REPETITION + TEAM SPORTS + DEFENSIVE CHECKLIST

REPETITION - RICH BARTEL

- More reps equalling better execution is not right as task improvement stops after only 3 reps and task accuracy decreases after only 5 reps

- Don't look for perfect practice as growth only occurs from mistakes

- Limiting reps maximises player intent which in turn increases focus and effort

- Quality reps are what matters

- Improve execution by maximising intent and debrief as necessary while training more in chaos instead of a vacuum

- Successful skill execution of elite athletes in sport is defined by their ability to adapt their technique to the specific game context

- Block training is good for initial skill learning but random training forces the brain and body to adapt

- As a result of this information he changed from practicing specific tasks in 10min blocks to completing 3 perfect-max focus reps and moving onto something else


TEAM SPORTS - FERGUS CONNOLLY

- Formation is the game's starting positions

- Players need to know their positioning at all times

- Movement of the ball influences player movement

- Players will move around the ball when it stops

- Effective offensive play will display good initial positioning and smooth player circulation to allow the ball to be put into space which creates time

- Move as much as necessary, not as much as possible


DEFENSIVE CHECKLIST - FERGUS CONNOLLY

- Isolate the player in possession from their teammates

- Guard their teammates in a way that terminates their role in the offense

- Dispossess/win the ball back

HOW FAST IS JASON JOHANNISEN?

This almost chase down but kick affecting run by Jason Johannisen was astonishing:

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@jasonjohannisen being fast...very fast indeed...check out my blog on this in the comments #afltraining #afl #aflw #aflwomens #speed

A post shared by Troy Lange (@aussierulestraining) on Jun 18, 2019 at 8:08pm PDT

I have just racked my brain to an inch of it's life working out the angled run here but I got some closish figures for this sprint.

Using the length/width of the center square, the length of the Marvel Stadium ground thus enabling to estimate the distance between each grass cutting, I was able to get the timed below.

Also I started his run from the half back edge of the center square.

#1 - Center Square Edge to Grass Cutting 1

- Width x 14m

- Length x 11.39m

- Total Distance x 18.04m

- Time x 2.02secs

- Meters Per Second x 8.93 (ave)


#2 - Center Square Edge to Grass Cutting 2

- Width x 17.5m

- Length x 22.78m

- Total Distance x 28.73m

- Time x 3.61secs

- Meters Per Second x 7.96 (ave)


#3 - Center Square Edge to Player

- Width x 18.5m

- Length x 28.2m

- Total Distance x 33.72m

- Time x 4.23secs

- Meters Per Second x 7.97 (ave)


#4 - Grass Cutting 1 to Grass Cutting 2

- Width x 4.5m

- Length x 17.08m

- Total Distance x 17.68m

- Time x 2.21secs

- Meters Per Second x 8.00 (ave)


#5 - Grass Cutting 2 to Player

- Width x 1m

- Length x 5.69m

- Total Distance x 5.77m

- Time x .62secs

- Meters Per Second x 9.31 (ave)

It should be noted that this was deep in the last quarter and he managed an ave m/s of 9.31 in the last 5 - 6m but I'd love to see how far over 10m/s he registered earlier in the run via his GPS.

As always speed is king because if he can't even hit 10m/s fresh, then how is he even gonna get close to Patty Dow running down the wing?

He doesn't and then Dow can take another 2 running bounces, kick an easy goal on the run from 40 - 50m out and the Bulldogs lose.

Simple.As.That.

THE SECRET TO BUILDING UPPER BODY POWER

The more I've studied the nuances of player preparation for AFL and sport in general, the less importance, or should I say time devoted to, I place on traditional strength training.

That being said the holy grail for most team sports is power.

Not strength.

Not hypertrophy.

But power.

That's not to say strength and hypertrophy aren't important but on their own they are simply part of the bigger picture.

The equation for power backs this up:

(Force x Distance) / Time = Power (watts)

The force part is the strength side of power.

A bigger muscle has the POTENTIAL to create more force so it's a precursor of sorts to increased strength (but not always).

The time factor is the what 99% of footballers are missing.

In team sports EVERYTHING is a race.

You're constantly in a race of some form whether it be to get to the ball first, make a decision faster then the opponent or to physically assume a position to shrug a tackle or at least get your hands free to give a handball off.

Having the force part is not enough in most cases because force is slow by it's very nature.

Force is high force/low velocity.

I tell ya what, video yourself doing a 1 rep max bench press vs a bench press at max speed at 30% of that 1 rep max.

Have a look at the time/s it takes you to complete the lift in full as well as breaking down the eccentric, isometric and concentric portions of the lift.

Light loads promote speed.

Power is usually displayed at force levels of about 30 - 40% of your max force number so it's pretty much moderate force/moderate velocity.

Velocity is displayed at 0 - 20% of your max force number so it's low force/high velocity.

Ideally you want to be able to optimise your strength and speed somewhere in the middle which is where my videos below come into play.

The first video is a complex I did last week of Seated Military Presses paired with Push Press Throws in the vertical push force vector.

The Military Presses have been worked down over a number of weeks from a low force load (80% ish) to a low power load (30% ish).

Without explaining my full program for this (maybe later if someone asks me nicely), the power exercise potentiates the velocity exercise (velocity is low force/high velocity).

The second video is a complex of Bench Press paired with Shot Put Throws doing the exact same thing but in a horizontal push force vector.

The information posted above might be new to you but it's not the secret to building literal explosive power but here's it is:

THROW/RELEASE EXERCISES

In any exercise where the load does not leave the hands there is a LOT of declarative action going on which is a protective mechanism built into the nervous system so you don't throw your shoulder out.

If you're using an exercise to build acceleration/explosiveness then you DON'T WANT ANY deceleration aspect to that exercise at all.

By throwing or releasing the load then you are building acceleration throughout the entire exercise resulting in high velocity release speeds.

That's why I used the throwing exercises above.

If you don't have the room for the throwing exercises in your gym then there's not much you can do for the vertical push movement but you can still do a bench press throw in a smith machine or barbell style like this:

You might need to build your confidence and accuracy with this one!

Give this a shot in the back end of the season to peak your power output in time for finals action.

STAYING READY

I want to go back to my post earlier this week detailing the game from the weekend just gone - a potential watershed moment not just for my long struggling football club, but myself personally.

I am in my 33rd year of football this year and am currently in somewhat of a learning stage.

From about 2014 - 2017 I played reserves football exclusively.

I started at the club as a backman in 2011 as the designated kickerouttera (that's a word) but the reserves moved me forward after a couple of reserves games thinking my giant arse and hips could do some damage forward.

During that tie I topped our goal kicking table 3 years in a row and lost by 1 solitary goal in the 4th year (playing finals each year) so I suppose it worked.

I was pretty much full forward or deep forward depending on who else we had down there with free reign to do what I wanted as far as positioning was concerned.

I had changed my game a full 180 degrees I suppose.

Early last season I was brought back up into the seniors, 1750 days after my last senior match where I thought my senior playing days were long over.

I'm not sure why I couldn't get a look in during that time but we had a decent senior team part of the time there and probably wasn't an ongoing spot for me there plus I have a hard time training with my work hours being 6 - 8 morning and evening.

I wasn't grumpy about it or anything but never the less I stayed ready just in case.

We were a basketcase last year with more injuries than any team in history (32 unavailable on 1 particular weekend!), we didn't really recruit much from the season prior and the top end of our league (div 3) went through the roof where the premiers are sitting on top of the ladder in their new division (div 2) as we speak.

We were originally still be in div 3 ended up back in div 4 to eliminate the bye in div 3 while giving our own club a chance to regenerate.

In the end we've probably got as good a team as we did last year in a lesser division so I was unsure where I'd be placed for this season - 1's or 2's.

I did most of the pre-season team sessions as well my own training doing 5 - 6 sessions per week from September to March as I normally do so I was as ready I normally was. 

The biggest difference though has been my role within the team.

In the 2's I was 1 of if not, the main target up forward which sounds odd coming a 168cm near 41 year old but I'm strong with a solid build (78 - 80kgs) and I'm still pretty quick so I can out body a similar sized defender and out run a bigger defender.

In the 1's though it's completely different.

This season we have 6'6" and 6'4" targets in there and another mid sized forward who's very strong in the air so there's no marks for me - I think I've taken 1 in the forward 50 this season.

We also play 2 deep and 4 up for the most part to give our talls 1on1's so I'm not playing as close to goal as I have recently either.

As a result my game has to (re) expand to have any influence on the game.

My tackling pressure has to be there constantly, chasing pressure too.

Ground balls in traffic have been a theme this year, at a higher level with bigger faster players.

Most of my possessions in years gone by were shots on goal pretty much but that's dried up with our playing style  - I've had 10 scoring shots this season for 5:5 - but only 1 set shot where in years gone by I would have 3 - 5 set shots per game.

As far as the 4 co-actives of performance is concerned - physical, tactical, psychological, technical - everything has been turned upside down and I'm still trying to nail all those things above and more to be as effective as I can each and every Saturday.

By staying ready physically, I can meet the demands of the game as far as speed is concerned.

By staying ready tactically and knowing our team structure/s, I can easily be inserted and trusted by the coaches to perform at my position thus my very late interchange onto the ground last weekend.

By staying psychologically ready between games and within games, I have been able to do most things when they needed to be done this season, even with spasmodic playing time.

By staying ready technically which I have gotten back through training more season then I have for years, all of the 3 other co-actives are enhanced.

The point of my earlier post was not to pump up my tyres or that I won the game for us (jeez far from it  - there were blokes who 100 x more things I did last weekend) but it was about staying ready and also how what I have to do for the team right now to help them win is 180 degrees different then what I had to do 18 months ago.

The last 5 minutes of Saturday's game showed me personally that all of that is slowly coming together for me displaying that you should be analysing and learning from every single game you play.

Will I stay in the seniors when we get our full strength team on the park which we haven't really been close to yet?

Right now I'm still not sure as I place myself somewhere in the 20 - 24th man area depending on what the team needs for balance that particular week but if I do get dropped back to the 2's then my game will be turned upside down again but I'll stay ready for the call up if it comes.

If any of you would like to post a little half season assessment of your season so far, or would like PM it to me feel free.

LATE GAME HEROICS

Saturday just gone we played the undefeated top team for the 2nd time this season as there's only 8 teams in our comp.

In round 1 it was a total disaster for us.

We had I think 8 new players in the senior team.

We've had a totally new defence strategy we were trying to implement.

We were 4 down before half time including the captain and 2 vice captain's and our best run and carry player sitting at full forward for the 2nd half.

The scoreline was disappointing at best.

Fast forward 7 weeks later and we've won 5 on the trot and we now had them on our new home deck, totally the opposite of their paddock out in the sticks.

We had 4 of 5 out from the previous week including our captain again but were still confident our style of play could get the job done.

At quarter time it was not looking great with a 4 to 1 goal first quarter to them and us struggling to get anything happening at all.

They kicked another straight out of quarter time and it was 31 - 7 or something.

No more goals were scored by either team as we just needed to get the game back to evens, which we did.

By shutting down their scoring we still believed were a big chance if we can now get the upper hand in the 3rd quarter, which we did by scoring the first 2 goals pretty early and it was 15pts of so the difference.

By the mid last quarter we were a goal and a bit down and the last 8 or so minutes had been ball up after ball up and a stalemate was going on.

I'd had no influence so far in this game, being on and off as usual as our small forward rotation in a low scoring game.

With 15mins gone in the last quarter and me thinking I probably won't get on in this quarter, the assistance coach (last years senior coach) made the executive decision to get some speed up forward and brought off our back up ruckman for a 40yr old midget.

After 3 - 4mins of stalemate play again I sprung into action.

I spoiled, or stripped their ruckman of a mark from our kickout then managed to smother a kick of theirs going into their forward 50.

2mins or so later on one of their blokes got a loose ball an came at me a million miles an hours and I managed to stick the tackle and take him down - I used to do them all the time but as a deep forward I hadn't done a tackle like that for years so I was happy I was able to make it.

The resultant free kick had me going inside 50 to our 6'6" full forward who drew a free kick fro holding the man, such as the full back coming up to his chin, and he scored a goal to put us 2pts up or so.

We knew there wasn't long to go but we had to set up with the 6-6-6 so we were gonna flood back as soon as the ball up went.

As you can se from the video, Alby got the clearance and the opposition decided to bump instead of tackle him (weird) also falling over in the process.

Alby whipped the handball out to me and I turned and again kicked long into 50 to Mundi who I knew would be close to goal 1on1, so all I had to do was kick it to advantage and he'd do the rest.

He took the mark on the boundary line pretty much but we have very deep pockets so shots from the boundary aren't as bad as normal, he snapped it and we were up by 8pts or whatever.

The siren went not long after and we'd come back from 4 goal to beat the top undefeated team - as food a win as the seniors have had since I've been there.

In those 5mins or so I racked up about 25 Supercoach points and had an influence on us winning the game.

Mundi probably doubled that though as I think he scored 3.1 on his own in the last as well as some other touches - he's a freak that man.

We got the 2nd top team after the break who also gave us a touch up earlier in the year so it doesn't get any easier in the short term.

Videos from Insta below:

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LATE GAME HERORICS Vid 1 - Mark Spoil + Smother Vid 2 - Holding the Ball Tackle + Goal Assist Vid 3 - Handball Receive + Goal Assist #afltraining #afl #aflw #aflwomens #smallforward #winner #winnerwinnerchickendinner

A post shared by Troy Lange (@aussierulestraining) on Jun 3, 2019 at 9:27pm PDT