GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 9 (...GET ON #1)

- You need to string multiple seasons together so you can master 1 aspect of performance (technical/tactical/physical/psychological) then repeat to master other aspects of performace

- Look at a player in each of the 4 coactives to see what they’re deficient in

- When the body has more successive stress events than it can handle, blood pressure and inflammation increases, blood becomes thicker and less oxygenated and soft tissue tightens

- Bcaa’s/magnesium can delay central nervous system fatigue

- Emotional fatigue needs to be taken into account as well (when you lose a tight one)

- Low heart rate variability is high cortisol and low testosterone 

- High heart rate variability is high testosterone and low cortisol

- Fast parasympathetic nervous system recovery is breathing and cold water immersion and sleeping in a room temperature of 58-65 degrees

- Central nervous system fatigue results in decreased function of everything and learning will not be moved into long term memory and growth hormone is reduced resulting in decreased muscle repair

- Once technique/form drops then the minimum required dose has been reached and you should stop

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 8 (...#7 LIFECHANGER!)

- Biotransformational manages the energy we take in and how it's broken down/distributed and is compromised the most when stress is high where it allows itself to be superseded by other systems to allow the body to handle other immediate threats

- Gastrointestinal

- Entric nervous systems/ detox systems

- Of all bodily functions, digestion affects mental state the most

- The entric nervous system is the 2nd brain of the body and refers to the balance of neurons in the gut that send signals to the brain from the vagus nerve

- Fruit/veg finer helps expel toxins

- 1 week of antibiotics can disrupt the balance of bacteria in the gut microbiome for up to a year

- 95% of sertonin is secreted in the gut

- Irritable Bowel Syndrome is from too much serotonin and is mental illness of the 2nd brain

- There 3 parts of the brain being reptillian (oldest, controls the functions that keep us alive such as heartbeat/breathing/body temp), limbic (emotional response, bonding, empathy) and neocortex (youngest, making judgements, problem solving but is the slowest part)

- Instinct is the reptillian/limbic way of acting way before the neocortex can think it through

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* 10 YEAR OLD PRODIGY TOOK 15SECS OFF HIS 2KM TIME TRIAL

* THE SCHEDULE IS TEST, SESSION 1, 2, 3, 4, RE-TEST

* FREQUENCY EVERY 4 OR SO DAYS

* THE PERFECT RUNNING PROGRAM FOR THE XMAS BREAK AND TO COMPLIMENT FOOTY TRAINING

* YOU'LL ACE THE TIME POST XMAS TRIAL BACK AT TRAINING IN 2019

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The science behind it - starts after Xmas:

Basic set up of the program:

Here's a quick look at the the pace of these runs:

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 7 (...#6 IF YOU'RE A COACH)

- The 4 coactives are physical, technical, psychological and tactical

- Pick 1 moment and address it each week

- Must be techno-tactical

- Emotions is the fastest mechanism in the body

- Give players a say in the game plan as they need to execute it and thus be happy with it

- The role of the coach is not to tell players what to do but to set up learning experiences that enable them to figure it out themselves

- It's better if a player doesn't know why you're creating a learning experience and after they've achieved it, they don't even know that it's added to their game

- Players don't need to know why they need to improve something, just that they need to

- Skill execution is a prodict of biomechanics (mobility, stability etc), bioenergetics (energy systems) and biodynamics (central nervous system)

- Only improve physical qualities that are a limiting factor in game performance

- Genetics account for 40 - 60% of aerobic/cardiac function, 50 - 90% for anaerobic function 30 - 70% for muscular fitness and 20 - 30% for cardiac output

- Players need to be exposed to not just training, but also experiences to elicit instinctual responses during a game

- A stable lifestyle provides far greater functional reserve

- Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it's been

- You inherit your environment just as much as your genes

- Health reserve profiling looks at biotransformation, structural-anatomical, metabolic, endocrine and nervous system macro systems

- Each of these recovers at it's own pace and even branches of the same sub-system

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 6 (...#3 is HANDY)

Game Changer by Dr. Fergus Connolly available here.

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

- You need to identify a team's weakness so that you can exploit it by removing their strengths

- Man to man defense is about applying constant pressure to your direct opponent

- For zone defense you need to apply pressure when the ball enters your zone, not a player

- Technically proficient players execute more often and more decisively because applying deeply grooved motor patterns require less mental effort and is draining on your functional reserve

- An attrition game style (West Coast's tall forward line, Richmond's pressure etc)  hammers the opposition until they collapse

- Maneuver game style revolves around creating space to invade (Pagan's Paddock)

- Moral game style is when you know you're outgunned so you take a technical approach and attempt to take all of the "limited" chances you get (possession game against better teams)

- It's not a speed that kills but changes in speed (Basketball hesitation dribble, Rugby 2-step etc)

- The aim of good team's is to make the opposition work harder which makes them fatigue faster which presents as decreased decision making, skill level and emotional stability

- Build functional reserve

- Efficiency delays fatigue accumulation

- Use training drills that require verbal and non-verbal communication over cone-to-cone drills to build rhythum and for players to get to know each other's tendencies

- Players try harder if they know they're being measured (tackles, getting back into the defensive 50 etc) so decide what you want them to do the most

- Develop KOI based drills such as how many inside 50 targets you can hit in 10mins, end to end drills that require 3 chip kicks, a switch and a kick to fat side at some point

- OODA loop is observe (what's happening), orient (how is it effecting me), decide (how to combat it) and act...once you reach act then you're back at observe

- You must know what to execute and how

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 5 (...LOVE #7)

- Tempo is the overriding factor in speed control

- If you to make a tackle then you've already made a mistake

- The offensive macro principle is to create space

- The transition offense to offense macro principle is ball speed

- The transition defense to defense macro principle is ball (man with) pressure

- The defense macro principle is man pressure

- On offense you generally want to wide before going deep to spread the defense and draw them out

- The best defender in sports is the sideline

- By applying consistent pressure, defenders force their opponents to look for other options which forces them to decide and act slower

- Structure refers to your starting position at each restart relating to the positioning macro principle and referring to general positions on the ground

- Strategy concerns the specific adaptations of the game model to address each opponent and a style/method to defeat them

- It should not change a principle or affect cohesion

- Tactics is exactly how the strategy is executed

- The execution of tactics depends on the athletes ability to apply what they have learnt in training/games

- There a few game models but infinite tactics

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 4 (...CHECK #5)

Parts 1, 2 and 3.

- Slow ball movement/possession game needs better skilled players

- Fast ball movement/territory game is better for less talented teams

- If space is compressed in 1 area then it must exist in another

- Players/teams exposed to the highest speeds of movement complexity can execute better under pressure

- There's no actual defense as you're attacking the team in possession to get the ball back and is a mindset which means every defensive mindset is made with an intention to counter and eventually score

- Some teams need a lot of possessions to score enough to win

- You can use high defense that clogs your offense or a deep defense that opens up your defense (Swans)

- How players move without the ball defensively is essential to creating pressure and disruption

- If we win the ball in the defensive 50 then players in the middle, or on that side of the ground, have to spread as soon as possible to provide wide options and/or create space through the middle of the ground so try using wider options/increasing the ground size to move the opposition

-  The aim is to make the opposition do more work but also lose

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 3

- Players close to the action operate in tactical situations while teammates operate in bigger supportive roles but through feedback from the tactical actions that guide decisions at every level

- Giving players too much information stagnates decision making and spreads mental/physical effort too thin

- Give players no more than 3 aims per game

- Coaches should tell players their goals but not how to achieve them to see how they go about it without instruction

- Build the game plan/function and let it's style/form evolve (switch kick, 45 degree kick, kick to forward line fat side etc)

- Space can create time but time cannot create space (Scott Pendlebury using micro movements making everyone attempt to play off him, allowing everyone to move around him creating space/time and James Harden's jab steps to step back jumper)

- Better technique/efficiency creates space as you move faster with less effort but it also makes the opposition think/pause/dead

- The size of the field doesn't matter it's the usable area that counts and offense can use as much ground as they like

- Clarko's Cluster

- The law of ball speed dictates the game pace, not the players (Richmond)

GAME CHANGER NOTES PART 2

All notes taken here are from the book Game Changer by Dr Fergus Connolly - well worth your hard earned.

- Offense will always follow the order of construct, penetration and execution if it gets that far

- Construct is creating space for the ball/players or a quick strike approach

- Penetration is getting into a scoring position

- Work more on construction and penetration than execution

- The first step in transition to a defensive moment is to disrupt the offense and slow them down so your defense can catch up

- Make the ground smaller for the opposition

- Give the opposition defense too many options to consider

- Offensively create motion in different directions

- The less versatile you are the better you have to be at what you do well

- Pressuring and essentially cutting off an opponent from their teammates clouds their judgement, slows their decision making and prevents them from executing their objectives

- Disrupt their cohesion

GAMECHANGER NOTES PART 1

In my last few post series I've been highlighting Agile Periodisation which is essentially training the 4 co-actives each week simultaneously:

* How to Approach Pre-Xmas Training Part 1 and Part 2.

** Team Training Pre-Season 2019

*** Kicking Variability Training Drill

**** New Rules of Footy Training Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

This new way of coaching has been used in Soccer and Rugby for a while now but a sports scientist Dr. Fergus Connolly put it all together in his book "GAME CHANGER" which WILL change the way you coach/train from now on.

This next series of posts (15 - 20!) are full of dot points I made from the book, deliberately posting them as I literally wrote them to initiate some discussion from you guys to share idea's on implementation as well as perception of each point.

Here we go!

- The only way to create space is to draw the defense towards each other

- When rating players, look at how their presence/actions amplify the team (positioning, stops, forward entries, enabling other players to play their game etc)

- Training tempo footy progression could be short to long duration, no pressure to pressure, 2 teams to 4 teams etc

- Don't do what's possible, do what's necessary

- Have 7 - 8 stationary players play keepings off 2 - 3 defenders who can move with the aim being to keep the defenders moving/opening space

- Progress the drill by allowing the offensive players to move

- Progress once more by using goal scoring simulation

- Every players first action should be to see their location and what's going on around them

- Use a similar set up with stall points around the ground than build multiple options off of it (plan A, B, C etc)

- There are game macro moments being offense, transition defense, defense and transition offense

THE NEW RULES OF FOOTY TRAINING PART 5 - TRAINING

PSYCHOLOGICAL FATIGUE

In the strength and conditioning game we're close to exhausting what we can do in training the body and the next frontier is what we can do in training to the mind.

Physically we get tired and psychologically we get tired too and you can look at it like this:

Physical Fatigue + Psychological Fatigue = Total System Fatigue

The constant decision making required by players causes fatigue just like running, jumping and tackling does so you need to train decision making just like everything else.

MECHANICAL VS OPERATIONAL OUTPUT

For any skill you have mechanical output and operational output.

Mechanical output is what you can do with zero pressure to perform, unimpeded route and zero decision making.

Operational output is what you can do in a game when all those things are present.

It can be a good idea to rate players on these 2 aspects of various football skills such as decision making, disposal and marking.

If the gap is too wide then you need find a way to replicate game conditions at training and train operational output again like everything else instead of hoping it will all come together in the heat of battle.

TECHNIQUE RESERVE

Technique reserve is what the elite players in spades over us local/amateur types.

What you think of increased fitness is really increased technique reserve.

There are players at pretty much all levels of football who can run a pretty decent time trial but what they don't have is the elite skill level of the pro's.

To build technique reserve you need to first nail the easier skills of footy and build on this in regards to speed and level of preciseness of movement to such a level that it becomes automatic and your technique is dialed right in.

When fatigue starts to settle in late in quarters and games, you're technique is still there and you're disposal drop off will be way less then someone not as proficient from a skill level point of view.

Don't keep pushing fitness, fitness, fitness when you're players can't kick!

IMPLICIT LEARNING

The definition of this is "the learning of complex information in an incidental manner, without awareness that it is being learned".

To do this set up drills with limited information, usually just letting the players know a particular scenario (transition defense, offense etc) or the end goal (10 kicks without hitting the ground etc).

This way players have to decide for themselves the best way to play out the scenario or reach the end goal.

Don't provide them with the answers ans really there isn't any "right" answers anyway because on game day it's total chaos.

You also want to look at the decision making process here.

FAIL AT SOME DRILLS

How many times do we make the wrong decision in games?

Plenty.

How decisions do we usually make at training?

Not many as we kick from this cone to this cone.

Setting drills that might get messy are a great idea to again see how players respond top adversity as well as seeing who provides leadership, who sticks with your game model/pillars and each player's decision making process.

Failing at training also means that it's challenging enough where drills where the ball whizzes around freely isn't challenging enough for most players.

Obviously don't set a drill that's way too hard for your group, it's still got to fit the ability of your team, but don't afraid to throw some little spanners in the works to make it messy and see what happens.

RUN MULTIPLE DRILLS AT THE SAME TIME

We played about 120 last season and have 3 teams playing every weekend so when we're up and about we can potentially have 50 blokes on the track.

Running 1 drill at a time can then mean a lot of standing around and " lost time".

Instead of thinking up whiz-bang full ground drills where players still don't get enough touches of footy, use less complex drills and run 1, 2 or 3 of them at a time, splitting your team up into smaller groups.

Players will get more touches, more QUALITY touches too and they'll stay switched on for longer if they're not waiting 2 minutes at every cone for the ball to get there.

CONTINUOUS WARM UP DRILLS

I got this idea from a local team in the western suburbs of Melbourne I went and watched 1 night where they started with a low complex handball drill and gradually spaced it out to a medium to long kicking drill over 2 - 3 progressions.

This again means lots of quality touches, quick changes from drill 1 drill progression to the next and also covers most skills of the game.

I've made up a bunch of these for us to use from now on instead of the short to long lanework drill we've used for eons.

10,000 TOUCHES

We've all heard of the 10,000 hour rule to become a professional in something and in soccer they have the 10,000 touches rule following the same idea.

Most teams will have 25 - 30 training sessions between now and practice games/round 1 and having every player perform 300 - 350 quality touches before every training session will get them to 10,000.

Instead of rolling up and shit kicking and talking for 15 minutes, get your players onto this doing short and sharp skills on both sides of the body.

TRAIN ABOVE AND BELOW THE DEMANDS OF THE GAME

Definitely thing missing from 99% of footy teams training where they try to train at game speed which is the most fatiguing way to do things, often called "training in the middle".

What that means is that it's too fast to get any true aerobic benefits from but too slow to get any true speed benefits from.

In the end you want to get to the ball first using speed, then be able to do it repeatedly by being able to quickly recover between speed bouts.

Take your focus on seeing how fast you can get tired and then seeing how much you can do (it will be minimal and what do do will be of a low quality) and see how much you can do at high intensity while not tired as well as much you can do at a low intensity before you get tired.

Training at game speed indices high fatigue with means low skill level, decreased decision making and worst of all high injury risk.

SKILL CONDITIONING

We've got 3 - 4 hours to train 40 - 60 players so is it wise to do a 3km time trial every week?

That's 20 minutes gone focusing on 1 single aspect.

If you're going to focus on 1 single aspect it cannot take more than 10 minutes per session at the very longest.

Being conditioned to display the skills of footy is the name of the game, not marathon running, so why not combine the 2?

Set up 3 man drills using various handball and kicking drills where the "working" player goes for a specific amount of time and then have a quick changeover and rotate x 3 - 5 cycles per player.

How far one can run is pointless if they can't be skillful with the ball when they get it.

Do skill conditioning pre-Xmas then introduce running conditioning later

You can also set up skill conditioning tests to gauge progress just like running tests and again I've made yup a few drills for this that we'll use pre-Xmas.

THE NEW RULES OF FOOTY TRAINING PART 4 - COACHING

From the start of October until mid-November I was reading the bad boy in the image above by Dr Fergus Connolly who has worked EVERYWHERE such as the EPL, NFL, NBA, AFL and in World Rugby too.

He's regarded as a "Mr. Fix It" type, and his views on sports science and preparation is years ahead of his time.

I have about 20 blog posts to come on this book, all 450 pages of it but I'll softly touch on a few here that we'll try implementing this season with my own team.

STRATEGY V TACTICS

An often overlooked part of coaching is the language and actual words used to instruct players.

These 2 things sound and look the same but they are very different and knowing how they're different is very important if everyone is to be on the same road.

Strategy is a plan or set of goals.

Tactics is the specific actions/steps you'll take to accomplish the strategy.

Without strategy you'll amber through as you're not really playing for anything but to win but you're not always going to win so there's need to be more that the team and the players are judged on.

Without tactics you're basically hoping that everything just works out, which we know is not a great long or short term solution. 

To go a few steps further you then have the grand strategy that is looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead but all 3 steps need to addressed consistently.

GAME MODEL

Most team sports have 4 macro moments being offense, transition defense, defense and transition offense.

As a coach you need to organise and articulate your standards and tactics in each phase of play.

The offensive macro moment will refer to construction, penetration and execution.

The transition defensive macro moment will refer to disruption, organisation and direction.

The defensive macro moment will refer to dispossession, termination and isolation.

The transitional offensive macro moment will refer to movement, direction and space.

You need to detail how you'll carry out each point of each phase and this is essentially your play book.

This will also make it easier to evaluate each aspect post-games.

In training design and implement more training drills and/or games that train multiple macro moments rather than spending all your time on 1 or 2 of them.

TIME AND SPACE

The ultimate of everything you try and do is to create time and space.

This sounds easy enough in theory but you need to know that space creates time but time does not always create space.

Sit on that for a second.......

To create space in 1 area you need to compress players in another and this needs to occur all over the ground but needs a team first approach as only 1 player can get the ball.

If a player gets enough time then they can achieve almost anything, regardless of ability, but creating space gives them this time.

PRACTICE VS TRAINING

Piggybacking off the first point in this post, you also need to know the difference between practice and training.

Practice is a method of learning existing skills.

Training is the acquisition of new skills.

This is good to know because at local/amateur level there is varied level of skill and game sense between your playing group that can consist of 60, and in our case up to 80 players.

What this can allow you to do is to break your playing group up into practice and training groups for each part of your game model instead of hoping that everyone just gets it from talking about it pre-game for 5mins.

Lower level players might do a lot more practice of lower end skill work while your top end players might do more training to expand their repertoire of skills and game sense.

I bet you thought that would be the opposite way around hey?

Essentially both groups will swing from practice to training at different stages.

You can use data from your player profiling that we discussed earlier this week too.

THE NEW RULES OF FOOTY TRAINING PART 3 - CULTURE

You hear about club culture all the time in AFL circles and was probably made most famous by the Bloods culture of the mighty Sydney Swans that started in the early 2000's and ignited the 2005 premiership run.

You don't hear about so much at local/amateur level though as it's another one of those things that seems to be too much effort and requires too much time to really instil, especially in the ever changing landscapes of l/a footy.

Speaking about my club again, we don't have a poor culture but we do find ourselves in a very unique position.

- The club is only 50 years old

- It has played about 5+ different venues in that time

- The club had a year in recess about 10 years ago

- 6 or so years ago we had a mass exit of players who mostly retired with a few going on to play at higher levels

- We don't have any junior feeding systems yet apart from Auskick as well under 8's to 10's.

90% of our recruitment comes from existing players with the odd player who moves into the area and comes along on their own as it's nice and local.

Our home ground is in Camberwell but we have players that come from Eltham to Newport to Dandenong that play for us.

A young-ish club, no real "home", essentially starting again from scratch a few times, no young players that have come up through the club from day 1 and players from all over Melbourne.

All this has mad it hard to instil a culture that can pave the way for future success.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we have a poor culture - not at all.

But we don't have a lot of "history" because of all the moves and different locale of players that have played for us.

Country town teams all have local players that played there since they were 5 or 6 right up until senior footy.

They were essentially raised at the footy club and thoroughly know what it stands for and who it serves.

We've improved a bit here but have a long way to go.

A few of the culture improvements we'll be looking to make this year include:

SET PILLARS/STANDARDS

This has to be the starting point and is a set of non-negotiables which seems hard to instil at l/a level where footy isn't your job but not instilling is what STOPS club culture.

Whether it's on or off-field achievements, every player needs to know them, how to abide by them and how to instil them.

I might say this a few time sin this series but do not assume everyone knows what you're talking about and hot to act on it.

You can say follow these pillars but a lot of players will need exact instructions on it and also this means that they can't say they didn't know about them or understand them if something awry.

The biggest plus for setting pillars and standards is that when something goes wrong you can always go back them as they won't change, and then you start re-start or re-jig to get back on track.

NAME YOUR CULTURE

Once you've set your pillars and standards then give it a name like the Bloods culture above.

This will make it easily identifiable to everyone and makes it sound far more important than "a set of rules".

Put a sign up in the rooms above the door and before every game every player and coach touches it and says the culture name.

These small and what seem like insignificant reminders can drive a team in tough times of the season and can be morale boosting as it reminds you that you're always playing for something bigger than yourself.

BUILD TRUST

Here's my take on trust and a scenario.

#1

The ball is in a pack situation.

The coaches game plan is to handball out of trouble and then kick when it's at least a 50/50 chance of winning the ball - don't just blaze kick out of a pack down the line to the opposition who repel it straight back over your head.

The plan is to use the numbers around you to get the ball to someone into space.

So you get the ball and the teammate next to you calls for it early, knowing that you're going to get it.

From hearing that call, another teammate can see the play developing according to the coaches instructions and takes off from his man to where he can an opportunity to get into space.

You ignore the call, the original calling teammate is out of play and the 3rd teammate is now out of position with his man free in their forward line.

As predicted above, your kick goes straight back to them, they find the spare man created by your teammate and they kick a goal.

Some people might think that by simply doing that hack kick caused all the problems.

Well yes and no.

The real problem lies in why did he do the hack kick and not handball to the far better option?

I think this is where trust is the problem.

Player A is a past best and fairest winner.

Player B is a regular 2's player who's come into the 1's just this week.

Player A hasn't really played with Player B before and in the heat of the moment might have thought that his hack kick would be a better option than handballing to Player B who hasn't really proven himself at this level yet.

From Player B's aspect, Player A has burnt him 2 - 3 times already this game so now he doesn't trust him to play his role correctly.

Player C also loses trust that his other teammates aren't following the coaches order and stops providing options, even though he is the line breaker from half back.

Team first ethos goes out the window.

Funny things happen in the heat of a game - some good and some bad - and they always will.

But don't make lack of trust be the reason why they do.

Implement some trusting drills at training.

Make sure team rules are enforced and that there are precautions if they are not.

Make every teammate somewhat familiar with each other by making training groups of players from different groups.

You could do a whole season without training "with" another player and then you're expected to trust them to the hill in the heat of a game?

Unfortunately it's not that easy.

Finally don't confuse trust with team bonding as trust is individual to individual to make a team and bonding is more a collective thing that is enhanced after trust has been established.

THE NEW RULES OF FOOTY TRAINING PART 2 - INDIVIDUALISATION

This is probably the biggest thing missing from local/amateur level footy but with good reason.

It's not do bad at higher levels of l/a footy but I know at my club there's the coach and if not me, then just him, in charge of preparing 70 - 100 players for a season of footy.

An impossible task if individualisation is to take place.

So what ends up happening is either, or a mix of these options:

- You train to the level of your lower ability players in an effort keep training "looking nice" but at the expense of the medium and high level players.

- You train to the level of your medium ability players in the hope that improving these players will add depth to your senior ranks if injuries occur, but at the expense of your lower and upper level players.

- You train to the level of your high ability players but at the expense of your medium and lower level players.

Even if you try to mix it up then the different levels of players still aren't getting enough type of stimulation that they need.

So you really can't win.

The first stage of individualisation is to build a player profile because it's only after you have some data to work with, that you can think about how to individualise.

You want out things like:

- Strengths/Unique Skill

- Weaknesses

- Commitment

- Personal Preferences (grade, position, role etc)

 - Footy Goals (grade, achievements etc)

- Past Form (if you're a coach new to a club)

To get 360 degree perspectives on players it's also a good idea to get some feedback from the player, the coach (if it's the same coach as last season) and also from a high level player or 2 at the club.

With this data you can now look at things like:

- What game style can utilise them optimally

- What ground position can utilise them optimally

Once all this information has been collected then you can attempt to train them accordingly.

As we'll cover later in the week, you might also be able to group players for specific training drills or use them for parts of training drills you'd like to see them carry out on game day.

THE NEW RULES OF FOOTY TRAINING PART 1 - WHY ARE THEY NEEDED?

It pains me to say but I've trained for footy for a span of 5 decades - holy jesus what am I doing?

I started way back in the late 1988 as a young tacker and all through the 90's to a senior player.

I had 4 years off in the mid 2000's before making a comeback and here we are in 2019.

33rd year of football next year and how footy has changed.

The days of long kicks playing a strictly territory game are long gone.

Zone defences were years ahead from being used.

Clearance work was nothing more than having you're best players in there and hopefully they can get the job done.

No quarterbacks.

No clusters.

With all these changes withing the game it's remarkable how similar training still is to the early days.

I mean we all still do lanework and 5 point handball!

Things have got to start to change to move with the times and here's the start of it.

The New Rules of Footy Training.

Change means more work sure, but change, specifically strategic change with for a specific reason also means progress.

Local/amateur footy is has even changed as recently as the last 2 years with the implementation of the player points system and harder salary caps.

Eastern Football League powerhouse Balwyn here in Melbourne would yearly bring in 3 - 5 de-listed AFL talent and win premiership after premiership but last year the new rules caught up with them.

Realising that buying top-end talent was not going to work with the player point system, they have now gone the route of developing local talent for long term sustainability which I think will work for them down the track as they'll still have cash to bring in ex-AFL players but far more player depth below them.

If Balwyn have to roll with the changes, then we all do meaning we have to do more with what we have.

My own team had an absolute shocker last year.

Some of the highlights were:

- Losing each spine position player for at least 4 weeks at some point during the year, often overlapping

- One particular weekend we had 35 players unavailable

- We play division 3 and with a grand finalist from the year before still in the league and pushing again, there was also 2 teams relegated from div 2 with one of the teams only having lost 1 game by more then 20pts so could have easily been playing finals in d2 with some luck)

- We didn't really recruit from season 2017 for a variety of reasons

- The league graded our ground unfit to play on in the 2nd last round of the season (work that one out)

- On top of that our league allowed a new team into our league and division with extra player point allowances (again work that one out)

Yes an absolute shocker and we were only the 2nd worst team!

Talking to a lot of my teammates, last season has left a pretty crappy taste in our mouths and with some changes to our off-field structure, I'm sensing that the playing group wants to to do something about it which wasn't always the case last year being up against it like we were.

Along with our new senior coach, who is a current player at the club, we are making changes to how we prepare and train our players this year.

We have to.

We can't do the same stuff and exact a different result.

If we fail then fine, we fail trying new things that we could tinker with and make work.

If we roll with what we've done, we'll fail for sure so let's go down trying.

We are a big club in terms of players (6 x football and 5 x netball teams) but small as far as committee and expenditure is concerned.

We need to develop our players.

We need to get the most out of them.

And that's what I aim to do.

I've read close to 1500 pages of training stuff since last season ended in August and will be bringing a lot of that to training this year.

I'm eager to see how this all plays out and how the players respond to the new methods and drills that we implement.

Here are our 4 points of focus that I'll touch on throughout this week:

* Player Individualisation

* Club Culture

* Coaching/Teaching

* Training/Preparation

MY TRAINING - WHAT, HOW AND WHY

As of today I'll have trained 57 out of the last 71 days and here's what I have done and am currently doing, how I'm doing it and why doing it.

LOWER BODY ACCESSORY/PREP WARM UP

Every lower body session I have a little warm up I go through that has 5 categories with ever changing exercises for the most part.

Big Toe Function now moved to Ankle Rocker Function
- mobility of the toes is great for foot health which can have huge implications up the chain (knee/hip/lower back and even shoulder)

Posterior Tibialis Exercise
- this muscle connects the foot and ankle, essentially locking them together and enabling them to work as a unit

Hip Lock Exercise
- is an attractor of high speed running where the pelvis of the swing leg rises up higher then the pelvis of the stance leg

Boom Progression
- is the practice of foot strike efficiency

Foot/Ankle Stiffness Exercise
- when you run and contact the ground, the less deformity you have through the foot and ankle, the faster you'll be (think a flat footy bouncing off the ground vs a fully pumped up footy)

I have over 20 variations for each category and am simply working through them for 1 set per session and I'll repeat some exercises twice but that's it.

LOWER BODY STRENGTH

Early off-season is THE time to train for strength as it takes more out of you than almost anything else (muscle fatigue and CNS fatigue) and you also don't have any other training battling for training and recovery resources either.

My yearly strength block, which I did again this year was Triphaisic Training which is 3 sessions of eccentric loading at 80 - 85% then 3 sessions of isometric loading at 87 - 92%.

I didn't do much strength work last year as I did a boatload of sprinting but I seem to have lost some distance on my kicking and with plenty of time to spare I added an extra supra-maximal Triphasic Training block where I did 3 sessions of eccentric loading at 105 - 110% and then 3 sessions of isometric loading also at 105 - 110%.

This didn't go exactly as planned as I got a lot stronger in the initial Triphasic block and the supra-maximal wasn't supra-maximal at all, I could do it on my own and complete each lift where if it was truly supra-maximal, I'd have had to do the lift sown to some pins and then lift it back to the start each time.

Not to worry.

I actually placed squats in a potentiation cluster where each exercise potentiates the next one doing:

* Triphasic Squats x 1 + 20secs rest

* Medicine Ball 3 Step Projection Accelerations x 1 + 20secs rest

* 3 Step Acceleration x 1 + 20secs rest

* Band Assisted Jump Squats x 1

* 3 rounds in total

I hadn't actually squatted heavy with a bar on my back for a few years opting for trap bar deadlifts last year as my strength movement and hip belt squats the year before that.

I've had a history of lower back blow outs not directly from squats but possibly from the accumulated fatigue in the lower back from doing them in the past so I've opted to play it safe but I used a slightly different technique this year (what I coined the Performance Squat) and it all went very well.

SPRINTING

I've done a fraction of the sprinting to this point, hitting the track every 4th lower body session only so far this off-season (ecc/ecc/ecc/sprint + iso/iso/iso/sprint etc).

I'm nowhere near as fast as I was this stage last year but I'm hoping the indirect speed training I'm doing (force production etc) will mean I'll be prime meat when my sprinting frequency increases (now til about late Jan).

OTHER LOWER ACCESSORY STUFF

I've also been following progressions for:

* Hip External Rotation/Glute Medius Function (never do too much glute work)

* Hamstrings-At-Length Function (max velocity sprinting)

* Lateral Plyometrics (get out of the sagittal plane!)

RIGHT NOW

I've just started block 2 this week and here's the schedule:

Monday x Band Resisted/Bodyweight Jumps for vertical force and acceleration, overspeed eccentric training to build on the eccentric/isometric stiff from earlier for greater transfer to high speed athletic movements.

Tuesday x Elasticity for max velocity where yes I'm backing up lower body power sessions which doesn't seem like a good idea but I want to fully exhaust the muscle fibres/muscle use from yesterday with the aim of the reactive drills on this day being performed more elastically with the muscles too fatigued to chip in.

Thursday x Sprint day covering mostly acceleration still with a sprinkle of max velocity.

* I'm still continuing with the warm up and accessory progressions as well.

UPPER BODY

Unlike most of you I don't really enjoy upper body training but I can't train lower body so it serves me well for "off lower days."

I started with a hypertrophy block for something different (I usually stay in the strength/power range for upper body) and am now moving into a strength focus right now.

For both goals I have been and am still using the rest-pause technique which is one of the greatest training methods ever for mine, as it allows you to do more reps at the same load then you normally would and there's no way that won't result in excellent strength and hypertrophy goals.

I did 9 sessions of rest-pause hypertrophy and will do 6 sessions of rest-pause max strength before hitting Triphasic Training for this as well.

Right  now I have 2 sessions per week of low volume, high intensity.

WHAT'S COMING UP?

Footy training starts on November 30th that I'm hoping to attend if it falls on the days I can get there so that will put a slight spanner in my schedule but it will all still fit.

This block should finish up just before Xmas and then it will be speed training time with some sled work and a 3/week track sessions (and hopefully some pb's).

Late Jan/Early February I'll start my energy systems work which I pretty much need to touch up on from the power of work I have completed in last couple of years.

I'll be back playing deep, deep forward this year so I won't need a huge tank but I still like to be prepared anyway in case I need to go into the midfield or simply play a high forward role where I need to run and back for 4 quarters.

I'll do my anaerobic threshold program and some max aerobic speed work after that totally probably 8 - 10 dedicated running sessions with the rest coming from skill drills at footy training (I'll run on my own so I can run the running stuff at training when I'm there).

KICKING VARIABILITY TRAINING DRILL

Yesterday I posted this image on social media to see if people could make out how the drills as meant to work purely by the image which was just to see if I'd laid it out and explained it good enough.

I'm actually putting together a folder/book type thing of all my training/coaching idea's and will possibly package it all up very soon but from the comments it seemed that my focus of the drill isn't what other people's focus of it seems to be and probably shows the shift in my thinking lately in regards to training/coaching players and all athletes really.

Yes the drill seems like any drill where you kick to cone 1 to cone 2 etc except there would be zero cones in this drill.

It also looks like a drill trying to mimic some form of ball movement/game style but it's not that either - any drill trying to feature game simulated ball/player movement without opposition (token or otherwise, is simply another pre-planed skill drill which will have minimal transfer to the real thing.

What this drill is designed for is variable kicking meaning to use as many different types of kicks as possible to varying types of leads.

I play 90% in the forward 50 so most of my kicks are pretty much at goal but what if I was to move up to the wing or my old position in the backline?

Without being exposed to these different types of kicks my disposal might not be what it needs to be in the different situations I'd find myself in.

As coaches you can't slot someone at center half back and say "play there" without exposing them to how the game is played in that area of the ground beforehand.

If they've come from the wing, then it's completely different game requiring different player positioning, ball movement and thus types of kicks.

Here's the 4 main kicks you'd perform in a game of footy:

- Stationary kick to a stationary target

- Stationary kick to a moving target

- Moving kick to a moving target

- Moving kick to a stationary target

Now add to that the different leads you might have to kick to:

- Straight at you

- Running away from you

- Sideways

- 45 degree angle running away from you

Add in your kicking tempo:

- Slow

- Medium

- Fast

Add in the leading player tempo:

- Slow

- Medium

- Fast

What type of kick do you need to do to get to hit the target:

- Short stab

- Medium stab

- Long and low

- Put into space

- Kick to advantage

- Kick to a drop zone

- Kick that needs to get there quickly before defenders do

- Kick that needs some height to give your teammate the chance to make up the ground to mark it

That's 72 different types of kicks right there and you can add plenty more scenario's to that.

The secondary focus is on using the full area of the ground like most games are played in, not just kick to the middle, get a hands while running completely straight and then kicking it straight again unimpeded to a straight lead with zero pressure.

That looks good but it doesn't transfer to games.

Players also need to learn/practice leading patterns when their team has the ball in different area's of the ground and as 1 response put it "kick to where he's gonna go, not where he is."

It also allows for more players to be involved per sequence and you could also put defenders in for token pressure, manning the mark and improving the precision the decision making as in "there's a defender there so I can't just lob it in on his but what other kicks can I do?"

You could set this drill out anyway you want really but keep your focus how many potential types of kicks you can get in there.

As a side note we're after implicit learning so this drill might not always look pretty (they rarely should) because then mistakes aren't being made and there is no learning going on - the drill is too easy and the playing group needs something else to further their development.

Players and Coaches: agree/disagree? Let me hear your thoughts on all of this.

TEAM TRAINING PRE-SEASON 2019

Once again I've been entrusted to set up and organise pre-season training along with my Senior coach Scotty.

We've had 1 catch up already and we're now in the process of putting together our respective plans where we'll meet up again prior to training session #1 on the 30th of Nov and put it all together.

I can only be brief now but here's the categories of stuff we'll touch on:

* Player Profiling

** What The Players Need to Know

*** Coaching Principles/Style

**** Training

***** Training Drills

****** Game Day

******* Technical Training

Some of the things we'll try and implement were touched on in my previous posts of the last 3 - 4 weeks but we are really trying to make this as cutting edge as a severely under-funded/under-resourced local/amateur team can possibly be.

We want to control the controllables as close to 100% as possible to put us in the best position possible to improve upon last year and put something in place for years to come.

I'll touch on each of these points in the in the next series of posts.

If you got anything you're trying to implement then let us know and we can all learn and/or provide input and help each other along.

HOW TO APPROACH THE PRE-XMAS TRAINING BLOCK PART 2

#6 - Make Your Low Intensity Running High Quality

For 90 - 95% of your training you want to actually train below the speed of the game and above the speed of the game. Above the speed of the game is taken care of with the sprints from the previous point and let's look at below the speed of the game. Training at game speed doesn't really do anything for you but it's what 99% of teams do. It's too fast to get true aerobic benefits from and too slow to get any speed benefits from. Do not mistake fatigue for high quality training. That's high fatiguing which is not the same at all. You could use boring pace running drills which no one really wants to do (even though they should) so using tempo runs here is a good option where you run a distance of about 70m at a 60% pace of your sprint with the focus being on using a solid technique (watch a sprinter in slow motion to see what i mean). You'd cover the distance in about 12 - 15secs, not fast at all, do a quick something else after it (handball/kicks, core exercise etc) for another 30secs, then run back x 6 - 10 sets. Keep everything "easy" where everyone should be allowed to go at their 60%, not someone else's.

#7 - Skill Work Conditioning

You could do 1 giant step further from #6 and use skill drill conditioning where you'd stay with the 60% pace rule and use small groups (3 - 5) to perform mini-skill drills so you now kill 2 birds with the 1 stone which will hopefully get more blokes training earlier and continue to train later because the absence of mind numbing running. I'd rather get more blokes do a moderate to high amount of training then less blokes get a high amount of training - compliance is critical at local/amateur level.

#8 - Profile Your Players

Look a lot of extra work potentially here but you need to know what you're working with before you can develop a game plan. Developing little player profiles on their perceived strengths/weaknesses, peer perceived strengths/weaknesses, footy goals etc can assist you in identifying any specific needs players may need to fulfil their potential. This interest shown by the coach on a personal level can also build trust between player and coach as well.

#9 - Psychological Fatigue Can Be More Detrimental Than Physiological Fatigue

This piggy backs off #4 decision making from earlier. We've all played in games where we've been chasing all day and the perceived hardness of that game was as high as you've ever had. Then we've had those games where we simply run on air and everything goes swimmingly and we feel fresh as a daisy post game and wished we had another 2 quarters to play. The thing is you might have actually ran further in the perceived easier game. By training decision making throughout the pre-season, it will take a less psychological toll on your players, thus their time to fatigue will be greater.

#10 - Build Trust In Your Playing Group From Day 1

The more I think about it, the more I'm coming around that trust is what makes or beak teams. When there is trust then there is everyone pulling in the same direction, they stick to the plan without going outside it and players are playing for far more then just themselves. Don't be mistaken, trust isn't bonding although they can go hand in hand. Using trust based exercises can help built unity within the group and think outside the lines here too.

#11 - Train Like The Teams You Want to Be

We've all got aspirations to win Grand Finals, which means for relegation leagues like mine, you'd go up a division if you were to do that. So if you want to become a division 1 team then you better be training like a division team and preparing like a division 1 team. Winning a Grand Final is never pointless but the next might be if you were to be non-competitive in the upper grade for you to drop right back down again. For lower teams, this might be even preparing would, or training like they would in regards to quality, professionalism etc. Shitty teams don't just get better out of nowhere.

#12 - Who Needs Learning and Who Needs Practice?

The better players tend to dominate training at local/amateur level which is fine but what that means is that the lesser players essentially get less touches then the good players which should really be switched around if anything. Let's break this down further. Learning is acquiring new skills. Practice is repeating already acquired skills. These are 2 very different groups with very different needs so I suggest you make this part of your player profiling and run 2 different groups at the same time.

#13 - Lots of Touched For Every Player

Piggybacking off the last group where some players get heaps of touches and others barely get 5, that needs to be evened up. I know it;s easier to do 1 drill for everyone but it suits maybe 5 - 10 players perfectly and the rest get under/over stimulated, making close to a waste of time. Your options are to run the same drills but split your group into your top 20/bottom 20 or run an easy and hard version of the same drill at the same time. FYI, cone drills are best learning players and decision making drills best  for practice players.

#14 - Practice The Odd Skills of Footy

We think of acing footy training by whizzing the ball from cone to cone, not touching the ground and everything is sweet but let's be honest - we're local/amateur footballers. What game has any of us played where that has happened? Most of the times we don't have leads coming straight at us unimpeded. Most of the time we have to pick the ball up off the ground, not be able to stand there and take an uncontested mark. With opposition comes a decrease in time so we need to get the ball to point A, with precision, in 1 - 2secs. I think it's worth developing drills that different leading patterns that require different kicks than normal, deliberate ground ball drills and low and hard kicking drills. Even the age old drill of kicking on your opposite foot should still be used and it's in these circumstances during a game, where pulling these types of things off will win the big games.

HOW TO APPROACH THE PRE-XMAS TRAINING BLOCK PART 1

Team training is due to start back up in the coming weeks so it's the perfect time for this post.

The money involved in local/amateur footy is as high as it's ever been making the stakes for success even higher, as you want those player payments going to good use.

The player point system also means that the more players you bring in, the more you need to develop your "home grown" talent as there's only so many 3 - 5 point players you can slide in 1 team of 22 players.

This all means that your team training sessions need to be as close to perfect as they can.

Essentially you'll have about 8 sessions pre-Xmas and then another 20 sessions post-Xmas before your 1st practice match.

Let's say most players complete 75% of those sessions and we're looking at 21 total sessions before the main stuff.

21 exposures to training be ready for competitive football.

That's not a hellva lot really to be honest so you need to nail every single training session you have and not waste any sessions at all, especially if you have require a lot improvement from 2018 and/or need to incorporate a lot of new faces into the team.

Here's some pointers of how to structure your pre-Xmas training to "get the most from the least", which should always be your aim considering all your players have to work etc.

#1 - Determine What You Want Your Players and/or Team To Achieve In This Block

Are you training them to be able to train post-Xmas? Do you want them to gain fitness? Improved skill level? Bonding with new players? All of these options? How much exposure to each option would you like players to have?

#2 - Work Back From Your Last Pre-Xmas Session

Like any goal setting exercise, you start at the end goal and work back, especially as we have time constraints to fit things into. Through this exercise you start with priority 1, ad work it back through the 8 sessions, then priority 2 and so on. This will be the first exposure to you getting rid of excess training that really doesn't need to be in there which is essential at local/amateur level where resources (physical/psychological) are limited and is probably the number q factor in setting up your in-season training later on when weather, player availability and all those things rear their ugly heads.

#3 - Introduce Decision Making/Chaos Drills

There are no cones on the footy field so the sooner you can introduce drills without cones and make players think for themselves, the sooner they can start learning decision making. Start your training block with high cone/low decision making/chaos drills then swing to low cone/high decision making/chaos drills by the end of the block.

#4 - Have High Success With Cone Drills and Moderate Success With Decision Making/Chaos Drills

Having a high success rate at cone drills looks amazing but is far away from what happens on game day. Cone drills can be used to reinforce efficient skill levels and build confidence but it will not transfer over to game day because as Mike Tyson once said - everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Once your players become proficient at decision making fora particular goal, then you need to change the goal posts a little to build on that learning again and again and again. In this block it might be as simple as small sided games with less players and then progressing to more players which condenses the playing field more and increases pressure. Failing at decision making/chaos drills is fine as long as you can see the decision making process players are trying to go with.

#5 - Start Speed Training Immediately

Speed is the most important commodity in team sports and takes the longest to develop especially if  you don't have it abundance naturally. Speed is also a skill so it needs to be practiced so coordination of the limbs can occur at high speeds - this doesn't just happen automatically for a lot of us who don't sprint all year round. Obviously you can't full tilt into 100m sprints so work your way up from a starting point of 10m to 20, maybe 30m in this block and hit max velocity type training (contact times to be precise) with extensive plyometrics which are low level plyometric exercises performed for 20 - 30m per set x 6 - 10 exercises. You'll be able to build back some of your top end speed, without sprinting, without the soreness that follows and without the injury risk while also decreasing injury risk all at the same time - the most from the least.