TRAINING ON THE EDGE

Every player has their own strengths and weaknesses and as a coach it's our duty to build on those strengths and develop those weaknesses.

Knowing how 99% of team training operates at the local/amateur level with everyone doing the same drill at the same time then we're probably not attending to the strengths and weakness and even 1 player like we should be, let alone all of them.

Coming from 1 of the most under resourced clubs in all of Melbourne, I know that lack of coaches can be seen a major roadblock here but I don't see it as stopping you completely from being able to train on the edge of most players capabilities with a little bit of planning beforehand.

Now when most coaches think of training on the edge of a players capabilities they'll often go straight to a skills under fatigue mentality, but this is only 1 of 4 ways to train on the edge and I would put it a distant 4th out of those as well, not the first only way to train on the edge.

What does training on the edge look like?

To train on the edge means to train at player specific level that lies just above or below their level of capability.

This level can also be called the ugly zone because players will often move through periods of success to periods of not as much success, the new skill shifting from a conscious and unstable output to unconscious and stable output.

If you think of a toddler learning to walk, every step is a picture of concentration while they wobble all over the place, eventually reaching a point where walking doesn't need to be thought about and balance is perfect.

But in between those outputs is the ugly zone where sometimes they'll stand up and fall straight down (no success), sometimes they'll stand up and take 3 - 5 steps and then fall over (moderate success) and other times they'll take 5+ steps and make it all the way to your arms and not fall over at all (success).

During this time the outputs will vary as well with some efforts being successful and others not successful in the same "session" but over time the successful outputs outweigh the not successful outputs as the skill of walking stabilises and becomes ingrained.

But back to footy.

Once again we need to focus on the 4 co-actives:

• Technical
• Tactical
• Psychological
• Physical

As mentioned above there's always coaches pushing the edges of the physical co-active either through running drills like a time trial or yo-yo/beep test so I'm not really going to touch too uch on that.

Another thing that coaches do a fair bit is to use drills that focus on executing skills under fatigue.

This isn't a no-go option at all but like all things life there is a time and a place for it and if you haven't worked specifically on IMPROVING skill development at the edge of the capabilities of ALL players then you have no business executing poor skills under fatigue.

If players have low skill initially then what happens under fatigue?

Skills drop off of course so what are you training now?

Shit skills under fatigue?

Is that even a thing?

If it is then it shouldn't be.

For the rest of the week I'll present training idea's and drills that all coaches can implement immediately on how to train on the edge for the technical, tactical and psychological co-actives so be sure to check back in.