HOW TO APPROACH THE PRE-XMAS TRAINING BLOCK PART 2

#6 - Make Your Low Intensity Running High Quality

For 90 - 95% of your training you want to actually train below the speed of the game and above the speed of the game. Above the speed of the game is taken care of with the sprints from the previous point and let's look at below the speed of the game. Training at game speed doesn't really do anything for you but it's what 99% of teams do. It's too fast to get true aerobic benefits from and too slow to get any speed benefits from. Do not mistake fatigue for high quality training. That's high fatiguing which is not the same at all. You could use boring pace running drills which no one really wants to do (even though they should) so using tempo runs here is a good option where you run a distance of about 70m at a 60% pace of your sprint with the focus being on using a solid technique (watch a sprinter in slow motion to see what i mean). You'd cover the distance in about 12 - 15secs, not fast at all, do a quick something else after it (handball/kicks, core exercise etc) for another 30secs, then run back x 6 - 10 sets. Keep everything "easy" where everyone should be allowed to go at their 60%, not someone else's.

#7 - Skill Work Conditioning

You could do 1 giant step further from #6 and use skill drill conditioning where you'd stay with the 60% pace rule and use small groups (3 - 5) to perform mini-skill drills so you now kill 2 birds with the 1 stone which will hopefully get more blokes training earlier and continue to train later because the absence of mind numbing running. I'd rather get more blokes do a moderate to high amount of training then less blokes get a high amount of training - compliance is critical at local/amateur level.

#8 - Profile Your Players

Look a lot of extra work potentially here but you need to know what you're working with before you can develop a game plan. Developing little player profiles on their perceived strengths/weaknesses, peer perceived strengths/weaknesses, footy goals etc can assist you in identifying any specific needs players may need to fulfil their potential. This interest shown by the coach on a personal level can also build trust between player and coach as well.

#9 - Psychological Fatigue Can Be More Detrimental Than Physiological Fatigue

This piggy backs off #4 decision making from earlier. We've all played in games where we've been chasing all day and the perceived hardness of that game was as high as you've ever had. Then we've had those games where we simply run on air and everything goes swimmingly and we feel fresh as a daisy post game and wished we had another 2 quarters to play. The thing is you might have actually ran further in the perceived easier game. By training decision making throughout the pre-season, it will take a less psychological toll on your players, thus their time to fatigue will be greater.

#10 - Build Trust In Your Playing Group From Day 1

The more I think about it, the more I'm coming around that trust is what makes or beak teams. When there is trust then there is everyone pulling in the same direction, they stick to the plan without going outside it and players are playing for far more then just themselves. Don't be mistaken, trust isn't bonding although they can go hand in hand. Using trust based exercises can help built unity within the group and think outside the lines here too.

#11 - Train Like The Teams You Want to Be

We've all got aspirations to win Grand Finals, which means for relegation leagues like mine, you'd go up a division if you were to do that. So if you want to become a division 1 team then you better be training like a division team and preparing like a division 1 team. Winning a Grand Final is never pointless but the next might be if you were to be non-competitive in the upper grade for you to drop right back down again. For lower teams, this might be even preparing would, or training like they would in regards to quality, professionalism etc. Shitty teams don't just get better out of nowhere.

#12 - Who Needs Learning and Who Needs Practice?

The better players tend to dominate training at local/amateur level which is fine but what that means is that the lesser players essentially get less touches then the good players which should really be switched around if anything. Let's break this down further. Learning is acquiring new skills. Practice is repeating already acquired skills. These are 2 very different groups with very different needs so I suggest you make this part of your player profiling and run 2 different groups at the same time.

#13 - Lots of Touched For Every Player

Piggybacking off the last group where some players get heaps of touches and others barely get 5, that needs to be evened up. I know it;s easier to do 1 drill for everyone but it suits maybe 5 - 10 players perfectly and the rest get under/over stimulated, making close to a waste of time. Your options are to run the same drills but split your group into your top 20/bottom 20 or run an easy and hard version of the same drill at the same time. FYI, cone drills are best learning players and decision making drills best  for practice players.

#14 - Practice The Odd Skills of Footy

We think of acing footy training by whizzing the ball from cone to cone, not touching the ground and everything is sweet but let's be honest - we're local/amateur footballers. What game has any of us played where that has happened? Most of the times we don't have leads coming straight at us unimpeded. Most of the time we have to pick the ball up off the ground, not be able to stand there and take an uncontested mark. With opposition comes a decrease in time so we need to get the ball to point A, with precision, in 1 - 2secs. I think it's worth developing drills that different leading patterns that require different kicks than normal, deliberate ground ball drills and low and hard kicking drills. Even the age old drill of kicking on your opposite foot should still be used and it's in these circumstances during a game, where pulling these types of things off will win the big games.

HOW TO APPROACH THE PRE-XMAS TRAINING BLOCK PART 1

Team training is due to start back up in the coming weeks so it's the perfect time for this post.

The money involved in local/amateur footy is as high as it's ever been making the stakes for success even higher, as you want those player payments going to good use.

The player point system also means that the more players you bring in, the more you need to develop your "home grown" talent as there's only so many 3 - 5 point players you can slide in 1 team of 22 players.

This all means that your team training sessions need to be as close to perfect as they can.

Essentially you'll have about 8 sessions pre-Xmas and then another 20 sessions post-Xmas before your 1st practice match.

Let's say most players complete 75% of those sessions and we're looking at 21 total sessions before the main stuff.

21 exposures to training be ready for competitive football.

That's not a hellva lot really to be honest so you need to nail every single training session you have and not waste any sessions at all, especially if you have require a lot improvement from 2018 and/or need to incorporate a lot of new faces into the team.

Here's some pointers of how to structure your pre-Xmas training to "get the most from the least", which should always be your aim considering all your players have to work etc.

#1 - Determine What You Want Your Players and/or Team To Achieve In This Block

Are you training them to be able to train post-Xmas? Do you want them to gain fitness? Improved skill level? Bonding with new players? All of these options? How much exposure to each option would you like players to have?

#2 - Work Back From Your Last Pre-Xmas Session

Like any goal setting exercise, you start at the end goal and work back, especially as we have time constraints to fit things into. Through this exercise you start with priority 1, ad work it back through the 8 sessions, then priority 2 and so on. This will be the first exposure to you getting rid of excess training that really doesn't need to be in there which is essential at local/amateur level where resources (physical/psychological) are limited and is probably the number q factor in setting up your in-season training later on when weather, player availability and all those things rear their ugly heads.

#3 - Introduce Decision Making/Chaos Drills

There are no cones on the footy field so the sooner you can introduce drills without cones and make players think for themselves, the sooner they can start learning decision making. Start your training block with high cone/low decision making/chaos drills then swing to low cone/high decision making/chaos drills by the end of the block.

#4 - Have High Success With Cone Drills and Moderate Success With Decision Making/Chaos Drills

Having a high success rate at cone drills looks amazing but is far away from what happens on game day. Cone drills can be used to reinforce efficient skill levels and build confidence but it will not transfer over to game day because as Mike Tyson once said - everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Once your players become proficient at decision making fora particular goal, then you need to change the goal posts a little to build on that learning again and again and again. In this block it might be as simple as small sided games with less players and then progressing to more players which condenses the playing field more and increases pressure. Failing at decision making/chaos drills is fine as long as you can see the decision making process players are trying to go with.

#5 - Start Speed Training Immediately

Speed is the most important commodity in team sports and takes the longest to develop especially if  you don't have it abundance naturally. Speed is also a skill so it needs to be practiced so coordination of the limbs can occur at high speeds - this doesn't just happen automatically for a lot of us who don't sprint all year round. Obviously you can't full tilt into 100m sprints so work your way up from a starting point of 10m to 20, maybe 30m in this block and hit max velocity type training (contact times to be precise) with extensive plyometrics which are low level plyometric exercises performed for 20 - 30m per set x 6 - 10 exercises. You'll be able to build back some of your top end speed, without sprinting, without the soreness that follows and without the injury risk while also decreasing injury risk all at the same time - the most from the least.

PLANNING FOR 2019 PART 15 (LAST ONE FINALLY)

- Strength and endurance retain their adaptations for the longest so develop them first and than focus on the shorter residuals while these 2 remain elevated...if a specific quality has previously been trained extensively then it will be regained more rapidly than if it has not been trained previously which is important when it comes to peaking everything at the same time

- Create freedom for players because when we all started to learn in the backyard there were no rules and no instructions so you could try anything you wanted to which provided an open environment and you only sought help when necessary...set up training games to replicate this where you get extra points for doing the mercurial such as goals from the boundary, pack marks etc

- Progress from walk/run grids to jog/run grids to long tempo runs to in and outs sprints @ 80% to in and out sprints at 90% to in and out sprints at 100%

- Only count the reps that involve the recruitment of high threshold motor unit’s while bar speed is slow which are called stimulating reps, aiming for 4 – 6 reps/workout

- Cone Stack Drill x 4 - 5 cones to stack on the home cone up and back against a teammate

- Warm up: you can and need to force adaptability right from the start of the session with no warm up being the same...you can vary your warm ups through providing a time frame per session to warm up in (individually or as a team), perform all different exercises then the last session, explore movement bandwidths by doing your regular exercises but over greater ranges of motion/different speeds/different stances and choosing 1 player to do the warm up and everyone does what they do

- Energy systems: rebound training day options are tempo running, cardiac output training and tempo lifting...stimulation training day options are high resistance intervals, high intensity continuous training, alactic intervals, explosive repeats, aerobic plyometrics and strongman training...development training day options are extensive intervals, threshold training and cardiac power intervals

If you want to know more about any of these points I've brought up during this series then hit me up on the Facebook page.

PLANNING FOR 2019 PART 14

-Follow the system of plus, minus and equal where every athlete needs someone better then them to learn from, someone not as good as them so they can teach them and someone equal to them to challenge them

- For fast fitness do 4/5/6/6/7/4 x 30secs, 4mins rest x 3/week x 2 weeks

- Michael drach exercises

- Seasonal training concepts: micro loading sprints x 2/week @ 92% max velocity x 32 sessions...extensive long runs x 1/week @ 120 max aerobic speed x 8 – 12 sessions...supramaximal strength x 1 – 3/month @ 102% rep max x 6 – 8 sessions...recuperation tempo intervals x 1/week @ 60% max velocity x 24 sessions...potentiation warm up x 2/week pre-training/games x 40 sessions...vegetative sessions x 3 – 4/week @ 50% effort x 180 sessions...1 pool session/week helps with the aches and pains of competition and 2/week shows up on fitness tests providing land training is maintained...vo2max matters for repeat speed ability...microdose all elements of sprinting

- Hypertrophy training for 6 weeks on and 3 weeks off produced the same muscle growth over 6 months as consistent training did with the rate of gains being at its highest after the 3 week rest period

- Movement transition speed method #1 - individually challenge the athletes with a greater set of different movement types in a single practice with a progressive increase in randomness...method #2 - force athletes to directly switch from 1 movement to the next without having buffer zones in between movements

- Max aerobic speed intervals do 15:15 @ 120% or 20:10 @ 100%...do tempo running within speed blocks...use max aerobic speed early in preparation phase while intensity/volume of skill work are low then in specific prep blocks use it a pre-fatigue skill method

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      - Local/amateur training x 2 – 3/week: week 1 – Monday x tactical, Tuesday x energy systems 11v11/8v8 3 x 10mins etc, Thursday x tactical, Saturday no game but energy systems again...week 2 – Monday x tactical, Tuesday energy systems 3 x 11mins, Thursday x tactical, Saturday x friendly game...week 3 – Mon x tactical, Tuesday x energy systems 7v7/5v5 4 x 5mins, Thursday x tactical, Saturday x friendly game...week 4 – Monday x tactical, Tuesday x friendly game + energy systems 7v7/5v5 4 x 4.5mins split into 2 groups and run each option at the same time...week 5 – Mon x tactical, Tuesday x energy systems 4v4/3v3 6 x 1min with 2mins rest x 2 rounds, Thursday x tactical, Saturday x friendly game...week 6 – Monday x tactical, Tuesday x energy system 4v4/3v3 6 x 1min with 90secs rest x 2 rounds, Thursday x tactical, Saturday is 1st game

      - Train the best players together at various times to build synergy/flow

      - Your body seems to remember the last thing you did in your previous session going into your next session so finish gym sessions with plyometrics and/or high rep/rhythmic explosive work

      - For decision making where there is plenty of data for persuasion but it won’t get the job done as decision making is emotional and not logical which is where trusting in your teammates comes in (i.e players that only pass it to your mates/good players etc)

     

      - Give players a problem and encouraged to solve it for themselves where the process is critically important

PLANNING FOR 2019 PART 13

- Doing jump squats at a load equal to your bodyweight (bodyweight + bodyweight load) produces only 16% less force then a 1 rep max attempt

- 6 - 10 x 30secs sprints with 3 minutes rest improves muscle oxidative capacity and performance

- Explosive contractions x 1 second are an easier and less a tiring way of increasing strength...3 second contractions are considered sustained contractions and are best for increasing muscle mass...do 40 contractions x 3 per week x 3 months

- 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...can also do by falling backwards into other people's arms

- Use block training to hit new personal best’s then conjugate training to realise your new maximum output and put new pb’s into action

- Potentiate everything

- Portable power jumper program

- If you improve strength without a subsequent improvement in coordination then performance will decrease

- Single response hieden over low hurdle progressing to band resisted and add a vertical element to lateral movement

- Low step drop heiden trains power in the frontal (side to side) plane...land on a single leg...sit back on the hip upon landing

- Low depth drop to low lateral hurdle jump planned then have a coach call out which way to jump upon contact

- To assess carbon dioxide tolerance do the max exhale test...is a direct indicator of psycho-emotional load...do 3 full breathes then exhale as slow and long as possible timing your maximum exhalation time

- Perception is the ability to perceive pertinent information and put that into an action, quickly and accurately and is the most important aspect of sport success so use shadowing and command drills

- When designing drills you want human stimulus, varied number of athletes, 360 degree environment (curvilinear, backwards, rotational, angled etc)...sets to last 2 – 5secs with the odd longer drill...will work better with a sport specific element (ball, positions etc)...manipulate time and space every rep...keep score to increase anxiety/pressure...embrace mistakes which is a good thing as the environment is challenging...manipulation of constraints are drills where you must evade someone coming from different angles and/or receive the ball from different angles/ways, having to evade someone coming from somewhere you can’t see and receiving the ball from varying distances...reactive cone drills are performed with 2 – 4 cones set up and you and a partner start in the middle and react to each other and race to the cone where you start in stationary, push up, side step in, run in etc positions...3-player chase sprints is where the middle player starts in front and then has to go with either of the outside players who go at the same time...in the gym start lifts from a clap/whistle to simulate a block start with reaction time

PLANNING FOR 2019 PART 12

- Align hips: supine stick between knees 5 x 5secs squeezing upon exhale...ball between knee 5 x 5secs squeezing upon exhalation

- Aerobic threshold program

- Force-velocity training: if force deficient aim for slower bar speeds x .6 - .65m/s @ 80%...if velocity deficient than aim for faster bar speeds x .9 - .95m/s @ 60%

- Frontal plane stiffness/power/change of direction: drop off a low step from a single leg hip flexion stance into a lateral step and then into a single leg high knee hip flexion jump

- Force-velocity profile assessment

- Take off velocity: after he determined he had enough speed-strength/strength-speed through force-velocity profiling, he needed to improve contraction speed and increasing power/jump heights while attempting to minimise countermovements by teaching the muscles to fire faster without relying on large ranges of motion = higher impulse...single leg romanian deadlift isometric pulling into pins x 5secs / band assisted alternate lunge jump x 3 / vertical jump x 3 / 12" depth jump x 5

- Agility: assess by looking at shoulder dip, a not wide enough stance, too high or poor angles and  train with tennis ball retrieve, low step side to side on/off steps, catch and throw medicine ball while changing direction

- If you’re too sore from the last session then repeat it to give your body a chance to recognise and adapt to it and soreness will often be gone by the next session

- Lactate retention program

- Game conditioning doing 60secs on/120secs off @ 8rpe via pick up and handball in a group of 2 – 3 over 2 – 3m, roll pick up handball, kick etc

- Test aerobic qualities in week 2 because you get huge improvements very quickly with initial sessions

- Absorb, load, redirect with high depth drop into lateral step then progress to depth jump into lateral step

- Altitude drop: drop off a step in a single leg hip flexion stance then pull the stance leg up and push them hard into the ground upon landing x 5 – 10/day

- Lateral speed: contrast hand held sled side shuffle with bodyweight side shuffle

- Repeat speed program

- 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

- Train to learn...train to train...train to compete...compete to win

- Halterer Broad Jump are great for directing force horizontally so do 2 – 3 x 2 – 4 single reps/set

- Isometrics: wekks 1/2 – neural/isometric based, week 3 – structure based (normal up and down training), weeks 4/5 – neural/isometric based, week 6 – structure based...neural driven athletes have the best gains from isometrics

- Small sided games: 11v11, 8v8, 7v7, 6v6, 5v5, 4v4, 3v3

- High performance recovery training sessions start with a mindset that you’re in recovery in the first place...recovery breathing x 5 – 10mins doing 4 point prone / supine 2 arm pullover with feet on box / forearm plank with lower body on floor 2 – 3 x 5sec breathes each

OFF-SEASON RUNNING TRAINING

Yesterday we looked at off-season gym training and today we  look at running.

Here are some suggestions for your running training.

- The base of all endurance qualities is aerobic capacity and without you'll struggle to build any meaningful endurance...ever. If you want to ace a time trial, you need great aerobic capacity. If you want to ace the repeat speed test, you need great aerobic capacity. And if you want to be as fast in the last quarter as you are in the first, then you need great aerobic capacity. To build it we're looking at long and slow training of any sort (bike, running, swimming, circuit training etc) for at least 20mins. Also be aware that doing a lot of shorter aerobic capacity sessions can work just as well as 2 longer one's. Not ideal but beats the boredom.

- My suggestion when starting to run again is tempo runs which are 75 - 100m sets performed at 60 - 70% pace where you should aim to use a technique that is "high in the hips", heels staying off the ground, and solid front side mechanics (foot/knee lift, ground strike etc).

- Look to cover 300, 400, 500m over 3 weeks with these, nothing outrageous.

- I really need to hammer home the low intensity level of this type of training as you want to stay in the aerobic zone or you're no longer training aerobically, sorta the aim here. You should be able to literally talk the entire time and if you can't then it means you're working too hard and your now needing to take in extra oxygen to get the job done. Slow.The.Fuck.Down. You'll have a light sweat and you should be able to do a 15 - 20mins session of this everyday if you wanted to. It's not how you go for a normal run by any means but it's far more effective.

- Speed training wise do 1 week of 10, 20 and 30m accelerations over 3 weeks before hitting top speed. Use a variety of positions going from low to high meaning from on the ground to fully upright, as well as short to long, over the course of each session.

- You probably don't want to go more then 100m/session for week 1, 125m for week 2 and 150m for week 3.

A sample week 1 session might look like this:

1 - Prone Start 2 x 10m, 1min rest
2 - Push Up Hold Start 2 x 10m, 1min rest
3 - Sprinter Start 2 x 10m, 2mins rest
4 - Standing Start 2 x 10m, 2mins rest