PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #21 - IMPROVING KICKING VARIABILITY DRILL

All things being equal, the most skillful team will win.

Every.

Single.

Time.

In fact the most skillful teams do far less work then other teams due to less chasing and less extra running from chasing loose balls, cleaning up errors etc.

With a huge focus on fitness during th pre-season improving specific skill level often gets neglected and IT SHOULD NOT.

It should be far ahead of fitness in terms of focus.

Fitness can improved rather quickly with the correct program where skills is always a work in progress but because you can't "see" skill improvements like a time trial result, then we just let skill level stay where it is.

Players end up making the same mistakes year in and year out because at training they are set drills that don't address specific skill deficiencies and don't use enough skill variation in regards to distance, depth and accuracy of skills to dynamic and static targets.

There is also zero built in accountability where if you "get over and help" after a bad kick, it magically makes everything alright but on a Saturday that could mean winning and losing or even worse, a Grand Final win or loss.

At most levels training skill work usually looks like this:

#1 - Lane work straight up and down to stationary targets or with players running directly straight to you

#2 - All skill drills being performed at speeds that most players can't produce effective disposal under.

#3 - Limited to zero drills that involve chaos/decision making

#4 - Drills without instruction of how the ball should ideally get to the destination

Here's how to make these points more specific to game situations plus trains players to perform the type of skills they'll need in a game.

#1 - Vary up lane work with angled leads and different kicks (on the run and go back and kick)

#2 - Organise the drills to match the speed of play that allows the highest efficiency of disposal which you might make player specific for some or all of your players if needed. You might also need to adapt your playing style to the skill level of your players.

#3 - Give freedom to your players to make the ball carrier make different decisions in a split second as a lot of skill training drills are going forward at speed unimpeded, which is how we would love it to be, but unfortunately on a Saturday you'll have 37 other players in front of you which cuts off all of these "plays" that we train for before they even begin. But now our players are pigeonholed into doing what they did at training so they either get caught with the ball while they think of a plan B that isn't happening because the players up-field have also had their "training drill routes" cut off, or they just end up bombing the ball down the line which is the easiest ball to defend in footy.

#4 - Practice all types of kicks in your drills - stab kicks, kick to space, kick to advantage, long kicks, short kicks, kicks to all type of leads in regards to distance, speed and opposition pressure.

Below is a full ground, team based drill that touches on all of the above aspects at the same time.

This is just a sample and you can set this up in a million different ways but you essentially break the ground up into 3 parts (back, mid, forward) with position specific players in each section.

You would pre-organise a little "game map" to follow initially but use position specific kicks so players practice the same types of kicks they'll often do in a game.

How the players leads to the ball is up to you as well which you would probably like to match up to your game plan bit by bit as you progress closer to the practice games.

I would also strongly suggest that you literally tell your players to go at a moderate tempo at best as skill level, and target hitting efficiency is the focus of this drill, not how fast you can do it.

As your players get better hitting targets st moderate speeds can they stat training to hit them at high speeds.

Don't skip steps in the hope it will just magically come together because it won't.

You can also use this as aerobic capacity training by repeating the drill for 15 - 20mins at a time that "hides" running volume that bores players so much.

After 5 - 7mins switch the backs with the mids as the mids will often be performing the same kicks as backman when getting back to defend and help out - or at least some of them but maybe keep your permanent backman in the same section to perfect backline kicks.

After another 5 - 7mins you might then switch forwards and mids who interchange between those positions during a game to expose the players to midfield and forward specific kicks, again maybe leaving your permanent forwards in there the entire drill.

So kick 1 goes to group 2 to group 3 and so.

Player 1 goes to group 2 then group 3 but once the ball laves the backline section, they then go back to group 1 and off thy go again so just run all your balls through then reset.

If you have 10 balls and run through them all 50 times, each player should receive ample opportunities to get plenty of position specific touches in a short amount of time.

If possible keep track of how many targets each section hits and let the group know of the results after each 5 - 7min period.

B sure that I haven't ever used this drill so feel fee to give it a go and let me know how it runs.

PRE SEASON TRAINING DON'TS #1 - ICE BATHS FOR RECOVERY

All we see and hear about from AFL strength and fitness circles is recovery, recovery, recovery.

I'm not against recovery when you're training load is ridiculously high like professional AFL players but at the local/amateur level we only train 3 - 4 hrs a week and whatever you do on your own.

Our training volume is generally that that high to what the body can withstand but I guess a little bit of relativity comes in here.

When you train you disrupt the body from a state called homeostasis.

Homeostasis is the your everyday go-along-with-your-business physical and mental state of mind.

You're not stressed but you're not relaxed - your chillaxed I suppose.

It is the point where your heart rate is steady, your muscles are fresh apart from some residual fatigue from previous training sessions and your mind is in a good place.

When you put the body under stress, physical or mental, those markers listed above shift depending on the intensity of the stress.

If you go for a nice easy 3km beach run, they will elevate to a moderate to high level but take a short time to get back to their normal levels.

If you do a sprint session then you'll elevate to high a high or even extremely high level but again as speed training is all about short sets with full rest, it will take more time for your central nervous system to get back to baseline then the other markers.

It should be noted that the CNS takes longer to recover then the muscles do after intense exercise.

If you perform a repeat session, essentially combining endurance and speed then your probably taking your levels as far away from your homeostasis level as possible.

How far you shift away from your baseline isn't the point of this post but how you get back there is.

Most players think ice bath after training but why?

Because the AFL do.

That's it.

Do you know how the ice works in recovery?

More importantly do you know how ice works in regards to adaptation?

If you did then you probably wouldn't do it.

Training causes a inflammation which includes muscle damage, hypoxic tissue etc - a lot of sports sciencey stuff that is beyond the scope of a FB post.

Don't get me wrong, ice DOES help greatly with inflammation and recovery, but during the pre-season you want YOUR OWN BODY to heal itself because this is how adaptation works.

It's a bit like teach a man to fish, eats for a lifetime life lesson.

"Artificial recovery" helps a lot to recover from the muscle damage which during the in-season is exactly what you want, but during the off-season when training is high and the goal is improvement, it stops right there and no adaptation, thus improvements (strength, speed, endurance), takes place.

You MIGHT use it between training sessions when on a schedule of Mon/Wed or Tue/Thu but that's it, and I wouldn't even do it then.

Actual studies have shown ZERO improvements in speed, strength and endurance when using ice baths over relative longer training periods, especially for "under-trained" players like most of us.

When you're already big, strong, fast and fit, then you've already made the adaptations and recovery on it's own is fine.

Ice is also not as beneficial as you think it is in game injuries either but that's another post for another day.

You want to use the #1 recovery mode?

Go to sleep.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #20 - POST XMAS RUNNING

We all trained pre-Xmas but attendance was sporadic among the playing group but it's early Jan and everyone is hopefully on board.

During pre-Xmas training the main focus is on base building with basic aerobic capacity training and speed development.

Moving forward we want to build on the improved aerobic capacity as well as to continue with speed development for the most part.

Here's what I set up for the few teams I'm doing pre-season training for:

Endurance Training

#1 - 6min Time Trial first session back for each player hopefully improving on thier pre-Xmas time.

#2 - Speed training makes a subtle shift to static standing starts for acceleration as well as flying sprints to train max velocity starting from the 2nd week in.

#3 - Week brings the introduction of anaerobic threshold running sets which will take the players aerobic capacity to another level. Th distances covered for these runs are taken from the 6min time trial with the entire team split into 3 - 4 groups for individualisation.

#4 - Lactate Retention is introduced mid to late Feb which is the "blow up" training portion which you SHOULD NOT have done, or am doing, right now.

There will be more 6min time trials after the anaerobic threshold running program then after the lactate retention phase.

Sprints will be predominately max velocity come late Jan but acceleration will always be trained in the warm up to max velocity anyway so we have both force and velocity spectrum's covered there.

Between now and your 1st practice game, which is when you should be entering pre-season training mode there's 15 or team training sessions - not many - and without a plan you don't stand much chance of hitting the ground running com practice games and round 1 so if you need some team or individual help, let me know.

XMAS BREAK TRAINING CASE STUDY

Our reserves captain is getting married in Feb, wiping most of Feb out in the process so we dedicated the holiday period to getting some aerobic work in, his biggest weakness and here's what we did.

We did a 6min time trial at footy training where he managed 868m @ 2.58 meters per second, not a great score but this is why we train - to improve.

Session 1 - Sprints over 5, 10 and 20m x 55m total + anaerobic threshold runs 9 x 51m @ 100% max aerobic speed every 20secs with 3mins rest between sets x 2 rounds.

Session 2 - 20mins of aerobic capacity doing an outside circuit consisting of medicine ball throws, low level sprint sprint mechanics drill, boxing, core exercises and change of direction tempo cone work. The 20mins was all continuous without stopping at a 5/10 rpe (rate perceived effort level).

Session 3 - Sprints over 5, 10 and 20m x 65m total + anaerobic threshold runs 9 x 51m @ 100% max aerobic speed every 20secs with 3mins rest between sets x 3 rounds.

Session 4 - 25mins of aerobic capacity doing an outside circuit consisting of medicine ball throws, low level sprint sprint mechanics drill, boxing, core exercises and change of direction tempo cone work. The 20mins was all continuous without stopping at a 5/10 rpe (rate perceived effort level).

Session 5 - Sprints over 5, 10 and 20m x 95m total + anaerobic threshold runs 9 x 51m @ 100% max aerobic speed every 20secs with 3mins rest between sets x 4 rounds.

Session 6 - 30mins of aerobic capacity doing an outside circuit consisting of medicine ball throws, low level sprint sprint mechanics drill, boxing, core exercises and change of direction tempo cone work. The 20mins was all continuous without stopping at a 5/10 rpe (rate perceived effort level).

Session 7 - Sprints over 5, 10 and 20m x 85m total + anaerobic threshold runs 9 x 51m @ 100% max aerobic speed every 20secs with 3mins rest between sets x 5 rounds.

Session 8 - 6min retest x 1157m @ 3.21 meters per second.

We did all of those sessions 1 per day all in a row then had a 3 day break.

Session #9 - Sprints over 5, 10, 20  and 30m x 135m total + anaerobic threshold runs 9 x 64m @ 100% max aerobic speed every 20secs with 3mins rest between sets x 2 rounds. We started an new round of these at the new time trial speed.

RESULTS

As you can see he blew his time trial to pieces going from 868m to 1157m - an increase of 289m. In meters per second lingo he travels an extra 63cms per second.

It must be said that the first round of this was performed at at self rated 5/10 for the 4 sessions and he was pleasantly surprised by the way better time trial score after such "easy" training.

Speed has also improved:

Block 5m x 1.33secs to 1.20secs
Standing 5m x  1.31secs to 1.25secs
Block 10m x 2.13secs to 1.99secs
Standing 10m x 2.21secs to 2.00secs
Standing 15m x 2.79secs to 2.64secs
Standing 20m x 3.41secs to 3.24secs

Pretty good speed results considering they weren't our main focus but it really goes to sow hoe true speed training can provide undeniable results if such a short time if performed correctly, even at pretty low volumes.

In the end great results were achieved in just 7 - 9 sessions in speed and endurance training at low to moderate intensities so why are you killing yourself every session again?

Train smart, not hard.

My Off-Season Part 4 - Full Pre Xmas Block

I've touched on my off-season training a couple of months back here, here and here but I'll lay everything out in this 1 post right now so I'll be doubling up a little bit.

My number 1 goal is speed development.

Speed is driven by plenty of different mechanisms, of which I trained directly during this block, that I categorized as:

1 - Running Function/Form

2 - Max Strength

3 - Fast Twitch Muscle Fibre Repeated Speed Ability

4 - Isometric Exercises Specific to Sprinting

5 - Sprint Training

RUNNING FORM/FUNCTION

For this I focused on 4 aspects of speed:

• Big Toe Mobility
• Perfecting the Hip Lock Position
• Optimising Ankle Rocker
• Pure Stiffness of the Ankle/Foot Complex

After my activation drills, my warm up consisted of 1 exercise for each of the 4 sections and did 2, 3, then 4 circuits of this before swapping the exercises out and starting again.

MAX STRENGTH

The off-season is the best time to put on your gym work because you have more time and energy resources to put into training, with little competition from anywhere else, compared to footy season where games and training take priority.

As usual at this time of the year I follow the TriphasIc method from Cal Dietz where I did 5 sessions of each of these mini-blocks:

• Eccentric focus @ 70 - 775
• Isometric focus @ 77 - 85%

After those 10 sessions I moved to a power phase with accommodating resistance in the form of elastic bands for another 5 sessions @ 70 - 50% (a decrease in load each session).

After that my final phase was a peaking-velocity phase with timed sets @ 40 - 25% for another 5 sessions that took me to Xmas.

I did 1 exercise for lower body (Weck Deadlift) x 2/week and 4 for upper body(Seated Military Press, Weighted Chin Up, Bench Press, Chest Supported Row) exercises, again 2/week, on separate days.

FAST TWITCH MUSCLE FIBRE REPEATED SPEED ABILITY

99% of the time when someone trains repeated speed, they are actually training repeated sub-maximal speed but this method actually trains fast twitch muscle fibres specifically, another doozie from Cal Dietz.

It has 2 blocks:

• Capacity
• Hypertrophy

Capacity is your base/foundational work to prepare the fibres for more the hypertrophy block which is the more intensive/explosive work, to come.

Within the hypertrophy block, the lower body max strength exercise was performed within a circuit for the hypertrophy block.

I did 4 capacity sessions followed by 10 hypertrophy followed by another 4 capacity sessions taking me right up to Xmas again, doing them 2/week.

Isometric Exercises Specific to Sprinting

Alex Natera is the now brand new strength coach for the GWS Giants and these isometric exercises came from his work with track athletes.

There are 4 mini blocks for this part of the program:

• Iso Hold
• Iso Push
• Iso Switch
• Iso Catch

I did 5 sessions for each section as my assistance work for the lower body 2/week after the strength and fast fibre repeat speed work.

SPRINT TRAINING

I matched my sprint training up with the strength phase I was in:

• High Force/Low Velocity (Max Strength)
• Moderate Force/Moderate Velocity (Power) 
• Low Force/High Velocity (Speed)

So for sprinting I did this:

• Sled Sprints @ 48 - 52% of Bodyweight 20m Speed Time
• Sled Sprints@ 72 - 77% of Bodyweight 20m Speed Time
• Bodyweight Sprints Introducing Velocity Specific Distances and Speeds

This week being the in between Xmas and new years week I'll retest my force-velocity profile and compare to my pre-Xmas training results and next week starts my post-Xmas phase where I'll b starting my endurance based training.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #19 - XMAS BREAK TRAINING

The first 4 weeks are down for footy clubs around the nation and you've made some solid in-roads in preparation for season 2018 so now is not the time to drink and eat them all away, essentially making this training a waste of time when you need to start again in 3 or so weeks time.

Most players will have some time off so it's probably handy to provide them with some training to do in the down time from team training.

If you're going back in the second week of Jan then 6 sessions should be enough to maintain what players have built, and 8 - 9 homework sessions if going back in the 3rd week of Jan.

In order of priority I'd have players focus on the following:

SPEED

I place the speed component right after the main warm up for my teams as we want it to be performed in a totally non-fatigued state. During pre-Xmas training I would have had them start from various prone (face down) positions with some more upright starting positions in the final week if time permitted. During this time I would mix prone and upright starting positions so players are ready for standing versions in Jan. If you haven't done any speed work at all then prone position only it is for you until Jan. I'd also move some distances out from 10 to 15m as well. I already have some times from pre Xmas training so I'd let them know that I will be timing sped once again in Jan and also that nothing deteriorates faster then speed if it's not trained weekly, so it WILL BE NOTICEABLE if they haven't done anything. 2 sessions a week for this is what we're after.

AEROBIC CAPACITY

I already would have had players perform some max aerobic speed runs based off their time trials results so I would continue with the 4 session program I like completed during the pre-Xmas/Xmas break time. The runs aren't super hard by any stretch and only need to be done 1 - 2/week but they are ultra efficient and won't chew up too much holiday time. For players without a time trial, they should take this out and stick with linear and change of direction runs. Again let all players know that there will be a time trial once training starts back up and improvement is the minimum requirement.

TEMPO RUNS

I would have already performed both linear and change of direction runs during the pre-Xmas training phase and I would continue with them as they are exceptional to teach running mechanics efficiency and they can also serve as an active recovery session while also adding total volume to your training week with minimal impact on your joints. 1/week for this is enough but you could easily pop in another session no probs.

STEADY STATE

If you haven't done any training at all then this is where you should start. You're looking at 20 - 30mins of LOW intensity/LOW speed training at an effort level no higher then 6/10 on the old personal effort scale. If you can't talk normally during it then you're going too hard. Don't try and play catch up here and do an interval session - you'll only build fatigue - and you're gonna be behind anyway as you've done nothing to this point so you might as well be a a touch behind without injury or fatigue build up that will lead to an injury. Look at slow jogs on the beach or grass or a mix of bike rise and tempo runs (ride to grass, do tempo runs, ride back home).

PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #18 - STAY OUT OF "THE MIDDLE"

This will ruffle all sorts of feathers but here goes.

We've discussed speed and endurance a fair bit of late so piggy backing off that I want to give you a look at the high low system which was actually developed by sprint coach Charlie Francis.

It refers to splitting training days of high and low intensity training methods.

High intensity training methods include:

- Max Effort Sprinting @ 90% of your top speed
- Max Effort Lower Body Gym Lifts @ 80%+
- Intensive Plyometrics
- Max Effort Agility/Change of Direction
- Any Activity Performed with High Arousal (games)
- Power Endurance Work (for the most part)

Low Intensity training methods include:

- Aerobic Work @ 65% or less of your max aerobic speed
- Dynamic Warm Ups
- Recovery Circuits
- Extensive Plyometrics

High intensity activity is fueled by how strong your central nervous system is and how long it can be powerful for but it is crucial that you stress it just enough to get an adaptation to what you're doing, and then let it rest.

Once your nervous system gets fatigued then it's all down hill from there as sped will drop, strength will drop, reaction time will drop, skill level will drop, decision making will drop - it's gets quite messy but unlike metabolic stress from a hard running session, it takes longer to recover and if you train again before that recovery has taken place, then you're headed to a bad place.

This level of fatigue is hard for most local/amateur players to reach as we don't heavy, hard or long enough consistent enough to reach this point - plus you'll probably get sick prior to then forcing you to take a rest to get that recovery (there's no fooling the body).

Low intensity training methods don't even register to the central nervous system, it's like the puppy dog playing with the adult dog trying to bite it's leg off and the big dog not even waking up.

Why is this important and what about "the middle' you speak of I hear you say?

The middle is all where all submaximal activity is performed which is needed for footy no doubt but is overdone like your drinking on a footy trip.

There are 2 main issues with submaximal training:

1 - The speed of the activity is not fast enough to gain any speed benefits from

and;

2 - The aerobic activity is too intensive to gain any aerobic benefits from

Do you see the problems here?

You're not getting faster and you're not getting fitter so what's happening?

Well a whole lot of fatigue in fact.

One of the coaches I'm doing pre-season fitness programming for sent me yesterday "so I know myself and the squad are normally expecting to get smashed with cardio" which is the thought process of every L/A associated player and coach in the world.

Hard running drills such as those expected from the comment above exist only in "the middle" so they aren't all they are cracked up to be.

Look at it this way.

You have a drill of 20 x 50m sprints every 30secs and without any other training under your belt you head out to do them and what benefits do you get?

Did you get any speed benefits? Not really because you aren't even fast yet plus the fatigue of 20 sets of sprints slowed your speed down so much the last 5 sets could no way be classed as sprints, but sub maximal sprints.

Did you get any aerobic benefits? Again no because you trained way above your anaerobic threshold and once you exceed it in training, you cease training to improve it and build it higher.

You've essentially gone for a drive in a car with no engine and the petrol light on.

What you've also done is built up a shitload of fatigue which might feel great and that you've done a whole heap of good training but when you look at it deeper it's no so grand.

The fatigue induced from those types of running sessions is the kind where you're still hurting from 2 nights ago and trying to train again but if you're still feeling it then you can't b fully recovered can you.

So if you're not fully recovered and you throw another bout of hard running into the mix what will happen?

Stress Overload.

Fatigue Overload.

Injury Overload.

And for what?

So when should I train in the middle I hear you say?

The middle isn't the bad twin you hide in the attic like the Simpsons did, but you do need to know when to bring it out for it to have it's greatest benefit.

Most, if not all skill drills are performed smack bang in the middle which accounts for all the middle action we need right up until 4 - 6 sessions before your first practice game.

Yep, you don't need to get hard running until late Feb depending on your practice match and training schedule.

And you only need 4 - 6 sessions with this type of training included in it before the benefits start to drop off.

Too slow for speed and too fast for aerobic - remember that saying before doing any drill is my tip.

Getting back to the high/low system, the trick is to schedule in high days alternated with low days.

The high days are the quality days with speed probably being the main thing to focus on here so we're looking at Mon/Wed/Fri for most of us right now.

The low days are essentially recovery based days that serve to assist recovery from the high day yesterday, but because everything is of low intensity you can still train with decent volume and gain some aerobic benefits. This extra volume adds up over a full pre-season too.

Here's what the week looks like:

Mon - High (team training)
Tue - Low
Wed - High (team training)
Thu - Low
Fri - High (tam training homework session)
Sat - Low
Sun - Off

By the schedule above you train 6/week which will result in a nice amount of volume per week - something that is needed to drive your fitness up to levels you've never been at before and a great mix of fast and slow activity.

The player above who's still sore from the Mon session will have a week that looks like this:

Mon - High (team training)
Tue - Off (too sore)
Wed - High (team training but still sore)
Thu - Off (2 lots of soreness lying on top of each other)
Fri - Off
Sat - High (was too sore to do anything during the week so now feels like they need to do another big session to make up for it)
Sun - Off (soreness again)
Mon - High (team training and repeat the cycle)

Schedule 1 allows for the greatest volume and quality of training by a long way.

As a player doing outside training, make sure you are doing no more then 3 high days per week but also organise your training and yourself enough to get some low work in on the off days to bump up training volume and assist with recovery.

As a coach don't start training in "the middle" in regards to specific running drills (skills drills is fine but back off when you think the players need to) until late Feb, then hit it every session x 4 - 6 sessions and you'll have done enough work to take into practice games where you'll do that type of work even more so there's no to overload it prior to then.