Late last year I read the book released by Paul Roos titled "Here It Is" which follows his tenure with the mighty Sydney Swans, including his 20 Points of Success, and ended with his tenure rebuilding the Melbourne Football Club.
While reading that book and almost venturing into coaching myself I started compiling a list of idea's and thoughts with part 1 and part 2 being posted over the last couple of weeks.
Here's part 3...
#21 - Make a list of stats to track against the varying opposition levels of your league for example tracking tackles against lower teams will ensure your team works hard without the ball, regardless of the opposition.
#22 - Your work ethic must exceed your talent base.
#23 - Develop specific roles for each player with some having duel roles if their skill set suits.
#24 - Manage player arousal pre-game and during the game - too much arousal too early will usually result in a fadeout come the end of the match.
#25 - Have 3 - 5 team rule per line (backs, mids, forwards) and address theme each break so everyone knows what they are being judged on and how they will help the team win.
#26 - To stop a team running, play on them.
#27 - React faster to the opposition because if you run right with them straight away then they'll stop running much sooner then if you're 5 - 10m away from them which will also cut down energy expenditure as your cutting your chase distances down from 100m to 10m.
#28 - Against bad teams you can rely somewhat on them giving the ball back to you but against the good teams you can't and you need to actually be able to win it back.
#29 - Don't be so relieved to actually get the ball that you get too defensive with it once you have it.
#30 - How can your team get easy goals?
#31 - Train more ground balls under pressure to eliminate fumbling.
#32 - A switch kick has 2 sides to it. 1 - It is usually a non-pressured kick to an unmarked teammate, eliminating the pressure and therefor should be a hit target 99% of the time. 2 - On the other hand, the pressure to hit that target, regardless of how easy it seems, is very high because real pressure comes if it doesn't work out. Think about this at training when part 2 isn't actually present and you just go through the motions with that kick.
Apart from the high mark, the greatest spectacle of individual play in the AFL these days is the fend-off, or the "DON'T ARGUE."
As footy has become more and more congested and contested, being able to create some space, any space, to get an effective handball or kick away is of great importnace.
AFL superstars such as Dustin Martin, Patrick Dangerfield, DON'T ARGUE newcomer Sam Powell-Pepper and to a lesser extent Nat Fyfe and Josh Kennedy, also use variations of the DON'T ARGUE to free the arms or to create space in tight confines.
Those 5 players all have 1 thing in common - strength at the contest.
They also have great size but size doesn't always correlate with strength, if the size can't be utilised correctly.
The DON'T ARGUE is a product of full body strength, and that's exactly what this program will focus on.
It will also use specific exercises to target the specific muscles and actions of the DON'T ARGUE, to allow for maximum carryover from the gym to the playing field.
Bench presses are great but they are a very general exercise for footy as the action, position, load and speed of the movement is not directly applicable to footy - not even close.
This program will literally walk you through the steps you need to take to perfect your very own DON'T ARGUE.
30 sessions for $20 - you can't go wrong!
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Late last year I read the book released by Paul Roos titled "Here It Is" which follows his tenure with the mighty Sydney Swans, including his 20 Points of Success, and ended with his tenure rebuilding the Melbourne Football Club.
While reading that book and almost venturing into coaching myself I started compiling a list of idea's and thoughts with part 1 being posted last week.
Here's part 2.
#11 - Your footy jumper does not touch the ground...EVER!
#12 - Put your culture name on a sign, put above the door of the change rooms and every player touches it, pledging to it essentially, before they run out not just for games but for training as well.
#13 - Ask the players to pick their best side sometime before the actual season starts to give you an idea of who they believe uphold the values of the club the best and it can also assist you in identifying leaders in the club.
#14 - Trial all your midfielders in inside and outside roles to see if some excel at one more then the other and plan your clearance work around their abilities and it also allows you to use different combinations effectively rather then hit and hope.
#15 - Introduce a catchphrase your team uses when things aren't going as planned that signals to everyone to forget about it, and see what you can do about it now rather then focusing on what's already happened.
#16 - All elite teams use visualisation so as a player, sit quietly and visualise yourself doing the things you want to do within games on a daily basis.
#17 - Have every player set a goal or 2 and put it up in the rooms for all to see - make goals REAL.
#18 - Make a list of stats you want to take and store them away each week which will allow you to analyse what you do well each and every week and what you do against, lower, similar and higher quality opposition which then may result in you tracking different data for those 3 category of team depending on where you sit in the pecking order.
#19 - Determine if your style will be territory or possession based which might ebb and flow at different times of the year depending on weather and opposition based but make sure your style fits your personal above all else.
#20 - Your first goal should be to win enough games to make the finals and once you achieved that, then you can now start looking forward to winning enough games to finish with the double chance and once you've done that then start looking to finish top of the table.
All the way back in 2015 I posted a video n the Consolidation of Stressors.
What this refers to is how you apply stress to the body over a long period of time.
Footy has a requirement to train to probably more aspects of physical fitness then any other sport in some shape or form, during a 12 month period which can make it hard to fit everything in, thus leaving what I call "performance gaps" in your game.
A lot of players are still yet to train speed correctly and thus have a performance gap of breakaway and top end speed during games.
If you don't train it then I really can't see why you;d expect to just display a physical aspect you never have before just because "you're trying to".
In the coming weeks we'll all see blokes we haven;t seen at footy training rick up to practice games and think they'll be good to go but the reality they then are the "performance gaps" within a team and will often be the weak link/s in the chains.
Unfortunately that's a part of local/amateur football.
Anyway I want to go through my training and show examples of how I consolidated stress to "get the most from the least" which should always be your aim.
That doesn't mean to try and get away with 1 hour of training per week, it means to try and organise "similar" types of stress as close together as possible which is why I'm a fan of block training.
My first session back after season 2017 was August 30th, 3 - 4 days after our season finished.
Block 1 was a GPP phase which has no specific goal other then to get the body back into some low intensity training using a lot of different movements that it may not have been exposed to for a long period of time.
This went for 4 - 5 weeks.
After some testing it was time for block 2 that had 3 main focuses being deadlift strength, sprint specific isometric holds and repeated speed aerobic capacity built through high intensity continuous training.
They were all of equal importance but as I'm a strength/power type, that type of work doesn't take much out of me physically and mentally but the aerobic stuff does so I had to plan my stress around the aerobic capacity workouts.
To do that I would do the deadlift and isometric holds on 1 day, aerobic capacity on the next day and then lay off legs completely on day 3 and do exclusive upper body.
As you can see I consolidated my lower body stress to 2 days in a row, and followed by a complete rest day.
To be honest I find upper body training quite boring these days and really use mostly as a filer day as I still like to do something almost everyday. So i was doing 2 set for about 7 - 10 exercises on these days to get an aerobic capacity effect but off legs, as well as building some strength back.
It was critical that this day allowed for some work to be completed but to not have any residual fatigue that would go into the 2 main lower body days.
This is how consolidating stress works - I lowered the stress on the upper body days to accommodate for the high stress of the lower body days - you can't do high stress every day, not should you.
Moving to more recent training, yesterday I completed the 6th and last session of my lactic capacity block which is THE total opposite of a strength/power athletes favorite activity type.
This means that this almost literally destroys me and I expect a performance decrease in all other forms of training from the residual fatigue, which did happen.
I times far slower in sprints then I usually do and HRV/general tiredness was noted as more more severe but again, to be expected.
What I couldn't try and do here was try and set speed and upper body lifting records while going through this block so everything went on hold.
I could have gone to footy training once but that would have put me over the edge and potentially wrecked my entire training block, and possible future training blocks.
Yep, even just 1 session, this is how far out of my comfort zone this type of training is.
I organised the block to last as short as possible to to lessen the effects of residual fatigue as much as possible, plus we have practice game this Saturday and I did not want it to run into that block either as games are priority 1, 2 and 3 right now.
So although the main focus was the lactate retention sessions I was also running a short 1 legged squat cycle after reading something from GWS Strength and Conditioning Coach Alex Natera so that was priorty number 2 and one that also needed to be completed prior to the practice game.
So I had to fit in lactic capacity, 2 legged squat, sprints and upper body all in this 2 week block.
Here's how that mini block played out:
#1 - Upper Gym x Low Volume/Moderate Intensity
#2 - Acceleration Sprints x Low to Moderate Volume/High Intensity (I can handle these days any day really) + 1 Legged Squat + Hamstrings
#3 - Lactic Capacity
#4 - Upper Gym x Low Volume/Moderate Intensity
#5 - 1 Legged Squat + Hamstrings + Lactic Capacity
#6 - OFF
#7- Max Velocity Sprints x Low to Moderate Volume/High Intensity
#8 - Lactic Capacity
#9 - Upper Gym x Low Volume/Moderate Intensity
#10 - 1 Legged Squat + Hamstrings + Lactic Capacity
#11 - OFF
#12 - Max Velocity Sprints x Low to Moderate Volume/High Intensity
#13 - Lactic Capacity
#14 - Upper Gym x Low Volume/Moderate Intensity
#15 - 1 Legged Squat + Hamstrings + Lactic Capacity
#16 - Upper Gym x Low Volume/Moderate Intensity
#17 - Acceleration Sprints x Low Volume/High Intensity (Friday the day before the practice game)
So as you can see I put my 2 main focus points on the same day (1 Legged Squats + Lactic Capacity) so my high stress was placed on just 6 out of 17 days with low to moderate stress placed on the other days.
As mentioned my sprinting speed was already compromised by these 6 days, imagine ho slow I'd have been if I'd have placed more stress on those other 11 days? It really wouldn't have been worth doing (the sprinting sessions), and in the end I'd have lost speed that might take longer to regain with a future compromised training plan, as you don't how you'll pull up from games (injuries, soreness etc).
So the lesson is this:
WHEN ADDING NEW STRESS INTO YOUR TRAINING, THEN YOU MUST ACCOUNT FOR THAT STRESS BY DECREASING EXISTING STRESS THAT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT, OR TAKE IT OUT COMPLETELY.
You simply can't keep adding stress and adding stress as it will result in a performance decrease, sickness, injury or all 3.
You need to look at your training, decide what the priorities are, and put all your big ricks into them, and scatter the other stuff around it, micro dosing if you will (future post that one).
Late last year I read the book released by Paul Roos titled "Here It Is."
It followed his tenure with the mighty Sydney Swans, including his 20 Points of Success and ended with his tenure rebuilding the Melbourne Football Club.
Definitely well worth the read.
From that book and my potential foray into coaching that didn't eventuate as I can't commit to training 2 nights per week, I started jotting down various idea's of my own, from the book as well as idea's of my own from idea's from the book - I think I typed that correctly!
Some of them I've touched on in my Pre-Season series and to be honest I thought I already did a post on the Paul Roos book but I can't find it so I must not have so here we go.
#1 - When players do something good, other players HAVE to get to them whether it's 1 or 21
#2 - Every player has the same amount of responsibility once they're on the ground, there's no hierarchy once the siren goes.
#3 - If you're closest to the ball then you have to simply win the ball or make the tackle, because everyone should be waiting out to receive the ball or stop an opposition attack but if you do not do either of those 2 things, then everything else breaks down.
#4 - Develop a relationship with every player regardless if you;re a player or a coach
#5 - Ask players how they think the team is perceived and then how they want to be perceived
#6 - Have the group choose 3 values that they want to live by and give it a name (Bloods Culture)
#7 - Don't base your team solely on talent as you can't control talent like you can pressure (Richmond)
#8 - Develop specific roles for each player and some might have dual roles depending on their skill set
#9 - Put players in position to do what they do best as often a they can
#10 - Have 3 - 5 team rules for each line (forward, back, midfield) and address them each break plus rate them during the game if possible, but at least half time and full time.
If you've read my other 29 posts on pre-season training do's (a book in the making surely?), then you must be aware of how I think it's best to structure your running.
Most teams will spend little, if any time building a base/foundation of aerobic capacity which is just plain stupid.
The base/foundation training is what will enhance your ability to recover between bouts of sprints and without it, you'll go full glycolytic (blow up) in the 1st quarter and you're essentially done once you hit that point.
You will NOT be able to hit your top speed, your recovery will be way SLOWER and you're endurance is compromised because of the fatigue already in your system - that shit doesn't just go away during a quarter time break you know?
Once it's in there it's pretty much stuck in there if you don't have the aerobic capacity to deal with it.
If you;re gonna remember anything about these 30 posts then remember this - it's how much you can do once your tired (sweet FA), it's how much you can do before you get tired.
Anyway, if you have done your training correctly,and you've built up your acceleration and max velocity speed and aerobic capacity to levels higher then this time last year, then you're ready to get all lactic.
The lactic energy system is the one in the middle - you have alactic at one end (speed x 1 - 6secs @ 100% with full rest) and aerobic at the other end (10 - 30mins @ 60% continuous).
The middle child is always the black sheep and it's no different here as lactic training is where you reach a point during activity where your speed slows dramatically, blood pooling in your muscles start to burn, neuromuscular activity starts to cut out and your activity level has also reached a level where you your demands for oxygen in your muscles cannot be sustained - all this results in a performance drop.
Right now there are practice games being played all around the county, or you're about to have them.
Ideally you'd have the lactic phase completed BEFORE any practice games but if you need to carry this phase into the first or second practice game then no biggie.
We had a practice game 3 weeks ago (yep very early!) and we have our second one next weekend so I'll have my lactic phase completed before then.
The point of the lactic phase is to simply expose the body to high levels of fatigue with incomplete rest of a general nature.
Once you hit the practice games, you'll be exposing the body all the same but in a much more game specific/simulated way.
The program I'm doing is a 6 session phase using a method from Cal Dietz called the lacate retention method.
For the lactic phase you might do sets of 60 - 90secs where you can barely move after each set you're so out of breathe but you know what, the lactate retention method makes this EASIER.
Yes, easier.
Instead of doing 1 entire set of 90secs, Cal suggests doing a 20 - 40sec set and then immediately following the set, go down into a bottom squat position and hold it there x 40secs.
So you build up maximal fatigue by going as hard as you can in the work set, then by holding the squat position you "trap" the fatigue by-products in the muscles so you build up the same amount of fatigue in half the time.
This decreases overall fatigue and body stress and you'll achieve the holy grail of training - getting the most from the least - leaving more time for skills and tactical training.
As I said it's 6 sessions and this is how I'm doing mine:
I'm doing bike sprints for this to decrease body load even more.
If you have time then try and do this before your practice matches where you could do 6 sessions in 2 or 2.5 weeks.
If you will start practice matches during this phase then do 2 sessions in the weeks you don't have a game and 1 session in the weeks that you do.
If you want to do this with your team, then I;d recommend doing the goal posts drill where you start on the point post and sprint to the goal post and back, goal post and back then far point post and back.
I think we all know the drill but I'd make one little change by backpedalling back, instead of turning around 180 degrees just to decrease the load a little - plus the backpedalling will keep constant tension on the leg muscles the entire set which means more fatigue which is exactly what we're after.
If in there is more time then these 3 up and backs allow then start going back down the ladder to fill the time so goal post, goal post, point post, goal post, goal post, until time is up.
The go straight down into your squat position holding onto the goal post and.or boundary fence to hold yourself up.
This can be run very easily in a team setting.
This might be the last one of these as once practice games start, then you should enter the in-season training model as the fatigue in early practice games are far higher then anything you'll see during most of the in-season and needs to be accounted for so running volume needs to decrease and you need to be even more diligent in getting the most of the least.
Here's a vid by Cal Dietz on the lactate retention method:
So far we've covered the 20m Sprint, Yo Yo and Agility tests with today being the final installment of the TAC Combine series.
FIND YOUR ECCENTRIC DEPTH/SPEED
For the standing vertical leap you are to stand, dip and explode up with no other foot movements.
The eccentric, or lowering portion of the jump, is what sets up your concentric, upward phase so it's a good idea to practice different eccentric heights and speed to see what fits you right now., hence the deeper dip.
For example if you are a strength jumper then you'll typically require a slightly deeper eccentric then a speed jumper, as you want to use the great force you can produce, but this takes more time to produce (not an issue in this test).
As we have no time to determine what type of jumper you are, then practicing to see what feels best and also what seems to provide more better and consistent results is a good thing to do in the next few days.
PRACTICE RUNNING JUMP TECHNIQUE
Like the sprint, it's surprising how many people use the backwards method of reaching with the hand of the foot you jump off which I couldn't do on purpose if I tried.
I'm not sure what goes in the brain when people do this but you're robbing yourself of precious cms that's for sure.
It may seem similar for going for a mark but it's not so you will need to practice and make sure you nail down reaching with the opposite hand of the leg you jump with so left leg/right hand or right leg.left hand.
PRACTICE YOUR APPROACH
You'll have a 5m distance that you can get a run up from so like a long jumper you'll need to step it out to fond an approach that suits you.
The general rules are:
- Gradually increase speed of each step you take
- ZERO shuffling steps, especially going into the penultimate step
- The penultimate step is the one right before take off which sets you up for your jump so a slow or braking penultimate step will result in a poor jump, so you must ensure that you not only plant hard, but you can still maintain and transfer the speed you've built up to use in your jump. Look what happens when you do this:
- Jump UP, not across
- Hit the marker things at the top of your jump, not on the way up
WORK UP TO YOUR TOP JUMP
You'll get 3 jumps which I can't remember are all in a row or 1 at a time but use your first jump at least, as a feeling out jump.
Hopefully you've already got a fair idea of where you'l test so you can gauge how your tracking based on that which will enable you to alter your technique depending on your result (faster eccentric, reach better, relax more etc).
Make the 2nd jump your top jump then go for broke on jump number 3.
Jumping is a skill like everything else so of course you'll need refine your technique to get the best result you can, regardless of your power output.
The main TAC Combine is coming up this coming weekend (that I'm helping out with) so we're looking at each test and how to get the best result you can from it.
Even though there is a pre-draft combine, which most people are aware if, it's actually the results from this one that recruiters look at the most.
It's a mammoth day and with Rookie Me leading the way, we'll test 600 players over 5 tests throughout the day.
As you can see in the image above, there's little distance between turns and you'll only get about 2 steps of actual acceleration from turn to turn so you'll want to stay "low".
Staying low ensures that your will be in a decent position to decelerate, change direction and re-accelerate, which is not something you can do well if you're standing up straight.
If you stand up tall during this drill then it will take more time to decelerate as you'll need to change position before any deceleration occurs, and in an 8sec drill any wasted time can have huge implications.
PRACTICE THE FIRST TURN
In straight line sprinting, coaches will always say that positioning is the most important aspect and once you lose positioning, especially in the first few steps, then you simply don't have time to make make whatever went wrong right.
I'll put the agility test right here as well.
You want to hit that first turn with a near perfect step count (for you) to minimise any shuffling steps which is essentially a lot of tiny steps that are taking you nowhere.
SHIN ANGLES
Shin angle refers to the direction of your shins upon acceleration.
A shin angle pointing towards the roof indicates a vertical vector which is what you want for jumping and max velocity sprinting.
For agility and acceleration, you want a shin angle angling towards the horizontal vector which in reality is something about 45 degrees or so.
During a turn in this particular drill it might be as low as 20 - 25 degrees.
As the drill requires 5 change of directions, your shin angle on each one is crucial.
STAY RELAXED
Last year there was a kid doing this test (I was manning this test last year), and he was trying to go so fast, he kept sliding out.
In this test you can only go as fast as you decelerate, and this kid had a huge eccentric deficit, even though he was moving concentrically faster then everyone else.
In the end he had 5 - 6 goes at the test where you normally only get 3, and his time suffered because he couldn't self organise his body to do what he wanted it to do.
If he'd have relaxed his mind and body, he wouldn't have been so "mechanic" in his movements and he could have recorded one of the best times of the day (I can't remember his time now but it wasn't in the 7's which all the tops cores were).
Like I said in the 20m sprint post, run fast, but don't try to run faster.
For the next few days we're looking at the TAC Combine that I'll be assisting with again this year through Rookie Me and yesterday we looked at the 20m Sprint, with today's focus being the Yo Yo Test.
The Yo Yo test has replaced the dreaded Beep Test for the aerobic component for the AFL, but has actually been used in Soccer for years, s it more replicates team sports running patterns.
Wanna ace it?
LOCK IN PSCHOLOGICALLY
The beep test was a real man maker being 15 - 20mins long of gradually faster runs that when watched, seems to go forever, let alone while you're doing it.
From a running pattern point of view it never made any sense (going faster each level until you drop out), but with so much data on it for players from over the years, it was hard to let it go.
The Yo Yo is only 7 - 8mins long and even though it ramps up much faster, it has a slightly less psychological aspect then the beep test so if you can lock in for that shorter time span (perfect for today's youth!), then you're half way there.
TOEING THE LINE
You gotta take every advantage you can get in these tests so when you toe the line, you wanna do so in the most efficient way possible.
1 way to do this is to determine how far from the line you can be and still touch the line, and organise your steps around that.
If you can stop and plant 30ms from the line, rather then go right yo to it, that will ave you huge in the long run wouldn't it?
FIND A RHYTHM
Finding a rhythm for your up and back sets is also crucial as you want to do at least some of the test on the autopilot, which will minimise early fatigue from a psychological aspect.
Again get out and practice and try and count how many steps you need to cover the distance and try and hit that rhythm as soon as possible.
CHANGE OF DIRECTION
The change of directions at the midpoint of each rep is the big one here.
You must be able to decelerate into the turn, stop your body from moving in 1 direction, ad redirect it into the oposite direction.
This is hard work if you can't do it efficiently and makes up a lot of your payer load in your GPS readings, right up there with high speed running as far as load in concerned.
Practice your turns and if possible take some videos of yourself to have a look at your mechanics, in particular your shin angles, at some of te faster levels.
Your shin angles determine where your body goes (vertical v horizontal), so if you're too upright going in and out of your turns then you'll essentially be going up and down, rather then forwards.
DON'T CHECK OUT IN THE REST PERIOD
The course is your run from point B to point C (20m) in the time allocated, the the line, then immediately turn around and get back to point B (20m) , again in the allocated time.
At this point you have point B to point A (5m) of walking time where you must walk around the cone and get back to point B and be in a stationary position in the allocated time (10secs).
Making sure you are in a solid starting position will be crucial at the top end of this test as your acceleration does heavily depend on your starting position, so any advantage you can get, take it.
Small group personal training done the right way. Train in a group - do YOUR OWN program. PT studio located in the heart of South Yarra on Surrey Road North, just off Toorak Road. 1on1 personal training also available. Don't do everyone else's program, get personal with your training.
