Blue Red and Gold
24 Nov 2005, 14:58
Back into footy mode
12:21:52 PM Thu 24 November, 2005
Alan Shiell
Sportal for afl.com.au
Adelaide has started its pre-season training with a mid-season-style full-on ball-work session stretching over two hours.
Crows fitness coach Stephen Schwerdt said the players had prepared themselves to move straight into using footballs rather than having long running sessions as a group.
"We left our players at the end of last season with the expectation that most of their core conditioning work needed to be done already, so that we're not wasting time on doing conditioning - we can get straight into football work," Schwerdt said.
"One is the skill aspect and the other is (coach) Neil (Craig) is again trying to develop his coaching philosophy on the players so they get a better understanding of that and they can execute it better on game day.
"The reality is during the season you get very limited opportunities to do that. You might get an hour on a Wednesday afternoon, so if you don't get improvement in the way you want to play during the pre-season, it's going to be hard to do it during the season when you don't have much opportunity.
"So this period - late November to mid February - is so important for us to refine how we want to play while at the same time conditioning our guys to do that."
Schwerdt said the Crows had been training for some weeks on their own and at the club in readiness for Thursday's official start.
"We were happy with some of the things we did in our pre-season preparation last year, but we reviewed a lot of the stuff and made a list of the things we can do better - things like management of players and the monitoring of our training," he said.
"We're really going down the track of putting a lot of time into our football to the extent we'll do very few, if any, running sessions - regimented running.
"It will be much the same until Christmas. The only regimented running sessions will be testing sessions on a Saturday morning. Other than that, it will be football all the way through, as well as weight training, recovery, injury-prevention and other things we do behind closed doors.
"The training for football will be hard so there's a strong conditioning component in it. That's the art of it, I suppose, making sure the football work does get the conditioning in there, as well.
"The coaching staff has identified a number of areas we can improve in and, from a conditioning perspective, we've identified a number of areas, as well.
"We did some testing in late October when the players came back from their footy trip and it was pretty pleasing, keeping in mind we didn't ask them to do too much in their first four weeks away. That's their down time.
"And after they had their tests, they had four or five weeks to get themselves ready for football training. Over the years, I think players have got a lot better in that area.
"It's not a case of getting guys coming back overweight or not in good condition. I think the culture of our football club now is that that doesn't happen, and that's been set by our more experienced guys and that's just flowed through the group."
Asked if the Adelaide had a goal to be 'the best' at how it conditioned and trained its players, Schwerdt said: "While we haven't said it publicly, I think we have a goal to be the world's best in that area because that's the sort of people we have around the football club.
"From a medical, conditioning and rehabilitation point of view, they're some of the world's best people and we use some of the world's leading technology. We're always striving to be on the cutting edge and trying to find a new edge or new advantage that you get from the conditioning perspective. And there are a lot of areas untapped in football - things like recovery and nutrition - they're areas we're constantly working on."
Nathan Bassett (shoulder), Ben Hudson (knee), Scott Stevens (foot/shoulder) and Chad Gibson (groin) are on modified training programs and Andrew McLeod will join the group on Monday after getting extra time off because of his involvement in the Australia-Ireland International Rules Series.
Big call to be the best side in world sport in terms of fitness and recovery. Like what was said in the article I think we have the people to do it and we have the coach and personel who are prepared to try something different.
Good on them for setting such high standards for themselves and good luck in achieving them I say.
Very happy with their intentions and feel confident, that with the board support and the luxury of having a bit extra cash that we can pull this off.
12:21:52 PM Thu 24 November, 2005
Alan Shiell
Sportal for afl.com.au
Adelaide has started its pre-season training with a mid-season-style full-on ball-work session stretching over two hours.
Crows fitness coach Stephen Schwerdt said the players had prepared themselves to move straight into using footballs rather than having long running sessions as a group.
"We left our players at the end of last season with the expectation that most of their core conditioning work needed to be done already, so that we're not wasting time on doing conditioning - we can get straight into football work," Schwerdt said.
"One is the skill aspect and the other is (coach) Neil (Craig) is again trying to develop his coaching philosophy on the players so they get a better understanding of that and they can execute it better on game day.
"The reality is during the season you get very limited opportunities to do that. You might get an hour on a Wednesday afternoon, so if you don't get improvement in the way you want to play during the pre-season, it's going to be hard to do it during the season when you don't have much opportunity.
"So this period - late November to mid February - is so important for us to refine how we want to play while at the same time conditioning our guys to do that."
Schwerdt said the Crows had been training for some weeks on their own and at the club in readiness for Thursday's official start.
"We were happy with some of the things we did in our pre-season preparation last year, but we reviewed a lot of the stuff and made a list of the things we can do better - things like management of players and the monitoring of our training," he said.
"We're really going down the track of putting a lot of time into our football to the extent we'll do very few, if any, running sessions - regimented running.
"It will be much the same until Christmas. The only regimented running sessions will be testing sessions on a Saturday morning. Other than that, it will be football all the way through, as well as weight training, recovery, injury-prevention and other things we do behind closed doors.
"The training for football will be hard so there's a strong conditioning component in it. That's the art of it, I suppose, making sure the football work does get the conditioning in there, as well.
"The coaching staff has identified a number of areas we can improve in and, from a conditioning perspective, we've identified a number of areas, as well.
"We did some testing in late October when the players came back from their footy trip and it was pretty pleasing, keeping in mind we didn't ask them to do too much in their first four weeks away. That's their down time.
"And after they had their tests, they had four or five weeks to get themselves ready for football training. Over the years, I think players have got a lot better in that area.
"It's not a case of getting guys coming back overweight or not in good condition. I think the culture of our football club now is that that doesn't happen, and that's been set by our more experienced guys and that's just flowed through the group."
Asked if the Adelaide had a goal to be 'the best' at how it conditioned and trained its players, Schwerdt said: "While we haven't said it publicly, I think we have a goal to be the world's best in that area because that's the sort of people we have around the football club.
"From a medical, conditioning and rehabilitation point of view, they're some of the world's best people and we use some of the world's leading technology. We're always striving to be on the cutting edge and trying to find a new edge or new advantage that you get from the conditioning perspective. And there are a lot of areas untapped in football - things like recovery and nutrition - they're areas we're constantly working on."
Nathan Bassett (shoulder), Ben Hudson (knee), Scott Stevens (foot/shoulder) and Chad Gibson (groin) are on modified training programs and Andrew McLeod will join the group on Monday after getting extra time off because of his involvement in the Australia-Ireland International Rules Series.
Big call to be the best side in world sport in terms of fitness and recovery. Like what was said in the article I think we have the people to do it and we have the coach and personel who are prepared to try something different.
Good on them for setting such high standards for themselves and good luck in achieving them I say.
Very happy with their intentions and feel confident, that with the board support and the luxury of having a bit extra cash that we can pull this off.