume AFLW clubs were runnign something along these lines to get subjective scores from each player on each day which when coupled with an actual HRV reading, can provide great insight into a players readiness to train and thus game performance improvement. If you're feeling like shit and complete a huge session then it's almost guaranteed that you're performance in the coming game will be subpar as you're simply piled fatigue on top of a pile of fatigue which takes time, and rest, to get rid of.
TRAINING RESIDUALS
This is important for all players, not just AFLW players as it refers to how long a specific quality (strength, speed etc) stays with you before you need to train it directly again, to "top it up". This is a god send for coaches who can then plan they're training sessions around what needs to be and when - not just haphazardly throw in some 400's as you think your players need a fitness boost. That's stupid. This also means you can have more time to dedicate to skills, tactics and game sense. For AFLW players it means you....
GET THE MOST FROM THE LEAST
The activity that you can get the most benefit from with the least amount of output is always the best choice during the in-season, and often all the time. The AFLW girls probably won't be up for the hard slog of training, nor will they need it like the other players, so being extremely efficient in regards to training them will be vital in keeping on the park and interested in footy having played for 12 months straight pretty much already.
MAINTENANCE OF A QUALITY IS EASIER THEN BUILDING IT
The AFLW girls simply need to maintain whatever level they were at at the completion of the AFLW season. There might be a small drop as the demands of the game won't be as high but they will still be keen to keep what they built at their AFLW clubs to take into season 2018. Did you know that maintaining a quality is far, far, far easier then building? You can maintain something training at just 30% of the volume you took to build it, so long as intensity is 100%. It doesn't like much and it actually isn't
MINI PRE-SEASON
Depending when the AFLW women go back to their L/A clubs, they will need a mini-pre season including all of the points mentioned above that should be pretty much the first month or so. AFLW is now priority number 1, not VFLW, so coaches will need to take that into account before anything else. This means throwing Daisy Pearce straight back into the middle for 80mins a game might not be a wise move straight up and she now has something to 'save energy for" which she didn't have before. Just quickly you'll need to look at speed, strength, rehab and endurance and determine what needs to be tackled the most at what time which will pretty much be decided by the training residuals process.
PLAYER ROTATION
Especially for the VFLW teams with many players in AFLW, I would think player rotations will be quite high this year compared to other years. I'd still have them play most if not all of the games, but I would put a premium on rotating players, and were probably talking midfielders for the most part here, through the middle, forward line and the interchange bench. I;m not sure of Emma Kearney has ever sat on the bench in VFLW before, she hadn't missed a second playn until this past week in AFLW, but I think it might be wise to cut game time, and thus playing volume down a bit for the AFLW girls. And you know what? They will be much better now dropping back a level and might be just as prolific in less time which should make this process easier for coaches.
MINI PRE-SEASON
Depending when the AFLW women go back to their L/A clubs, they will need a mini-pre season including all of the points mentioned above that should be pretty much the first month or so. AFLW is now priority number 1, not VFLW, so coaches will need to take that into account before anything else. This means throwing Daisy Pearce straight back into the middle for 80mins a game might not be a wise move straight up and she now has something to 'save energy for" which she didn't have before. Just quickly you'll need to look at speed, strength, rehab and endurance and determine what needs to be tackled the most at what time which will pretty much be decided by the training residuals process.
PLAYER ROTATION
Especially for the VFLW teams with many players in AFLW, I would think player rotations will be quite high this year compared to other years. I'd still have them play most if not all of the games, but I would put a premium on rotating players, and were probably talking midfielders for the most part here, through the middle, forward line and the interchange bench. I;m not sure of Emma Kearney has ever sat on the bench in VFLW before, she hadn't missed a second playn until this past week in AFLW, but I think it might be wise to cut game time, and thus playing volume down a bit for the AFLW girls. And you know what? They will be much better now dropping back a level and might be just as prolific in less time which should make this process easier for coaches.
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