TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 4

CREATING SPACE IN THE FWD LINE

Carlton have the free kick pretty much in the center of the ground but they're still 2 kicks off a forward 50 entry that is deep enough to be a scoring opportunity.

A short 45 degree kick to the half forward flank results in an uncontested mark and now the Blues are positioned to get a decent inside 50 but with the free kick and mark, Geelong have had 2 stoppages to get players back.

What has a huge bearing on whether this kick can be optimal or not is the Carlton player at the top left under the black dug out bit.

She does a little dummy lead, no way is she getting the ball but she does it anyway, and it makes her opponent follow her as well.

This opens up space behind her and looks what happens.

Vescio ends up with a 10 x 20m space of which to lead into and marks.

Coaching your forwards means so much more than how good or how much you can lead to the ball, most times in a game you HAVE to lead to open up space behind you with ZERO individual reward but huge team rewards.

POOR FORWARD LINE PRESSURE

Phoebe McWilliams is a verty experienced, and very good AFLW player and Maddie Boyd has played in all 3 of the AFLW seasons so this really shouldn't have happened.

With a 2 on 2 loose ball contest between McWiliams/Boyd v 2 Cralton defenders, at the bare minimum this has to result in a stoppage on the Geelong half forward flank, instead Carlton very easily run the ball out of defence unopposed.

2 players trying, and failing, to tackle 1 player, leaving the other defender free to peel off and run forward with the ball on her own.

Communication is 1 thing that let down the Geelong forwards here and having a rule like this in your Game Model can ensure that this does not happen anywhere on the ground, let alone in your forward half in a low scoring game.

WORK RATE

All coaches talk about work rate but without seeing it in action, players can find it hard to really know what it means as they can work hard but see little results.

What we have here are 2 examples of elite work rate + elite game sense.

Watch Katie Brennan:

Watch Erin Phillips:

Both players, number forward targets for their respective teams, both present way up the ground and actually get possession of the ball.

Both hit targets perfectly.

Both work their way to the next contest and in KB's instance, the 2nd contest after her initial possession 60m or so down the ground.

Again in KB'S instance she knew that there was no other forward line option because if she is up at the wing and kicks it to her full forward on the half forward flank, then there can't be anyone behind her so she got on her bike and willed herself to get there and be the only option.

She was also extremely smart because knowing shew was going to be outnumbered and fatigued, she probably wasn't going to complete the mark in a 1 v 2 so she lead towards the boundary line that she could use as a safety barrier if needed.

Both hugely talented but work their arses off.

RECOGNISING SPACE BEFORE IT OPENS UP

Mo Hope's form has probably been disappointing in the 3 AFLW seasons but she is also a smart cookie and she shows it here.

As she gets involved in the initial contest briefly she trails off to the side, knowing that NM have numbers where the ball is and there's no need for her to add to it.

All she does is simply hold her spot as the opposition players follow the ball and look at the space that opens up around here:

Just 5 seconds after a congested pack situation, she gets an uncontested mark in the very same spot.

If everyone is moving then do you have to move?

QUARTERBACK POSITIONING

Last week I had some videos of poor positioning from players wanting to receive the ball where they were simply too close and the opposition about to tackle the player with the ball, will also be able to tackle them if they get it, making 1 problem 2 problems.

In this quick video check out the space Kellie Gibson from North Melbourne has between her and the pack - it's got to be a good 7 - 8m:

This space creates time for her to find the right option, make the decision that that is the optimal option and then has more time to deliver the technical skill aspect of the play.

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 3 PART 5

PLAYER LOCATIONING

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

- Fergus Connolly Game Changer

This should occur at every stoppage regardless whether your team has the ball or not and how can you follow a game model or game plan if you don't where you are or where anyone else is?

You can't.

To emphasise this point I read an article over at frontiers.org that said an increased frequency of left and right head rotation pre-possession increases the likelihood of possession performance thus the importance of knowing where everyone else is in relation to you and the ball.

Here's today video:

A few mishaps from 2 Geelong players here (I swear I'm not picking on them!).

Hear's how they set up as the ball gets kicked in their back 50:

There is a contest for the ball under the blue sign where the Adelaide forward and Geelong defender have followed that purple arrow also along the green sign to get there.

There is a 2nd Geelong defender making her way over there with another following her player in from the center square and another with her player right on the right side edge of the image.

The first mistake made was by the initial Geelong defender who failed to stay between her player and the ball and over ran the contest by plenty, allowing the Adelaide forward to double back onto the ball.

So now you can see how far out of the play the initial defender is but another defender is there to assist so we're all good there.

Where this breaks down even more is the Geelong defender in the red box who has failed twice here:

1 - Not locating her teammate in a position to apply enough pressure to a kick from the boundary to more than likely cause a miss

and;

2 - Losing sight of her opposition player who has identifies far more quickly what's happening and who has darted back towards goal as she can see her defender committing to the ball carrier.

The end result is an easy handball over the top and what could have been a pressured shot from the boundary results in a certain goal in an unmanned goal square.

A game model puts these intricate "rules" in place so that all players know what's expected of them in certain situations.

In this case the Geelong defender forces the harder shot at goal and trusts that another teammate will apply pressure so she can stay back being the last line of defense.

This trust will also be reciprocated by the original Geelong defender next time who will know to slow down and stay goal side of her opposition forward which caused this situation in the first place.

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 3 PART 4

GEELONG FULL GROUND BALL MOVEMENT

This passage of play is what I'm not too worried about Geelong's records so far because for a 1st year team, they have pretty good cohesiveness and have some excellent passages of play at times.

Yesterday I highlighted a dodgy kick out of defense that out them right back under pressure when it resulted in a turnover that could have quite easily been avoided.

In a young team and a developing sport quite often players will go to back to their default brain (it's an actual thing) which lacks creativity and dare and just kick it down the line to a pack of players for another ball up.

Boring.

What Geelong do here is to again attempt to bring the ball out through the opposite side of the ground again, even after stuffing up the last one just minutes prior.

This deserves for credit to players for having the courage to try this again and also the coach for instilling the confidence in the players to try things even if they don't come off.

HINT #1 - You actually learn by failing and working out new strategies, not by succeeding

Here's the video of the full play:

The 2 big differences here are:

#1 - They get the ball into the hands of their better players/kicks/decision makers

and 

#2 - That kick that failed the first time came off this time

What I liked mostly about it was the use of the width of the ground.

Is it easier to guard a small space or a large space?

No defence can guard the entire ground so developing your game model around this can greatly help any team at any level.

Teach your players how to keep that space open originally, then teach them the timing and positioning to be able to run into it when they need to and then teach the technical skill component.

It was only that the last Geelong player in the play fumbled the ball that there wasn't a scoring shot on offer.

HINT #2 - The number 1 difference between men's and women's footy? Fumbling v Clean Hands

Here's a look at that play using the whole ground.

Red X = Geelong Players

Purple Line = Ball Movement

Red Line = Running with the ball

Red Dots - Player Movement

In his book Game Changer Fergus Connolly talks about space and to create space in 1 part of the ground you must compress space in another.

In the case of footy it's sort of the opposite as the ball will often come from an area of compressed space, especially in women's football but also local/amateur men's football so the compressed space is already there.

That is when coaches talk about "spread" as once you get the ball then you need to find the open space and play through it as much as you can.

This means that the player with the ball and the player who wants/needs to receive the ball both looking for the whatever open space available and trying to utilise it.

Space creates Time.

Any defender will tell you that they love when they have players set up in front of them and stagnate, straight line ball movement from the opposition because then the forwards leading patterns become easily detectable.

When moving the ball quickly and wide, the defenders need to move and thus they cannot set up behind the ball as effectively which WILL open up space sooner or later.

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 3 PART 3

DEFENSIVE MACRO MOMENTS

In his book Game Changer, Fergus Connolly has this image:

At anytime of the game, you are in 1 of these moments.

When developing a game model you can put structures in place for each game moment so your team becomes predictable to each other which in turn provides more time for decision making and and increased level of technical skill.

I posted about Geelong earlier this week and yes they were getting peppered in back 50 for a lot of the game against Adelaide but here's a perfect example of how game model development can assist any team at any level.

Geelong has control of the footy deep in their back 50 at an actual stoppage, so we're talking complete control here - the Geelong player can choose any option she wants to in this situation with the entire ground in front of her.

To utilise ground width she plays on laterally so a good move there.

As the camera angle changes you can now see what's up ahead and what teammates (red) she (purple) has to kick to.

As we say in footy "they're out" but whether through skill error or poor decision making, unfortunately the kick goes to a 50/50 contest which is the squiggly line in the bottom right corner and as you can see in the video it results in a turnover and another inside 50 for the Crows.

Through the development of the game model, defensive macro moments can be "planned out" for the most part with the order being for that kick from the last line of defense having to go as wide as you can.

In the image above you can see that she had a lateral option and a much wider, and unmarked option, closer to the boundary line.

One of those options would have been a far better choice.

If she had kicked to the lateral player than they were most definitely away as the Adelaide player just on the marker 50 spot would have had to man that mark.

The Geelong player in the bottom left further est away from the ball carrier would have been unmarked and another short kick could have been performed which would have dragged that Crows player who contested the mark over there to man that mark as well.

Then there was still a 2 v 1 Geelong's way after that if you count the players right at the end of that contest who were there.

The game model would have said to kick short and/or wide and player can set up for that as soon as Geelong get possession of the ball in the back 50 and that then allows players further up the ground to start their player movement and positioning to keep possession and meters covered in their favour.

Later on in that game they did exactly that which I'll detail tomorrow.

PRE-SEASON RUNNING PROGRAM COMPLETED

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 3 PART 2

WESTERN BULLDOGS LEAD TO CREATE SPACE/DRAG DEFENDERS WITH THEM

If you've played football for any stretch of time you've probably heard your coach mention space and for good reason.

For a team sport played on largest mass of land, the utilisation of space is hugely underrated and important to team success.

What we have below is a quick video of the Western Bulldogs during a defensive/transition offensive moment this weekend against North Melbourne where they utilise the wide expanses of the ground by first going laterally to A) find a free teammate and B) shift the North Melbourne a little to free up some space elsewhere on the ground and/or isolate NM defenders.

What happens next occurs in the bottom left corner of the video where a Western Bulldogs player provides an option by leading hard to the boundary line to drag their defender out of where the WB want the ball to go, decreasing congestion and increasing NM defender isolation.

Immediately after that, another WB player does the same thing with the same effect but they didn't quite lead far enough as the defender was still able to peel off them and reach the next contest that the WB kick to.

As a forward you should probably do more leads to create space behind you than actual leads where you're the focal point to receive the footy.

KATIE BRENNAN DOUBLE LEAD

Katie Brennan's talent cannot be questioned but she is also one of the smarter players in AFLW as well.

What you will see here is someone who wants the footy but will also work hard to get it.

In my fuzzy image taken from the TV you'll see that KB is pretty much at the true center half forward position as the ball has made it's way to the far half forward flank along the boundary line.

OK so with the ball being kicked to a teammate in the bottom left corner and on the boundary, then the easiest kick is to just kick it along the same lie to a pack just inside the forward 50 to a pack of 5+ players where NM are waiting to spoil.

That kick is going to be there no matter what so there's no need to just blaze away and do that kick just to get territory if you're going to badly outnumbered and the ball is repelled twice as fast back over your head.

KB provides the ever offensive 45 degree lead into space and even though she didn't get it kicked to her, she lead to a dangerous position it made her NM opposition player follow her all the way in.

Great first lead.

Not just happy to have done that first lead and then simply clog that space she knows exactly what has to happen next and that is the kick down the line so she does a sharp right hand turn and turns back towards where the ball now has to go and actually makes it there in time to get a decent look at taking the mark before her teammate cleans her up in the marking contest.

Lazy forwards kill forward entries coaches need to teach, and players need to know, where the dead space is, where the dangerous space is and what to do with both of them to ensure every forward 50 entry has a chance to be a scoring opportunity.

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 3 PART 1

CLEARING HANDBALLS

We are all aware that AFLW is a congested game with developing skill levels and kicks not travelling as far which makes clearing handballs even more important and a must have skill to have from a technical and tactical stand point.

Check out this quick video from the North Melbourne v Western Bulldogs game on Friday night:

The NM player handballed to a teammate coming straight at her who actually ran into the initial opposition chaser.

Poor decision making and player positioning is to blame her with the player in possession not even giving that handball in the first place and the NM teammate who didn't create any separation between her and where the ball was, essentially running into the contest to cause even more congestion.

We saw this again in yesterday's game between Adelaide and Geelong:

Granted Geelong are a very young team and were under huge amounts of pressure at time yesterday  but again those close handballs just makes 1 problem 2 problems now and eventually a turnover.

In a case of "...hold my beer..." watch Dana Hooker perfectly display what should happen:

You can see she starts on the outside of the contest and trusting her teammates she keeps her space from the contest and the congestion.

What really makes this was her pinpoint decision making where as soon as her teammate went to get possession of the ball she darted wide in a split second to clear the congestion and receive the ball in space where she has far more time to make the right technical decision.

Goal.

Another up stairs decision is by Erin Phillips here:

As the ball spills on the deck for 5 - 7secs, Erin just waits patiently on the outskirts of the pack and with 3 - 4 Geelong players and 1 - 2 Adelaide players already fighting it out for 1 ball, what impact could she have if she joined them?

None.

But what she can do is wait for the ball to spill out and kick a goal from 2m out - which she does.

TACTICAL INSIGHTS FROM AFLW ROUND 2

Check out AFLW Round 1 insights here.

After a slow and bad-weathery start on Saturday we had some excellent and high scoring games yesterday where I'll put my focus on the Carlton v Adelaide game, in particular Darcy Vescio, Brie Moody and the Adelaide forward line again, specifically Eloise Jones.

DARCY VESCIO

Darcy-V has shown that she is one of the few 1-touch players in AFLW and a renown goal kicker but this was a little disappointing from her.

In this transition offensive moment, you can see in the 1st image that the ball is on it's way to the Carlton forward line where she has come in with the ball from the center square.

Her awareness is not where it usually is as she has her eyes on the ball and seems to not expect another Carlton forward to be there.

You can see the ball in the top right hand corner.

The ball has now hit the marking player for who it was probably intended for but where's DV gone? Yep, she's in line with the marking contest and hiding behind the marking contest from our angle.

All small forwards know that you MUST be front and square to the contest and DV has done this countless times in her career but in this instance she's gone for the over the easy over the back kick, but the ball never gets there.

Instead it indeed goes front and square where she would have been in the box seat to swallow that up and off she goes.

If she did sit front and square and the ball went over the back then she would have been first to get there anyway so there's no need to "guess" where the ball is going to go for fear of being badly out of position if you guess incorrectly.

She did do a nice rov and dribble snap goal in the 3rd quarter though so she made up for this.

BREANN MOODY

Looking again at a Carlton transition offensive moment, the ball has been kicked to Carlton's half forward flank where Breann contested the mark and roved her own spillage and was running almost horizontally across the ground with ball in hand.

Looking into the forward line she didn't see any other Carlton players so she did what a lot of other AFLW player don't do - kicked to space AWAY from the contest.

If you watch AFLW close enough you'll always see a winger cutting the ground in half defensively but also holding space on the fat side offensively so a kick to space is not the worst option in most cases.

You can see that Carlton player in the bottom left corner of the screen.

You can see now that it's a clear 50/50 contest now, instead of kicking to unmarked opposition players and what actually ended up happening is that Carlton got possession of the ball and had an inside 50 back to Moody, who had worked from the previous contest, 25m straight out from goal.

Excellent decision making by Moody that actually makes her teammates and the opposition move (player movement in the Game Model).

ELOISE JONES

This time we'll look at an Adelaide Crows transition offensive game moment where the ball is kicked to their half forward flank and I've underlines where Eloise starts her running/leading pattern. Also notice the 50m of vacant space in the Crows forward line.

 Eric Phillips is awarded a free kick in the contest and Jones darts off towards the boundary line before ducking back to the middle to keep that pocket of the ground vacant.

She eventually meets up with the other Adelaide forward and they both U-turn and lead into the space still held vacant by the Crows where one of them is awarded a free kick but for no score.

A lot of players will simply run back towards IN that space and taking their defender with them rendering it useless now unless long dump kicks are your go - which it shouldn't be.

ADELAIDE CROWS FORWARD LINE

I touched on this last week but on the big Ikon Park ground it was very evident and that's how the Crows keep their forward 50 pretty much vacant to allow players to run into it Pagan's Paddock style.

The Adelaide forwards play pretty high to allow this to happen but the midfielders play their part by not going in there at all pretty much.

This also allows the Crows to have plenty of numbers through the middle of the ground where most of AFLW is played and it helps when you have a very strong Erin Phillips to bookend any long kicks that come to half forward, providing a tough contest and allowing more time for the forwards to reach the contest and hold the ball in.

Check out the vacant green grass in these images:

Even in a ball in they still leave that space open:

Game Models aren't really about set plays which are more about what you do when you have the ball but more about what you do off the ball to create time and space as well as giving all players guidelines on what's expected of them at ALL times, not just when the ball is in their area.

Remember I'm after 5 local / amateur football coaches to test a template of a game model I've made up which is definitely something you could use THIS SEASON, once we fully develop it.

FEMALE FOOTBALLER ACL'S REVISITED (MUST READ!!)

Back in December of 2016 I started to post on Women's Football with my very first post being a Needs Analysis of a Women's Footballer which had some basic information on what types of things females need to train for in preparation for Aussie Rules Footy.

Later on in February of 2017 I put together a far more comprehensive article on ACL Injury Prevention in Women Footballers that went into more detail on the points made in the Needs Analysis article as well as 2 session warm up protocol teams could use with their players.

I know there are Footy First warm up programs available but the program was made for mass production and usage and although it hit various weak points all footballers face, it's not actually specific to anything in particular.

The warm up in the ACL article is specific to ACL prevention and has videos for all exercises as well.

This morning the report that Geelong rookie and #Draft Pick Nina Morrison did her ACL in training this week which is again absolutely devastating for her, her family, the Geelong Women's football team and the AFLW at large.

She'll miss this season and probably the next season as well which is a real shame as she dominated in her very first game last week.

Let's also not forget Shae Slone also did her ACL in her first game last weekend as well and that's 2 ACL tears before round 2 even starts.

I'm probably also leaving out a player or 2 that has done an ACL during pre-season training.

My thoughts quickly as to why ACL injuries are still happening, especially non-contact one's at that include:

- Too much training volume too soon

- Not enough, or possibly any, actual training of the foot

- I've always had an issue with ankle taping and personally have only had it for 2 quarters of my entire 33 year playing career that's still going

- The very different emotional make up of females compared to males

- Not enough mechanical output training vs operational training

That's a fair intro but today I want to add some new information I've gathered since these 2 articles in the hope that this NEVER happens again that will touch on some stuff in my original articles, my thoughts on ACL's and more.

FOOT / ANKLE (DEAN SOMERSET)

- Limited Dorsi Ankle Flexion leads to pronation/inward rolling and will also present as feet turning out when running to gain the range of motion that dorsi flexion should be giving you that means the knee has to move around more than normal as well which isn't the end of the world, but not heaven either

- In a standing posture, that often tells us next to nothing of what will happen in moving posture, it will present rear foot eversion of the calcanous which is the back of your foot rolling in when you're standing still from a back view

- Decreased ankle dorsi flexion correlates with ACL injury risk where Q- angle doesn't so maybe all that banded glute work isn't what we should be focusing on?

- Ankle bracing/taping restricts range of motion like it's supposed to but that forces the knee to potentially move into range of motions that aren't desirable and I'd rather risk a rolled ankle than an ACL any day (like I said I never tape my ankles). It can also cause running mechanic alternations which may have implications on how your foot hits the ground with each step which can also cause problems all up and down the body

- The lateral muscles of the lower leg are just as important as any in preventing pronation so they need to be strong and with flat feet these muscles DO NOT WORK AT ALL

- Short foot exercises, something I've been doing for about 5 years now, is the introductory exercise to strengthening the intrinsic muscles of the feet and instilling actual change in the action of the feet - not the glutes or knees.

You can read the full article here.

ACL REINJURY (JANICE WOOD)

- Parts of the brain associated with leg movement lagged during ACL recovery

- Brain scans show that instead of relying on movement/spatial awareness, ACL injury sufferers relied more on the visual systems in the brain and thus knee movement doesn't happen as naturally or instinctively as those who had not been injured much like walking in the dark or on slippery surfaces

You can the full article here.

LOADING DYSFUNCTION (GREG LEHMAN)

- You can run with a tonne of valgus if there is no pain

- Don't catastophrise over movement impairments that don't cause pain because by doing so you;re setting them up to stay sensitive

 - For ACL prevention neuromuscular training can decrease risk without any actual change in movement quality

You can read the full article here.

ACL PREVENTION v PERFORMANCE (STUDY)

- A fore-foot footfall pattern along with trunk rotation and lateral flexion in the intended cutting direction is a biomechanical strategy  that could reduce potentially hazardous knee joint movements and enhance change of direction speed

- Minimising knee valgus (knees caving in) during change of direction may also prevent ACL risk but has no impact on actual performance

- Certain biomechanical strategies used to reduce ACL injury risk are linked to reduced change of direction performance such as narrow foot placement and soft landings with greater knee flexion

You can read the study abstract here.

ACL v PAIN (GREG DEA)

- Pain can reduce ankle dorsi flexion upon landing from not being able to absorb landing force properly which will result in a sort of "stiff legged landing". What happens here is that something has to "give" you that range of motion missing from the ankle and it's the knee or the hip but the knee is weaker and often takes the brunt of it and breaks. This landing will present as a "stiff" lower leg and then the knee shoots inwards to provide the range of motion the ankle doesn't/can't give and femoral internal rotation/knee valgus under load is the mechanism of an ACL tear in most cases

You can read this full article here.

ACL INJURY FACTORS (MASSAGE AND FITNESS MAGAZINE)

- Running distance, Q-angle, shoe type, lower leg flexibility/strength and gait patterns are NOT significant predictors of an ACL injury within a 2 year period

- Factors more reliable in predicting higher risks of injury include being female (physical factors mentioned in the 2 previous blogs above), having higher negative emotions than positive one's and knee stiffness at a higher bodyweight (80kgs +)

You can read the full article here.

Lastly there is a treatment type I use called Be Activated popularised by Douglas Heel. It involves a set of muscle tests combined with hitting activation points by hand and retesting the muscle tests to see what type of compensation you're in at that present time.

In BA terms a 223 Leg is the mechanism of an ACL injury.

What this means is that your psoas is struggling and it's job is being performed by the quad. The quad while "being" the psoas is still doing the quad's job as well and the tibialis anterior is doing the tibialis anterior job.

Obviously the quad is being pounded and this results in fatigue faster then if all 3 muscles were doing their own jobs like they should be.

Testing and treating this could take as little as 5mins and could you literally save you from an ACL tear.


Now I'm not gonna make out that I'm professional on the female psyche but here's what I think might be happening in Women's Football.

At the lower leagues we have a lot of females who have either not played any sport at all or have come off a long lay off from sport in the past so players are missing basic preparation such as running mechanics, strength and endurance.

For the most part covering the big rocks will be enough injury prevention work as the speeds they play at and thus the loading they put through their body's is on the low end.

That's not to say don't do any other ACL prevention work with them as a coach you need to know who's doing what outside of training in terms of training and other sport so you can plan a an ACL strategy for your players.

At the top end of Women's Football we MIGHT have players over-eager to perform/impress in "at all costs" mentality which might be causing varying degrees of anxiety which counts as stress.

This new and "heavier" dose of psychological stress is laid on top of whatever physical stress those players are already going through from relation to training and games.

This extremely high level of stress can cause emotional "instability" (for a lack of better word) which equates to mental fatigue (even at training) and with this comes a decrease in mechanics which is where these innocuous, non-contact ACL injuries can pop their dirty heads up.

What this means is that as a coach you need to be ON TOP of all players physical and mental status for all training nights and game days which can be done though various channels (1-on-1 chats, wellness surveys etc).

I'd love your thoughts on all of this so please don't hesitate to let me know.

TEAM / PLAYER PREP IDEA'S & THOUGHTS PART 4

PRESSURE SITUATIONS

– Take a deep breath, say your key words/mantra or focus on something external  

– Find yourself an anchor such as scrunching your nose, clench your fists, lick your lips etc) 

– Find something to bring you back to the present

NEUROMOTOR TRAINING (NELI ALVARAZ)

– Is a specific training isolation of the brain functions according to the movement weakness that is presented without interfering sport tactics

- The fear and recoil test is holding a swissball, closing your eyes and bouncing yourself off the ball and back up onto your feet

- By exposing your body to fear such as height, flight, speed, darkness and falling, you can unleash your potential automatically

- Use trust building exercises in your training

TRAINING (MIKE T NELSON / ANDY EGGERTH / JEFF MOYER / SHAWN MYSZKA / SCOTT SALWASSER / MICHAEL ZWEIFEL)

- Athletes are addicted to the sensation of fatigue and they’ll continue to go the fatigue seeking pathway rather than the performance pathway

- Post activity do some 90/90 and/or belly breathing and have some protein/carbs at some point as insulin blunts the effects of cortisol

- A lactate session on Monday can kill skill development on Tuesday and Wednesday because of lactate shock

- Chase improvement, not capacity

- Sport is problem solving using movement as the solution

- If you’re fast and still get tackled then you’re not a very good decision maker

INDIVIDUALISED TRAINING (STUART MCMILLIAN)

– Understand the athletes gift/what they do best and organise training in such a way to best take advantage of that

TRANSFER (MICHAEL ZWEIFEL)

– Success in practice or clean training is not an indicator of success in competition and is actually a sign that we are not exposing athletes to anxiety and the pressure that comes with competition

- You should regularly struggle and fail at training and it shouldn’t be safe and easy and that's all part of the growth process

- You want as much exposure to this as possible so include it in your warm up by simply adding a stimulus to your warm up drills like shadowing drills

- Doing something predictable over and over again will not help with the unpredictable

- The stimulus and how you perceive it will dictate the motor response so you need to be exposed to context specific stimuli in order to produce the desired motor responses that will occur during sport

- As a coach you didn’t see or feel what a player did when they made a mistake so it’s unwise to correct a movement pattern without first asking why they used it in the first place

- Keep score in training drills to increase anxiety/pressure

- Shadow races

- 3 player chase sprints where the middle player starts in front and then has to go with either of the outside players who go at the same time

TRAINING (FRANK SHAMROCK)

– Follows the system of plus, minus and equal

- Every athlete needs someone better than them to learn from, someone not as good as them so they can teach them and someone equal to challenge them

- Another way you can group your players in training

SELF MANAGEMENT PROCESS (PETER F DRUCKER)

 – Improve player strengths because focusing on weaknesses too much will take a lot of time and energy for a not as good a return

- Know the function of each player (jet vs workhorse), let them know it and put them in positions to display it

TRAINING (ERIC CRESSEY)

– Quality training matters

- Training without coaching has lower upside and more incidences of lower adaptation

- Quality strength and conditioning outcomes are about so much more than just a program or even a good training environment – it’s about hammering home loads of consistent high quality reps to markedly improve your chances of positive movement quality adaptations

- The first input of any stress causes the largest beneficial adaptation

MOTOR CONTROL (GREG DEA)

– Movement variability exists and is a thing but there has to be a cut off point where the movement is unacceptable

- At local/amateur level a wider but still defined bandwidth will keep you in the game and a narrow bandwidth is only required for high levels of competition

COACHING (VICTOR FRADE)

– It is not scripted and players are not told what to do

- They are given a problem and encouraged to solve it for themselves where the process is critically important

COACHING (JOHN O MALLEY)

– Your team will reflect your emotional discipline or lack of it, set standards/pillars before the season starts and when stuff gets messy go back to them

- Pillars are more important than goals as they lead to goals

- Get the right people on the bus and drop the wrong one’s off

- Focus on relationships

- Pressure filled moments/weeks need to be met with normalcy (pillars again)

- Have fun and enjoy the moment

- Control the controllables better than anyone and don’t worry about the uncontrollable

- If you stay between the lines there’s a traffic jam in front of you and it’s always crowded so it might be safer but you won’t really get anywhere

TEAM / PLAYER PREP IDEA'S & THOUGHTS PART 3

NEURAL PERPLEXITY (CAL DIETZ)

– Ice hockey based

- Step 1 is free skating

-Step 2 is free skating with puck

- Step 3 is free skating with a puck + a cognitive aspect with very easy math questions such as take 3 

from these numbers? 10, 6, 8, 4, 6 etc

- Can do an in and out ladder agility type drill with a tennis ball being passed around the waist at the 

same time with the same maths questions being asked simultaneously

- You can go up the agility latter fowards and/or backwards

- Progress each aspect of that drill through using different ladder drills, different tennis ball rotational direction, switch hands, juggling etc

- Pretty much keep it simple and get your hands and feet working at the same time with a cognitive aspect

- Do in speed and/or skill drill rest periods

 

EFFICIENCY

- If you are maintaining the same pace/time but are using less power to maintain it then that’s a strong signal of more efficiency and aerobic fitness gains

- Try and set up an aerobic skill drills where the progress is in the skill level over time (e.g. 10 different kicks/handballs while running continuously for 5mins counting how many targets you can hit)

SMALL SIDED GAMES (KEIR WENHAM-FLATT)

- Perform specific match actions  in a repetitive nature in very small groups (2 – 3 players) adhering to set loading parameters that coincide with the desired physical qualities such as aerobic power doing 60secs on with 120secs off @ 8rpe

- For footy do pick up and handball over 2 – 3m, pick up and kick over 30m etc repeating the skill for time

- This is best used as a transition training method

- In the off-season/early pre-season do heavy exercise with a little specific training and small sided game work

- In the early/mid pre-season use heavy specific training with top ups of exercise and the rest small sided games

- In the late pre-season use heavy small sided games with top ups of exercise and specific training

YOUR DAILY MINIMUM

- The ability to perform at 95% on a bad day is more important than the ability to work at 101% on a fully rested day and when your daily minimum goes up, then you’ve got better

WARM UP

- Utilse colors and verbal cues such as heiden jumps to a red, orange or yellow cone on command

- Try this with handball/kicking drills, agility shadow and tail tag in a boxed zone

LEVELS OF TRAINING

– Train to learn...Train to train...Train to compete...Compete to win

- Have an idea of where each player on your list is at within this progression and maybe use this as a way to group them up for more individualised training

VISION TRAINING (EYEGYM.COM)

- 80 – 90% of the info you base decisions on comes from the eyes

- Use pre-competition

- If each players makes 1 better decision per game than that’s 22 better decisions per game

- Do in a fatigued and non-fatigued state

RECOVERY NUTRITION

- Provide your team with something post-game like chocolate milk, fruit, sandwiches etc because the faster you can recover the faster you can train again at optimal fitness  and it will also decrease the risk of mid-week injury as you then won't be training on a Tuesday only partially recovered from Saturday

WORK RATE

- Less then 80 meters per minute is very poor

- 90m/min is poor

- 110m/min is fair

- 120m/min is good

- 160m/min is excellent

- Develop a training drill to replicate this?