AEROBIC THRESHOLD TRAINING - RUN WITH A PURPOSE

You're on the Xmas break and to keep the legs ticking over, you head out for a little 10km run.

You get back to training and your coach lines you up for 400's.

During the season you do some high intensity/short rest running work to maintain fitness during the year.

But what are you actually doing during each of these sessions?

How is it increasing your fitness?

Is it actually increasing your fitness?

How do you if it is?

You're running without a purpose.

You're running without a why.

Without a purpose and without a why how do you know what you're doing what you're intending it to do?

And if in fact it isn't then have you totally wasted all your time and efforts?

I wouldn't go that far because some running is better then no running but with everything that you need to be prepared for a 360 degree high collision, high mileage team sport, then efficiency has to be at the front of your mind for pretty much everything you do.

Saying that specific running work should not really be a huge part of your regime until after max speed has been brought up to par and tactical team training scenario's have been performed which indicates a need for greater endurance to complete these scenario's up to the standard that you need to come game day.

For example if you're using the small sided full ground drill but a lot of players getting fatigued early in the drill affecting the technical/tactical level of the drill negatively, then SOME players might need a fitness intervention and a specific running program might be needed for them.

Introducing aerobic threshold training where you can expect a 100 - 200m improvement from test to test performing this 20 - 30min program 1/week that can easily be added into your training week.

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SMALL SIDED FULL GROUND DRILL

Everyone loves a good old fashioned full ground training drill because it usually involves kicking which is the name of the game.

A few issues with how these drills are usually done include:

• No tactical decision making at all via the cone to cone drills
• No positioning/locationing aspect
• Too many players in the 1 area, limiting the importance of hitting the target thus decreasing efficiency dramatically
• Limited game transfer because of the above points

Here's a full ground drill using 2 - 3 teams all at the same time that patches up all those issues.

The biggest thing to remember is that training shouldn't always look pretty because that means that your training is not at a challenging enough level for your players - you MUST remember this at all times.

These scenario's could be your full training session as you get a lot of conditioning, touches of the ball and cognitive training all at once - your players will be well spent after this with all that stress upon them.

HOW

Break your playing group up into 2- 3 teams depending on total numbers of 8 - 10 players, but you can go higher teams and/or numbers if you have the numbers.

Split each team up into forwards, mids and backs and you can mix seniors/reserves/thirds in the same teams and/or have full senior/reserves/thirds teams but always mix up who plays with who...

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THE PROCESS PART 5 - MACRO + MICRO PRINCIPLES

Offensive and defensive macro principles govern proper execution in specific moments.

Each macro principle contains micro principles...

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SPECIFIC SKILL DRILLS (SYDNEY SWANS)

ALL coaches should be extra familiar with the SAID principle.

What?

You're not?

Simply outrageous.

Put your learnin' hat on then.

Specific

Adaptation to

Imposed

Demands

Right now I want you to think of all the footy drills you run for your players.

I bet not 1 of them focus on 1 specific task to be carried out with perfection.

Even basic handball drills can be displayed poorly and why is that?

My humble opinion put forward that the main reasons for this is:

• There has been no expectations set before doing the drill
• There has been no context mentioned in relation to the drill
• There has been no goal or end result mentioned for the drill

With these 3 points not being mentioned and all that said is to "go straight into 5 star handball, even up the groups" it can become a cluster quite quickly, even for the simplest of skill drills.

If anything else is mentioned then it's usually "get the talk up", bit if this is a skill drill then is the aim to work on the specific skill or training talk and evening up the groups?

Too often coaches just set a drill with the belief every single player there, all of various levels of experience and playing age, know exactly what you want to happen.

This is a simply ridiculous assumption to make and if there has been some instruction about the drill, there's too many points to focus on and most of them aren't anywhere as near as important as making the actual handball the way it needs to be executed.

The problem is that local/amateur training is far too general in nature.

Every drill is general as we try and condense as much "footy" into a single drill as possible and sure there is a time and place for that, but only after a specific skill has been "mastered" in isolation.

Yes this takes time and resources like more coaches but to simply ignore it totally because of these reasons is why grassroots footy is still 10 - 20 years behind the AFL - but it doesn't have to be.

I'm a Swans supporter who I follow on Twitter and earlier this year they posted a quick snap shot of their training and here's what was going on...

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THE PROCESS PART 4 - OFFENSE + TRANSITION DEFENSE

The 4 game moments of team sport are:

• Defense
• Transition Offense
• Offense
• Transition Defense

and at any time in a game you are involved in 1 of these moments.

In my last post we looked at defense and transition offense so this time around we'll touch on the last 2, offense and transition defense.

OFFENSE...

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GET SPEED TRAINING PROGRAM

The thing that stands out THE MOST in any game of footy at any level is sprinting speed - it's that crystal clear what that player can do it's ridiculous.

Physically they have 1 specific trait over every single player on the ground and psychologically they have a huge edge as those playing on them are more worried about about being exposed themselves and shift into a defensive mindset.

Next to the Yo-Yo endurance test, the 20m speed test is the most looked at by AFL recruiters.

Having more speed gives you more space which gives you more time to find and make the right decision on top of having more time under no pressure to make the right technical choice (kick, handball etc).

Clearly the snowball effect can have massive implications.

So why do 99.9% of local/amateur football teams not bother training max speed in an effort to try and increase it?

You know what?

Most local/amateur footballers are actually faster then they "are" because we're rarely, if ever, in the correct physical state to be able to reach our potential max velocity speed from residual fatigue from the way we train at team training.

With such a focus on doing endless running, whether it's on it's own or in ball drills, fatigue is constantly present in our body and mind and max speed can only be expressed in a non-fatigued state.

If you ever hit up a track coach and do a sprint focused session, you'll do 10 - 20 sets of 5 - 6secs and stand around the rest of the time.

In a 1 hour session that's 2 - 3mins work and 57mins rest.

The easiest thing to train in my book.

With the pre-season break next week where you can control all physical and psychological fatigue, now is your chance to train max speed, train it properly and reap the benefits.

Here's how.

WARM UP

No need to get too technical here for now, we just need to get your central nervous system used to sprinting and sprinting fast so 3 - 5 gradual speed runsover 20 - 30m or so will do the trick but if you wanna throw in some high knees and butt kicks then feel free but those exercises don't really do anything for speed or prehab but you'll have done them in the past and will gravitate to doing them so no stress whether you do or not.

So something like 50, 65, 80, 90% then start the sessions below

SESSION 1...

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THE PROCESS PART 3 - DEFENCE + TRANSITION OFFENSE

The 4 game moments of team sport are:

• Defense
• Transition Offense
• Offense
• Transition Defense

and at any time in a game you are involved in 1 of these moments.

In this post we'll touch on the first 2, defense and transition offense.

DEFENSE...

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4 TEAM RONDO

This is the 3rd variation of the Rondo Drill.

Part 1 can be found here.

Part 2 can be found here.

As per all Ronda variations this drill will train:

• Clean Hands
• Creating/Utilising Space
• Game Simulated Change of Direction
• Perception-Action Coupling

On top of that though this will also introduce a very basic ball transition to and from 2 playing area's with defenders already having the chance to position themselves before the ball come into play, giving them a very small advantage early in the drill to cause a turnover.

HOW...

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THE PROCESS PART 2 - GAME MODEL + GAME PRINCIPLES

This is part 2 of my idea's taken from the book The Process with part 1 being found here.

THE GAME MODEL

What is it?

Why should you develop one?

How can it help you?

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HAMSTRING STRAIN RETURN TO PLAY PROGRAM

What you'll see below is a real life scenario from the middle of last season (2019) when one of my teammates pulled his hammy for the 2nd time this year.

We put together a return to play plan with a specific game times in mind for his comeback games, to be cherry ripe for the main game we were aiming for.

Rest on it's own doesn't do anything really and will result in re-injury as you'll see from his first injury below.

Initially for season 2019 he stated he was happy to play 2's as he was coming off a 3 - 4 year lay-off from footy but in the end worked his way into the senior team in the 2nd last round of the season then kept another forward out of the Grand Final team who had played every game up until that point and preceded to kick the 2 most important goals in our club's history in a Grand Final win.

Here's a timeline of how it went down...

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KICK FROM THE MIDDLE DRILL

This kicking drill is best used as part of the warm up, after your dynamic work and maybe a handball if you just can't bring yourself to go straight into kicking even though players get there and do nothing but kick before training starts anyway.

It involves an element of technical skill but it's best quality is the cognitive enhancement it can have on players that they can take in to more decision making based scenario's/drills to come later in the session.

If you want to your players to think during training, then get them thinking in the warm up, not relying on the same old warm up routine you've used for 3 seasons.

SET UP...

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THE PROCESS PART 1 - DEVELOPING A WINNING MODEL

A couple of months ago I ordered and received a new team coaching based book titled The Process by Fergus Connolly (author of Game Changer I've posted about recently) along with Cam Josse from Defranco's Training Systems.

It picks up where Game Changer left off and is actually the 1st in a series of 4 books that uses the Game Changer principles and applies them to American Football.

Fortunately for us principles from 1 sport can can be used and modified to fit any sport so there are still plenty of takeaways from this book in relation to Aussie Rules.

This will also be a series of posts so this is part 1 - Developing a Winning Model

Here we go...

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4 GOAL SMALL SIDED GAME

This is a simple small sided game can be set up for players of any level.

It encourages players to:

• Find space
• Create space
• Communicate
• Be in constant motion
• Clean hands
• Quick hands
• Decision making in congestion
• Perception-action coupling

HOW...

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5 THINGS TO ADD INTO YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS

Earlier this week I posted 5 Things to Get Rid of From Your Training Sessions but I'm well aware that if you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem so here's 5 things to add into your training sessions.

1 - TAKE DATA...

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LOWER BODY FINE TUNING PROGRAM PART 1

Whenever we train, whether it be on the field or in the gym, the goal is to increase our maximum outputs referring to speed, strength, power and endurance.

We put the most important exercises in our programs to make this happen which usually coincides with being the most technically complex, the most heavily loaded and performed with the fastest actions to replicate game speeds and loads.

Let's look at it like this:

Your car seems to be playing up slightly, not enough to take you off the road but you know in the back of your head that something just isn't right.

You have your car enthusiast mate have a peak and he says it might be A, B, C or D and to definitely take it in to get looked at.

You listen to what he has to say, agree with him, have a beer or 2 and then send him on his way.

A couple of months later you still haven't taken the car for a service but you've flogging the shit out of it, travelling over an hour each way each day for work, on top of your travel requirements.

All of a sudden your on the West Gate in peak hour and the car blows up.

This is your body, especially your lower body as it relates to football.

The intense and fast nature of footy, plus the collision/contact element, means we are usually never 100% with past injuries always popping there head up every now and then.

As we let those little small spots sit and idle, we are trying to put as much loading into these somewhat vulnerable area's as possible, but with little support from the assisting structures and actions of our legs.

When your supporting structures are down or simply not there, the heavy loading you're trying to put in becomes too much and something breaks.

Enter the lower body fine tuning program which is robustness based program where if you put in the time to do this low load/effort program, by mid to late season when everyone is starting to slow down, you should still be on cruise control from having your car serviced before the season started.

We're gonna focus on 6 area's/actions of the lower body...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - GAME STYLE + GAME DAY + MORE

This is the final post in this series and will touch on these points:

• Recovery
• Nutrition
• Technical Co-Active
• Locationing
• Game Day
• Game Pace
• Structure
• Tactics
• Game Style...

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5 THINGS TO GET RID OF FROM YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS

Aussie Rules Football, and especially the AFL's rulebook, is forever changing with the aim being to improve how the game is played whenever a rule change is introduced.

They're a funny bunch the AFL as they like change in area's the viewer doesn't seem to care about yet won't change in other area's that blind Freddy could see needs improvement.

Some local/amateur football clubs on the other hand haven't changed a single thing about their football club's for decades whether that be on-field or off-field.

Always remember it's not the strongest who survive, it's those that are most adaptable that survive.

Adapt to fit into a different landscape or get swallowed up - something we see at local/amateur level too much these days.

Below are 5 prehistoric team/player preparation idea's that need go and what to replace them with...

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STRAIGHTENING UP KICKING PART 2

Here's a follow up to part 1 of this from about a month ago.

This will go through 5 drill variations to focus on straightening up on your kicking with the main rules being to:

• Get your hips/shoulders square up to your target
• Get some steps/momentum behind your kick

Try not to use anymore cues than that really and let the drill variations and self organisation do their thing.

Let your players know that initially the focus is on those 2 main points above, not necessarily hitting the target, which would be used later as a method to match the stress/anxiety of a game.

I'll outline the 4 drills, what constraints (task, environment, performer) you can use and then how to use this during a single training session.

KICKING DRILL #1...

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HOME TRAINING PROGRAM FOR WOMEN'S PLAYERS

Here's some pre Xmas training I put together for my club's women's team just last week.

It's training that can players can do in their own time away from the club so team training focus on what really matters most - tactics and skills.

For now I’ll post a few different training options for you to follow to in your own time between now and next year, even with training starting pre-Xmas.

It has a robustness/injury prevention bit, a strength training bit and a running bit.

I’m well aware most teams are starting pre-season before Xmas but so your coach can focus purely on the aspects of football (skills, tactics etc), if all “other” training can be done in your own time the better for everyone, including you.

ROBUSTNESS / INJURY PREVENTION PHASE 1 (3 WEEKS)...

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CORNER, OFFENSE, DEFENSE DRILL

This is a banger of a drill we did last night with our older DFS group and can easily be done with senior playing groups as well.

WHY

• Trains both offense and defense at the same time, nailing perception-action coupling for all 3 teams - a must for game transfer from training.
• Involves all players per group at all times = no standing around!
• Teaches green to push back off the mark hard and fast and move the all quickly
• "Champion players practice in congestion" - someone on Twitter last week

HOW...

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HOW I WOULD COACH A WOMEN'S FOOTBALL TEAM

What you're about to read is a sort-of-backwards approach to women's footy I've been thinking about for a while now that might be worth a shot at trying for a lone wolf, left field, unpredictable and innovative women's coach out there.

I've been mulling over how to do this post for a while but it's taking too long to put it together in my head so I'm jotting it all down and hopefully it makes some sense in the end.

If I was to coach a local women's football team these are some of the idea's I would run with as much as I could.

TEACH THE GAME...

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5 DAY YEARLY MEMBERSHIP FLASH SALE

To coincide with the US pre-Xmas sales, I thought I'd run one as well!

From today, Thursday November 28th to Tuesday Dec 3rd Aussie time, you can get a yearly subscription to Aussie Rules Training for 25% off the regular price.

You'll have full access to all 3 levels of the Aussie Rules Training membership site being:

Level 1 - Training/Coaching Articles

Level 2 - Team/Player Training Programs

Level 3 - Training Drills

There are 5 pieces of content posted weekly so you'll get new idea's around team and player preparation every single week to add into your arsenal all for just $115.

To take up this ridiculous offer then click HERE on the 5 Day Flash Sale option.

If you have any questions then please let me know at aussierulestraining@gmail.com.

UPPER BODY HYPERTROPHY

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this baby I must offer this - if half of the days of the week you train involve upper body strength training, then have a good hard look at yourself.

Yes upper body strength and size is important but most blokes head off to complete bodybuilding or powerlifting competitions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of every week.

1. It's not needed at local/amateur levels of footy so much
2. There's more important things that need to be trained such as foot/ankle complex, hip stability etc
3. You're using up precious resources to recover from your main sessions with, severely limiting adaptation to your training stimulus

You may have posts of mine previously talking about high and low days, referring alternating days of high nervous system stimulus and days of low nervous system stimulus.

What this type of set up allows for is greater training volume and frequency, especially if you do your low days correctly, and this can be the difference between training 5 - 7 days per week and still progressing vs 2 - 4 days per week and just spinning your wheels.

I purposefully set up my upper body days to be pretty much recovery type/low days in my program, focusing all my efforts and resources into the days that matter like my max velocity sprinting days.

This should be how you approach your upper body training in my opinion...

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PROGRESSIVE PRESSURE RONDO DRILL

This is a progression from the basic Rondo Drill posted a few weeks back and one we use at DFS a fair bit with our younger groups but it holds up for any age group/ability.

This Rondo variation trains:

• Clean Hands
• Creating/Utilising Space
• Game Simulated Change of Direction 
• Perception-Action Coupling (most important)

All you need is...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - TRAINING DRILLS + SPACE + RATING PLAYERS

TRAINING DRILLS

Yes, we've already got a separate training drills section on the site but here are some idea's pointers to keep in mind when developing your own training drills...

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TEAM WARM UP WITH BALLS DRILL

If there's 1 mission in my life worth fulfilling it's to eradicate the endless laps footy teams do at training before, during and after training.

It's boring, it's useless and it's taking precious training time, of which local/amateur teams already struggle with, away from far more productive things they could be doing like skill and/or tactical work.

I've actually suggested to my new senior coach (but previous club player) to get rid of laps but we'll see how he goes with that! 

The main focus of a warm up is to:

• Increase muscle temperature
• Increase joint range of motion
• Prepare the mind and body for intense training

Laps are not conducive to any of these and if I have to be truly honest, it's pure laziness from the coach who's often buying time to think up, or set up, the next training activity.

Get organised and get rid of them!

Here's a warm up drill where your entire team is pretty much on the move constantly, uses balls and also a variety of "touch" drills - often these drills are performed separately but it's makes far more sense to mix them together to fit the unpredictability and randomness of a game of footy.

You've got 5 drill stations...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - STRESS/FATIGUE

Much like life, football is multiple high dosages of stress.

Physical stress.

Psychological stress.

Systemic stress.

Localised stress.

Good stress.

Bad stress.

Certain amounts of stress/overload is required to progress or get better at anything in life, but because even the tiniest amount of excess stress can have dramatically negative affects on performance, knowing how much stress to induce, and when, can make or break your players/team...

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HAMSTRING STRENGTH PROGRAM

The old pulled hammie never goes away in football does it?

Unfortunately the greatest risk factor for doing a hammie is if you've done it before putting you in a bit of a pickle but with a long term outlook and slow but progressively based rehab work, you can overcome them.

If you've never done one like myself then this preventative program should be at the top of your gym training list, because the best kind of player is an available one.

This year I had a ressies teammate who did one earlier in the year, missed 4 - 5 games, came back and lasted a half. We put a plan in place to get him back for a particular game which I think was  7 weeks later, working back from that game to the injury and in the end he played the last 2 games in the seniors, kicked the 2 most important goals of the grand final and won a senior premiership!

Hamstrings don't get much of a look in during most training programs and if they do they are usually trained through leg curl variations which do close to nothing for protecting against hamstring tears and strains, that most often occur when the leg is at, or close to, a straightened position.

Think the follow through phase of a kick, the position your leg is in just before ground contact in a high speed running action or the initial torso bend trying to pick up the footy - that's the most dangerous joint angle for ham injuries and putting under great load at great speed makes things a helleva lot worse.

This program is 3 phases long with each phase running for 3 weeks each and progressively increases the loading on the hamstring in a stretched/straight/lock out position.

You should be able to simply slide this into your current gym routine quite easily doing 1- 2 times per week...

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CLARKO'S CLUSTER SMALL SIDED GAME PROGRESSION

My senior team from 2019 built it's entire game plan off of our defense and it paid dividends, playing off in and winning the Grand Final.

At low to mid levels of football a rock solid team defence will be near impossible for opposing teams to play against because of the lower grade of skill and tactical awareness of the players at those levels (that's why we play there!)

Building a rock solid defense, or a version of Clarko's Cluster doesn't require players of great skill or ability, although we had 2 super intercept markers, which then means you can kick start your offence off of the opposition's turnover right away.

As a coach you're job is to describe, lay out and teach the intricacies of whatever team/zone/cluster defense you decide to roll with, assuming that no player knows anything at all about setting up and playing cluster defense to start with.

This doesn't mean that you'll then need to raise every minor aspect of cluster defense but rather it then forces you to be clear, concise and to pretty much teach principles over specific player movements.

Below I will map out a nice training drill that I have modified off a soccer drill to help your players/team understand the concepts of team defence, being  isolation, termination, dispossession, and positioning yourself respectively to force turnovers.

To set the drill up...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE

The psychological co-active is the most underutilised co-active which doesne to change if you want fully developed players but is hard to quantify which is probably why it doesn't get the attention it should.

To build the psychological co-active for each individual player, coaches need to set aside time to get to know players on other levels apart from the coach-player level.

The information you can gether from their culture, beliefs and lifestyle can have huge implications on why the perform like they do on game day, which then can drive how you train and prepare them during the week...

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KICKING DECISION MAKING TRAINING DRILL

This is a simple kicking skill and decision making under pressure scenario that can use anything from 6 - 10 players per group.

It requires you to go on demand, not having view of the the marking options, not viewing how the defense has set up, to find and make the right decision and to perform a successful kicking rep.

The number of markers and/or defenders can be decided upon by the skill level of your players (seniors v reserves, inexperienced v experienced etc).

The following images are shown in order of easiest to hardest variation of this drill and always start at the start which you would think would be obvious, and progress as you become successful at the level below.

Feel free to go beyond your or your player's kicking bandwidth here but not for to long - find their threshold for consistent success, go a level or 2 higher for a few looks then drop back to their threshold level.

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - PHYSICAL CO-ACTIVE

This post will look at some lesser known aspects of the physical co-active which goes a lot further into the hole then a 2km time trial as well as the ridiculously underutilised psychological co-active - an area at local/amateur level that can have perhaps the greatest affect on your team and players performance then anything else.

PHYSICAL CO-ACTIVE...

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HILL SPRINTS TRAINING PROGRAM

Hill sprints have been a staple of elite athletes since the dawn of time, purely because of their simpleness - find a hill and run up it!

Perhaps the best thing about hill sprints is that it can be used as a preparatory tool for high speed/velocity running as it trains the action and thus muscles of sprinting, but with far less joint impact and ground reaction forces.

It's great for older players, those coming off rehabilitation and those who haven't sprinted for a while

Win-Win.

Here's a 4 week, twice a week hill program you can follow to prep for the rigors of pre-season coming up very shortly for most of us.

WHAT YOU NEED...

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EVASION/DECISION MAKING TRAINING DRILL

A training drill involving:

• Clean Hands
• Evasion
• Decision Making
• Awareness...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - CLUB/TEAM CULTURE

Successful teams possess high culture values and more importantly, follow through on them in good and bad times.

To do this you must:

• Create an identifiable culture... 

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TEACH ANYONE TO KICK TRAINING DRILL/S

I've coached Auskick for 4 years and obviously have put my own son through his paces in regards to footy training but I've always been a little stuck on teaching kicking from an absolute zero base.

I'm a pretty good kick personally but it's one thing being able to do something and then to be able to teach it so when I saw an advert from the Lindsay Gilbee Kicking Academy to run a kicking/coaching course I booked myself in immediately.

There were a few guys from AFL Victoria assisting with the course, 1 of them being Phiv Demetriou who took the teaching kicking aspect specifically.

Here are the 9 most important teaching points in teaching anyone to kick from that training course...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TREAM PREPARATION - 4 CO-ACTIVES

One of the major driving themes of the Game Changer book is the 4 co-actives being:

1. Tactical
2. Technical
3. Psychological
4. Physical

Every singular action in any sport involves these 4 aspects so it stands to reason that you must expose your players to all of them in training to prepare them for game day.

TACTICAL...

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LOWER BODY STRENGTH PROGRAM

Just over 4 years ago I did a little post on Nat Fyfe's body transformation, especially his legs, from his first 4 - 5 years in the AFL system, and had won his first Brownlow Medal the year prior to that.

In a game that requires speed, endurance, strength and resiliency from injury/collisions, a strong pair of legs is essential and in my eyes, is way better then a strong core.

The problem with local/amateur footy players is that they feel the need to run 365 days of the year which doesn't leave a lot of extra time to work those legs in the gym like they need to be...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - TEAM DEFENSE

There's not a lot of man-to-man defense in AFL or local/amateur footy anymore with the emphasis moving to a team defense through the use of zones and compression of space in your won forward line.

That being said there are still times that defenders can caught in 1-on-1 situations but these days it is minimised and harder to manufacture as well, especially against top defensive teams in all levels...

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RONDO TRAINING DRILL

A Rondo training drill is a soccer-based exercise and is essentially a game of keeping's off but with these characteristics:

• Confined Area
• Keep possession while completing a series/number of passes
• Attacking players generally outnumber the defending players
• Stationary but involved players surround the playing area

As per Dutch soccer player and coach Johan Cruyff, everything that goes on in a match you can do in a rondo such as making space, on/off ball decision making positioning, taking clean possession and winning the ball back.

I have many variations of these that I'll draw up in time but today I'll show you the very basic version of this drill...



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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - COACHING

As my playing career is entering its final years (probably not), I've made a pretty big shift in reading up on coaching more so then training in the last 18 months or so and is what lead me to purchasing this book in the first place.

In that time and reflecting on all the footy coaches I've had over my playing career (has to be around the 30 mark), not much has changed in regards to what is coached and how it is coached - this book turns that on it's head completely.

Even though the author Fergus Connolly has been involved with literally world class teams in the NBA, NFL and EPL, the principles of what to do and how to do can be replicated in any team sport at any level.

WHAT INFORMATION SHOULD A COACH PROVIDE?...

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KICK TO KICK WITH PURPOSE TRAINING DRILL

A lot of footy we practice is played with mates in a non-structured way which is fine but if you can add some purpose into what you're doing than you can still have all the fun you want to trying all the kicks you want to, but with a little extra intent that can have an added affect on learning and skill transfer to games.

This is a very simple drill as you'll see from the diagram below...

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ACCELERATION LEVEL 1 TRAINING PROGRAM

All speed starts with acceleration and is a physical quality all of itself.

It is the gradual build up of speed towards your hitting your max velocity/top end speed and the better you can accelerate from a mechanics point of view, the better and thus faster you'll be at max velocity.

During a game of footy you'll...

Keep reading by going here.

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - TEAM DEFENSE

There's not a lot of man-to-man defense in AFL or local/amateur footy anymore with the emphasis moving to a team defense through the use of zones and compression of space in your won forward line.

That being said there are still times that defenders can caught in 1-on-1 situations but these days it is minimised and harder to manufacture as well, especially against top defensive teams in all levels...

DISRUPT THEIR COHESION...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION – TRAINING

In this article we look at the 25+ points I noted sdown in relation to actual training, team and individual from the Gamechanger book.

I just received his new book in the mail Friday too so there's a heap more where this comes from.

Strap yourselves in...

GAME SIMULATION...

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GAMECHANGER ELITE PLAYER/TEAM PREPARATION - GAME MACRO MOMENTS

This time last year I was finishing up Gamechanger by Fergus Connolly, a book on individual and team preparation for team sports, and is probably the greatest thing I've read on the subject in my life.

It has totally changed my idea's on training and coaching.

I did a 14 part post series on it this time last year but it was exactly how I took the notes while reading the book, in absolutely no order and probably in the end, not really usable for you.

Over the next week or so I'll be reposting these notes but I have categorised them to give you a far better chance of knowing what it is, how and to use and when to use it.

Let's start with Game Macro Moments of which there are 4...

To keep reading go here.

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MITCH ROBINSON ON HOW TO PLAY THE WING POSITION

Mitch Robinson provides the different positioning as wing position player depending on the situation…You gotta love Mitch Robinson surely? 

He’s hard, wears his heart on his sleeve and is pretty good on social media as well – he’s the ultimate teammate. 

After teammate Hugh McCluggage was snubbed an All- Australian birth over “non-specific” wingman....

Keep reading by going here.

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FREE TRAINING PROGRAM - AEROBIC CAPACITY TEMPO RUNNING

After a 6 or so week break from the previous season, a lot of players might be looking to get back into some running.

Normally the’d hit the road or pavement but I personally haven’t done a road run for over a decade I reckon.

I don’t enjoy continuous running nor am I any good at it but I can easily make do with tempo runs.

Keep reading by going here. 

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FREE TRAINING DRILL - STRAIGHTENING UP KICKING DRILL

Here’s a simple kicking skill drill you can do on your own or with a mate or 2.

The main focus is to straighten up your body (hips/shoulders) towards your target which is implicitly inserted into this drill by the use of the initial cones in the first video below.

Also in my video series I’m aiming at some baseball pads on some wire netting at a local area here in Newport, Melbourne of which you could do the same at some cricket nets and simple take an old bed sheets down with you and tie it up to use as your target.

Keep reading by going here...

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MEMBERSHIP SITE IS LIVE!

I've been toiling with this since September and then my brother put it together in about an hour but it's finally at the point where it can go live so here it is.

If you've already clicked on the few posts I've put up here from there, you'll have probably found that Aussie Rules Training is now a membership site consisting of 3 levels.

Level 1 is articles of which I'll get anything from 2 - 5 posts up a week that is $9/month.

Level 2 is training programs of which I'll post at least 1/week + all articles for $13/month

Level 3 is training drills of which I'll again post at least 1/week + training programs + articles for $17/month.

Yes you can have full access to everything for just $17/month!

All you need to is register from the main site for the plan of your choosing and you can up/downgrade at anytime.

I'll link a preview of all the content here as I have recently.

If you have any questions on this and/or would like to join my email list to keep up to date with everything please send me a quick email to aussierulestraining@gmail.com.

DO WE NEED SHORTER PRE-SEASONS?

Should the pre-seasons for local/amateur football be shorter? Like nothing before Xmas shorter? This top local level senior coach thinks so…

I come from Warrnambool originally and down that way we have the Hampden Football Netball League which has been a top 10 league in Victoria forever moving up to 6th from 8th this year after defeating the Ballarat FNL and being coached by the almighty Jonno Brown.

Players the likes of Kevin “Cowboy” Neale, John Northey, Ronnie Wearmouth, Ken Hinkley, Wayne Schwass, Leon Cameron, Jonno Brown, Jordan Lewis, Gary Rohan, Ben Cunnington and the Merritt brothers are all products of the HFNL.

A few weeks ago this article came out in my old local rag down there from Warrnambool Football Club senior coach Matt O’Brien, suggesting a shorter pre-season period might do wonders for all local/amateur clubs fora variety of reasons, but also goes on to say it probably won’t happen in the near future sheerly because of the “change” involved.

The rest of this article can be viewed here...