Power freak's Power training thread

Re: From Krakouer to a stick of dynamite

ash_78 said:

Are you serious? They're talking about putting on 3 kgs of lean muscle mass, not fat!!

Be fascinated to know more detail about the weights routines the guys do and what supplements they use. I'd personally get Krakouer on the creatine early on in pre-season.


Edit: should've read ahead in the thread

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That is why getting the right fitness coach is so crucial. Someone reported that they saw Dom running at Flinders doing a jog interspersed 200 meter runs. He was also wearing a heart rate monitor. I was happy to hear that. A Footballer needs endurance but should not stimulate his slow twitch muscle fibres too much, hence the short bursts of 100 - 200 meters, prbably at a 90% intensity. This also stops the running program from cannabilizing the weights program which should be about Hypetrophy (muscle bulding). It depends wether the athlete at this stage needs to do rehab and muscle balancing before he bulks up or a bit of both. Furthermore, the speed of movement while a person lifts makes a difference. Athletes while they bulk up perform a repetition range of 8-12 with a 1-1 and a half minute rest period to stay in the Hypertrophy zone, they try and move the weight as fast as possible even if it is not moving slow. Again, this is to make sure that you don't slow down while you are trying to bulk up. When the athlete has gained some size they try and get the athlete to increase the weight and do repetition ranges of 4-6 which is the strength training zone. The rest period here is longer, 2-3 minutes, and the idea is to make a stronger athlete. The strenght is later turned power and agility which is another type of training. In this time period the athlete is changing his running program from an endurance based program to a more intense type of conditioning that is starting to address some of the more specific energy systems in footy. Getting the mix right is why some teams are fitter than others, bearing in mind that they have to mange this program so that their athletes peak when they want them to. The fitness coaches have to plan the program month's in advance and has to tailor programs for injured, young, older, midfielders, defenders, burst players, taggers and probably more. This is one of the hardest jobs in footy and people, including sometimes the coaching staff, sometimes take it for granted. I think Malcom Blight made that mistake when he coached St. Kilda because he tried to incorporate what Niel Craig was doing without fully understanding it.

Re: Boys back in training

Ebert80 said:

Would be great if we saw him play next year and beyond like he did in that minor round game in 07 when we beat Geelong over there, especially that last quarter.

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I do not thnk we can judge players performance last year because we were so ill prepared. This guy Falloon is finally showing the guys the right way to conduct a pre-season. I condition athletes in my gym. I have studied Advanced program design for athletes and non-athletes. I guess you can say I know alot of theory as I have worked more with injured office workers but have only a few tennis players and a golfer in my books. The courses that I have studied were put together by An American Strenght and conditioning coach as well as a conditoning specialist who trained a lot of olympic athletes. In other words the science of periodization, repetitions, sets and loading parameters were synthesised into a course I did.
I have mentioned before about starting the preseason with base training and how the program progresses.

Look at this from the Port Website

New fitness coach Cameron Falloon said this phase would provide the players with a solid base going into 2009.
"We've divided the pre-season into several phases," he said.
"At the moment, the players are really in a base-building phase and, for me being new, it's a time for me to learn as much as I can about the players.
"The players will remain in that pattern for another week and then we’ll make it a bit more football-specific with their running leading into Christmas. We’ll also introduce more speed and repeat speed work.
"We’ll [also] get more into strength training and then, post-Christmas, you’ve only really got six weeks until NAB Cup so we want to have them fully-prepped so that (coach) Mark [Williams] can get them into the football-specific training.
"With the extended pre-season the club has this year, we’ve been able to get a lot more work in pre-Christmas and that will give the coaches a lot more flexibility after Christmas."
Falloon, credited with beefing up the Western Bulldogs list when he was their head of physical performance, has added three extra weights sessions to the training program since joining the club in October.

http://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/tabid/6038/Default.aspx?newsid=70154

This training makes or breaks a team because what we achieve this year is carried over into next year. Falloon mentions all this and talks about how he classifies people not by how many years they have been in the system but how many preseasons they have under their belt.

Don't get me wrong. I respect Hawthorne and Geelong but I am not as afraid of them this year. Other teams advantage has been that they have superior strength and conditioning coaches and not all football departments have woken up to it. Why is Falloon here? Burgoyne, Pearce, Krakaour, Rodan, Boak and more. I think this is Falloon's chance to really make a name for himself. I can not remeber another team that has so many players that are this quick and explosive. I may be wrong but this may be the real year for the revolution.

Go you Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Boys back in training

RussellEbertHandball said:

Power freak you obviously know something about this area. I'd like your opinion, speculation wise or if you have inside info as to what went wrong re our fitness in 2008.

1. How much did Burgess leaving us hurt us, if as the article says the real base building phase happens before Christmas, and January 20 was the day he new guy took over?

2. We missed the finals in 2006 and had a big 2006/07 pre season and then made the GF. How much difference did making the GF effect our 2007/08 preseason compared to the previous pre season?

3. Was it as simple as a shortened pre season plus the new guy maybe struggling to get the post mid January part of the pre season right that meant we seemed to run out of legs late into the third and in the fourth quarter?

4. Do you reckon it was Choco or Burgess with his soccer background that pushed for a running dominance to our fitness program as opposed to a strength dominance? Or would it have been a joint decision?

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We have got to remember that the game is evolving. You can not expect a coach to understand sports science. The coach will know that running is integral to pre-season training. What Port has done in the past was good enough back then but obviously other teams have upped the ante.

I don't think that this was obvious to the training staff because as Josh Francou always said, "fitness cannot be the problem it is mental". No way!! Our players don't seem to be developing physically while our neighbours seem to be getting bigger quicker. You saw how Brad Symes seemed to get bigger around the shoulders when he crossed over to the Camry Canaries.

No one is going to push for their program. Other teams will just do it better. The Crows and Burgess, I believe have their strengths and weaknesses. They are very good at adapting running programs to footy. Burgess comes from a soccer background and Charlie Walsh a cycling background. They know that you need a base level of fitness, and that the program must adapt to the sport specific running which involves staying in a particular enrgy system by running for a certain length with a set rest period. i.e. work 1 minute and rest 30 seconds is a ttwo to one work rest ratio. I believe both of their downfalls have been to not put enough emphasis on weights for fear that it can slow you down. I believe this because the Crows try and grind down their opponents with succesive 20 to 30 metre dashes. Eventually the other team tires and then they get the upper hand. If you watch so many of their games it has been the same for the last 3-4 years. Boring!!!! It used to be effective but thank god we are going past that .

The reason why we made the final is because we are a talented team. This talent can be quashed with brute force. Other teams saw that know that we can not be given room. How many games did we watch where we were manhandled.

Sure our pre-season was short and it definately affected us but probably not in the way that the coaching staff thought. We had a big year previously and very little strength training to maintain us as a team that plays a sport dominated by anaerobic effort, power and strength. Falloon hit the nail on the head where he said that this base training estblishes our fitness base, not for this year but for the rest of the footballers training years. If a players gets injured and has had 3 quality preseasons under his belt, it is easy to get them back on the track.

The weights program can only be established in the pre-season because the way that players stay strong is to not try and increase their strength in the regular season but to maintain it. At the beginning of each weak after a game the players will go in to the weights room and lift what they achieved in the preseason as a way of not losing their strenght and power they gained in the pre-season. This is a tricky juggling act and the teams that do it right get to the top.

I believe that Adelaide is isolated and the biggest asset we have is Mark Williams in that he has contacts in Melbourne and can source these people out. We should not have a culture of blame. What has happened is that other clubs were better and now we are copying from them. In years gone by they copied a lot from us.

Re: Boys back in training

Btw, for Choco to say that we ran the same amount of mileage as the last pre-season therefore our fitness should be the same was a indication that the team did not know what they were doing. Think about it. We had an arduous finals campaign. We had a short pre-season so what we needed to do was less running and more weights and recovery. Burgess should have laid that out in writing.

Re: Boys back in training

RussellEbertHandball said:

Thanks for your thoughts Power freak. Are you a sports scientist or do you work in the general fitness industry as you said you condition athletes in the gym?

I think you have become the Port board fitness advice person.

A couple of more questions. How would you summarise what Andrew Russell did with us between 2001-2004 and Hawthorn between 2004-08? What big differences have you noticed or what stand out similarities have you picked up? Cheers in advance.

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I am a personal Trainer and as such one has to take on extra study for specialist clients. I get athletes but usually for a set period of time and usually for high performance conditioning. A person may get a knee reconstruction and subsequently get rehabilitation but still have a lot of dysfunction in that they compensate due to wekness in key muscles that stabilize movements common to sports. I had a girl who was a volleyball player who had bad posture and could not spike properly. By correcting posture and teaching just one exercise that activated the part of the body that she was not integrating in her action, she was able to figure out the rest herself. She ended up getting a scholarship in the US as a spiker in her team. I never get full access to athletes so the things that I say are theory because I have never integrated a full periodized pre-season program. If I did who knows wether it would be successful.

Kevin Russell was great. He would also have evolved beyond what he had done when he was at Alberton. Look at Cyril Rioli. A junior who has a pretty impressive physique. Buddy was also a skinny kid when first started and one of his problems was his contested marking. I heard that he used to be paid out at training because he could not do a full pushup. Look at him now. Somewhere along the line this club was so successful that we didn't innovate enough. When the players fitness is up to scratch we will find other ways of innovating. The playing field will be more level, until someone else finds something new.

To talk about what Kevin Russell did. He did his job. Got them to a condition that is conducive for an AFL footballer to thrive in contested footy and hard running for four quarters.

Look at it this way. If our mistakes in footy were that obvious, when we gave the excuse that we ran the same milage as last year a lot of teams should have said, "then there you go, that is your problem". Andrew Russell would have been saying that in the back of his mind but nobody else saw that obvious problem(Except the good conditioning specialists). I am not saying that I can or can't do a better job, but when you go to the Port Website and see Fallon Talking like a real pro it is encouraging and it seems the players are finally beefing up.

Re: Boys back in training

You guys have got to remember that sports science is evolving.These things that people are doing are relatively new all over the world. We are a little behind rugby and that is because of the importance of bulk in that sport. Clubs also have politics. As for Williams having a knowledge in Sports Science, probably which can be a barrier due to the fact that yu may have preconcieved ideas. Not all teams have their act together. I thnk Freo is in the same boat. I saw a snippet of their preseason training and while they work hard they did not seem to be smart about it. The things that I said weeks ago about periodization comes from text books. Falloon is showing that text book in action. The boys are getting bigger but it was no coincidence the the picture in the Advertizer was of Boak doing a deadlift. The deadlift is the bees knees as far as strength and power is concerned. AND BOAKS FORM WAS PERFECT. That is not only the best exercise for building bulk but can turn into a power exercise in the stages leading up to converting the bulk and strength to power.I am sure you are all familiar with the power clean done in the olympics.

I believe it was a message to some of the Victorian teams that have pushed us around. It was meant to say we are coming for you, and we are not scared. Falloon seams to be going out of his way to tell everybody what we are doing. That is because if people dig for enough, they can get that information in a text book.

Re: Boys back in training

Sorry I am answering as I read replies. Core strength comes from weight training. You can develop your core in the base phase but it may take away from the time you have to build size. The only difference I see between Russell and Falloon is that Falloon spends more time bulking the players up. Core training is done when these important stabilizer muscles are weak and it detracts from the athletes ability to do an exercise like the deadlift. Kevin Russell would spend a lot of time on agility and a heck of a lot of time on bulking and strength. Look at Cyril Rioli. Falloon prefers the hard running straight down the guts game. To be honest I don't know which approach is better.

The man who I would guess would have had a lot to do with Falloon's appointment would be Mark Williams. Mark would have relized other clubs hav esurpassed us. Lets give him credit. When we are fit I believe that Mark can out coach Bomber and give Alistair a few headaches.

Re: Boys back in training

Here's the pic Power freak is referring to:



and a link to the article:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/sport/afl/story/0,26547,24695955-5014673,00.html

It was in this article that identified new strength and conditioning coach Andrew Lulham. Toots asked the question in an earlier post about his role and Power freak's responses above help clarify that.

If Lulham is an Australian ranked power lifter, then his experience in properly executing power lifts and working individually with players in their weight-training programs is very important. The power lifts - deadlift, bench press and squat - executed in poor form are responsible for a raft of back and shoulder injuries among young men caused by one rep ego lifts. So Lulham would be ensuring our players are building muscle mass, explosive strength and sustainable power, while minimising the risk of injury.

Re: Boys back in training

Sorry guys but I can't get the hang of putting in images so this is a little incomplete.


Preseason In Season
Base Training Hypertrophy

3-6 sessions MxS 2-3 sessions

Hypertrophy 1-2 sessions Conversion 2sessions

MxS

Hypertrophy 1 session Maintain:

Power, MxS, Hypertrophy



A rough Look at strength Periodization based on work by Tudor O. Bompa, PhD (Periodization for sports)

Base Program (Preseason begins)

Base training brings the athlete to a stage whereby they can safely train for their specific demands of their sport. Everybody will be at different stages of development therefore their base program will differ according to their needs.

Examples of different needs are;
 Training age (number of years a person has trained as well as the number of preseasons)

 Age (New recruits and second years, older players, players at their prime)

 Injury status

 Posture (individuals with poor posture will wear their joints and connective tissue out quicker than a person with good posture)

 Hypertrophy
o Involves building size using body building method but only targeting prime movers. I.e. not exercising smaller muscles like triceps but doing military presses and deadlifts.
o Goal is to exhaust the muscle.
 Repetition ranges between 8-12 and rest periods between sets are 1-1\2 and half minutes.
 Weights are moderately heavy.

 Core Strength

o What is the core and why do we need it?
o Why is it important to do it in the beginning of the season before hypertrophy and maximum strength training?
o How does it apply to sports training?



Think of the transversus abdominis (TA) as a girdle around your mid-section that attaches on to a sheet of muscle (the orange muscle). And because this sheet of muscle attaches directly to the spine it is an important stabilizer for the spine. The popularity of this muscle, worldwide, is due largely to research done here in Australia by Richardson, Jull and colleagues.

The core muscles are the TA (Orange), Multifidus (red), Diaphragm, Pelvic floor and some of the Internal Obliques (blue). They work together as a team to stiffen the rib cage, spine, and pelvic girdle to provide a working foundation for the trunks and the legs. In that way Andrew Russell benefit from core work in that when a person is being tackled they have a strong base in the center to stay upright. As we will delve into later, core strength is just a necessary ingredient in a strong body; however, a strong core would go a long way.

I think of core work being done in two stages. At very low intensities as one might do in a Pilates class to ensure that the muscle is working and then at progressively higher performance levels where the core muscle must work with the larger muscle to provide stability. This is where Andrew Russell might have the advantage in that he integrates high performance core conditioning into his program at all levels of the preseason. This means that attention is paid to the core but not at the expense of his strength, hypertrophy and power training programs.





http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/tornado_training_part_2



The Tornado Ball exercise (above) is an example of a high performance exercise. This exercise is done later in the season when we have strengthened the core and we use other bigger muscles that work with the core stabilizers.

It exercises the flexor chain which is a group of muscles responsible for flexing the trunk. You can feel the flexor chain when you arch your back and follow through when kicking a footy. It is used in punching, throwing and kicking movements. If you look at the above exercise you can imagine that when you chop that ball at great speeds behind and in front of your body you are mimicking a part of the kicking action. This is power training for kicking. It must be stressed that before you can get any benefit you need to develop core stability and then strength, not only in the flexor chain but the whole body, before the exercise will be of any benefit.

I believe that what an Andrew Russell might do is to develop not just core stability but rotational power (like above) and agility. Often trainers do these fancy exercises without any idea of how to get the right result. These exercises are tools, extensions of our existing programs.

The Next Phase of Training (Maximum Strength [MxS])

The objective of maximum strength is to develop the highest level of force possible. Weights are heavier, repetition ranges are less, and rest is longer.

Without high levels of MxS you can not have power.

Here we can also train speed which is the ability to go quick.

Next Phase (Conversion)

We convert MxS into power and sport specific endurance. Our endurance program is becoming closer to match simulation at this time.

Here we do power training. (Power = strength × speed). We can also plyometrics and agility training.
Maintenance (During the Season)

Without proper maintenance detraining occurs after just 5-6 days. After 2 weeks skills that require strength begins to suffer. (Where does this sound familiar?)
Loss of power due to decreased motor recruitment becomes visible and speed drops off.

I meant to talk about agility but I will have to do that next time.

Cheers

Re: Boys back in training

Power freak 2008 said:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/tornado_training_part_2

The Tornado Ball exercise (above) is an example of a high performance exercise. This exercise is done later in the season when we have strengthened the core and we use other bigger muscles that work with the core stabilizers.

It exercises the flexor chain which is a group of muscles responsible for flexing the trunk. You can feel the flexor chain when you arch your back and follow through when kicking a footy. It is used in punching, throwing and kicking movements. If you look at the above exercise you can imagine that when you chop that ball at great speeds behind and in front of your body you are mimicking a part of the kicking action. This is power training for kicking. It must be stressed that before you can get any benefit you need to develop core stability and then strength, not only in the flexor chain but the whole body, before the exercise will be of any benefit.

I believe that what an Andrew Russell might do is to develop not just core stability but rotational power (like above) and agility. Often trainers do these fancy exercises without any idea of how to get the right result. These exercises are tools, extensions of our existing programs.

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Here's the Tornado Ball exercise in images that PF couldn't link

Wall Chop


Supine Chop


Kneeling Chop


Thanks once again for the insight PF and if you want to learn how to put images in you post either Private Message me or one of the moderators. Its pretty straight forward.

Re: Boys back in training

[U]Are some teams caught between the listening to sports Physiologists or their conditioning experts?-Questioning the Crows[/U]

There is controversy on how to condition athletes because Sports Physiologists believe that measuring the maximum intake of oxygen is essential to evaluate the fitness of athletes. This is the reason why Footy Players are asked to go for the long runs in the pre-season and reduce the distance as the competitive phase gets closer. Conditioning experts have long since believed this to be erroneous in many sports around the world that are of an intermittent nature such as tennis, hockey or gridiron. The

Coaches move on with the times and I may be wrong in assuming Neil Craig hasn’t, however, the other day I saw in the news footage of the Crows doing what looks like steady state running. I call it steady state because the stride will change when you are doing distances over 400 meters. The ground reaction force on the ankles knees and hips are different to that of a stride or sprint pattern. Speaking of ground reaction forces or the lack of it, too much training on the bike can have a detrimental affect on a running athlete.

I had always thought of Craig as a good coach because his record against us is quite good. I believe that he wants to make his mark on the game by changing the way it is played. His focus is on the way his players use the ball when they haven’t got it. According to an interview in the Herald Sun (Crows' imperfect science
Mark Stevens | September 02, 2006 12:00am). They put a lot of research into the amount of times a player will run in support of their team-mate, clearing space to make room for the ball carrier and dummy leads. Neil also mentioned that a player runs approximately 40 km in a game. They have broken us down in the past because we had no strength advantage and they could do the above-mentioned tasks more often than us. Geelong on the other hand were a lot stronger and powerful than they were so it did not matter if they could get to the ball more often if they weren’t strong enough to get it.

I think the Crows with Charlie Walsh are sport scientist first and a footy club second. Sports physiology says that you need an aerobic base which has been the accepted standard for Olympic athletes and SASI cyclists. Some past players in our club and the Crows may have trained themselves out of the game because over emphasis on Aerobics leads to a decrease in speed at the cellular level.

I may just be a biased Port Supporter and I may be wrong but the reason why Neil Craig has no plan B is that his training methods dictate his style of play.

Surely there are criticisms of Mark Williams’s game plan but I think that no one doubts that he is multi-dimensional, stubborn but adaptable.

Re: Boys back in training

Agility Training (If I was Alistair Clarckson)

At the moment the teams that are receiving all the accolades are Geelong and Hawthorne due to the fact that they seem to be setting the standard for coaching and conditioning their players. I for one am not afraid of Hawthorne, I respect their team, but looking at how we played them the last time we met I think we know how to handle our many former team members, however, I digress.

A few people have said, especially around the AFL that Andrew Russel at Hawthorne is big on core strength. If that was the case all we would have to do is do a lot of exercises that involve a high level of demand on the core and we would have better and more balanced athletes.

I think that proper agility training is the key to understanding how we can improve an athlete’s ability to hold his feet. The very essence of lateral movement is change of direction. There are 3 pre-requisites that are needed to have good agility and this is why people think that this is core training. The truth be told is that you do train your core to a high level when you train for agility properly.

The first prerequisite is that you have enough single leg strength necessary to stop movement and to restart it after stopping.


http://www.google.com.au/imgres?img...=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=6&ct=image&cd=1








Without single leg strength, an athlete will not be able to change direction or shake of a tackler at high speeds.

The second criterion is that you must be able to decelerate (come to a rapid stop). An athlete must have trained their eccentric strength. Eccentric loads are when the muscle is getting longer under load but for our purposes we think of it as the ability to put on the brakes quick.

The 3rd prerequisite is that you need to be able to land with stability. To move to the left you push off with the right foot but before you push off you must have slowed down, aced the landing and then have the strength to push off. Now imaging doing this with a big gorilla hanging off of you?

Often agility drills are taught by getting cones and telling people to go fast and lower their times in an agility run. Instead we can make sure we have the above criterion, do exercise that emphasises all three criteria (SEE U-tube video http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=e0njPsJqikU) and finally add exercises such as the agility run that incorporates accelerating, having to stop and change direction and being quick about it.

[youtube]e0njPsJqikU[/youtube]

The difference IMO of an Alistair Clarkson is that he may spend time on these components whereas other coaches may go straight to doing drills involving handballs, change of direction, and quick thinking. It still is effective but you wouldn't get the same results.

Don't forget, a Falloon style Hypertrophy and strenghtening phase is necessary to convert all the strenght gained into hard running and agility.

I must take you guys up on the offer to show me how to post photos on this site.

Re: Boys back in training

Thanks for the help FF.

After viewing the U-tube video, viewing the hockey training in some of the other videos shows the awesome NHL athletes doing the power slide training. (Just enter Utube powerstride on and off ice training)This shows how some of the training is on the ground and balanced and how some of the others involve more and more movement. Worth looking at what some of the other world athletes do because this is what footy clubs do at the end of the year.

Re: Power Pre-Season Training Pics (Fri 9th Jan)

RussellEbertHandball said:

You have to ask the question, if that much physical development can happen between early October and Christmas, what have we been doing between late 2004 and Oct 2008?

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There are only a few teams that have cottoned on to the fact that the AFL rules is a game that is power dominant rather than a game of attrition. The ones that have are near the top. Teams such as Geelong are getting better at preparing and so the unprepared are swept away.

The reason for the confusion in training methods was explained to me in a workshop given by a power-lifter who conditioned hockey athletes in the U.S. He said Sports scientists believe that to train an athlete one needs to establish an aerobic base so that the athlete can recover quicker. Modern thinking says that getting players to become aerobically fit takes away from the very qualities that makes our game so great. You need to develop endurance without steady state running (jogging for miles). IMO Falloon sees his base as a base of strength and develops power, speed and specific endurance on top, while Neil Craig gets his players aerobically fit and then tries to develop those qualities on top. The problem with the latter is that when you develop endurance through lots of km you are taking away from your ability to get strong, powerful and fast.

Re: Power Pre-Season Training Pics (Fri 9th Jan)

morell said:

Players always look bigger this time of the year, they are smack bang in the middle of their weights program and generally don't have game soreness/injuries to prevent them from continuing.

I know personally my weights sessions practically diminishes to nothing during the playing year but is quite intense during pre-season.

It's one of the reasons why pre-seasons are so important to a players year, getting that foundation in place for the rigours of the season ahead.

Click to expand...

In the U.S., the NFL and NHL have gone through this change in the way they do things. The pre-season is when you increase your size but it depends how you have done your hypertrophy training. If your gains have come from an increase in the size of the contractile componant of the muscles, a loss in size will also coincide with a loss in strength. There are in-season programs that are designed to take into consideration the rigours ofthe game and maintain the size power and strength of the athlete. In fact, when the season is in full swing, Falloon will be responsible for this. The Doggies do it, Hawthorne does it, Geelong does it, so can we. In think that we have more players that are genetically gifted in the power department and we can cut into the competitive advantage (their training) that these teams have over us.

I think FF's comments could be pretty close to the mark. In Tredders interview on 5aa he said that it was Mark who told him to come in ligter that year. The team has all but admitted that this (neglecting strength) is where they had gone wrong.

Re: Boys back in training

Today I trained a young Victorian lad today from the Gippsland Power who was visiting Adelaide with his family and they came to me to discuss the fact that he was not very quick off the mark. After looking at his running style I gave a couple of recommendations mainly based around the technique of taking off and changing direction.

The Dad found that interesting because apparently at Hawthorne their training is centered around change of direction. In fact his son was supposed to go to the club to train with them.


The Dad commented that training at Hawthorne almost revolves around change of direction drills. It is interesing that Chad Cornes called Russell a more track orientated trainer. Just look at how powerful a good track session can be.

[youtube]q33pqu-zRas[/youtube]

Re: Boys back in training

Ford Fairlane said:

I was watching the NAB Cup Grand Final last night, and I don't know if it's the hoops or not, but just about every Geelong player looks really solid through the core/trunk. You can see with some clubs, that they weight train more like bodybuilders - big upper body, wasp-like thru the waist and hips. Geelong are more like a bunch of small cupboards and refrigerators running through opponents.

I'd assume Power freak that Geelong have been going down this core strengthening path for some years now. Cam Falloon mentioned Geelong as setting a seven year goal in 2000 for a premiership, and IIRC they really publicly announced an emphasis on weight training around 2003. So that would give them about a five year headstart on us for example. The muscle mass, density and maturity of their players is scary - senior guys like Ablett, Chapman, Ottens, Rooke especially for example, and you can see Selwood transforming too.

From some of your comments you're convinced Port are heading down the core strengthening road, while other clubs go more the bodybuilding route, and still others are making weights secondary to aerobic conditioning. Would that be fair comment?

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That would be accurate. Conditioning experts have had such a love affair with aerobic conditioning so not enough emphasis is put on other aspects such as strength and power. Not to fear though, the language of our club has changed and so has the attitude. Power lifters, sprinters, and track cyclists follow the same principals of having weekly cycles (micro-cycles), monthly (macro-cycles), yearly cycles (meso-cycles). The reason for this is that we only have a small window in the pre-season to increse strength significantly. The rest of the year is dedicated to maintaining it. Geelong would have gone through these cycles as you have already alluded to.

Luckily we have a power lifter as our conditioning guy in the gym so this is nothing new to him. I had stated in previous posts that the type of conditioning expert has always come from the old school sports scientist. Geelong poached Adelaide's more forward thinking expert and reaped the rewards. In fact, we may need to give Lullman almost as much credit as Falloon in that Falloon could have been instrumental in asking for a person with a power-lifting background knowing that if he says ,"Hypertrophy for Kane for 6 micro cycles and begin max strenght in week four with 2 Hypertrophy sessions and and 2 max strength sessions". They would be on the same page.

We are behind Geelong but not as much as 5 years. We may have done weights inncorrectly but we still have done them, therefore, as far as the Senior players are concerned it is a couple of years difference. You can see this when you compare our senior guys to our juniors. Look how much Kane gained compared to the younger guys. Wade was a sprinter so he had a higher weight training age than other players so he bulked quicker. Look at athletes who quit sports and come back only to win a medal when they had a two year lay-off.

Geelong this year also announced that they were going to concentrate more on power. They have this luxury because they have spent enough seasons trying to increase their maximum lifts that they can spend less time on this and more on lifting explosively. Yes they are about to reach their peak but let us hope we have enough players who are naturally gifted wich will nullify their competitive advantage. The Burgoyne bros., Wade, Motlop, Gray, Kraks, Pearce, and others have special qualities that you don't get from training. They seem inherent. It will be interesting how we go but we could be the dark horse to give Geelong trouble.

BTW, power training incorporates a lot of core conditioning into the training. Look at a powerlifter and they have that similar look that you were talking about above. In fact, according to one SASI powerlifter; on average powerlifters are the quickest over 3-5 steps, jump the highest from a standing start and are the most flexible in comparison to all olympic athletes.

I was asked by REH to pull together a dedicated thread for Power freak 2008's observations on Port's training.

This is the first iteration of such a thread, including some comments on pre-season training. There's still a bit of sifting of material to go through to add more of Power freak's posts.

Power freak has agreed to continue to contribute his thoughts of Port's ongoing fitness program to this thread, so stay tuned!

Thanks for doing that Ford and Power freak agreeing to contribute. A good head fitness coach as we saw when Andrew Russell was appointed at the end of 2000, is becoming as important as a good main coach. Hopefully Falloon will repeat what Russell was able to do. I thought it would be good to have a a single thread with Pf's explanations of what we have been doing since Falloon took over and his views on the difference in training strategies that clubs might adopt.

Hopefully our game plan will ignite an increase in our fitness. Even though in the pre-season we may have made great strides in our conditioning we build alot of the fitness as we play. It was intereating that a Western Bulldog supporter used the term gut running. This is something that the Dogs have done and something that we have trained for under the tutelage of Falloon. The problem is that with our game-plan we were not taking advantage of our conditioning and taking it to new levels. Our last game we wore out our opponent for a change and we now have a chance on building on the rest of the year by completing our conditioning through sheer hard work. Fallon can't force us to run ourselves ragged but he can give us the tools to do so. Fingers crossed but we may see a few players also take their game to the next level. I nominate the D-Rod and Travis Boak when he gets back from injury.

Can't wait to see some gut running from our boys.

I would like to nominate my buddy junior burger. I know he's been on the sidelines for the best part of the year, but falloon was very excited about working with him which can only be a good thing.

Interested in your earlier comments on core strength training Power Freak. I have had 2 knee recons, one around 8 years ago and another last year. The rehab this time around has been highly focused on my core strength which is very different to last time. The theory is that the core strength will improve the way I move placing less stress on the knees (my acl last year was in the same vain as Burton's ie no external pressure during the incident).

So my observation is that Geelong seem to have had a good run in regards to knee injuries. Do you feel core strength training has had a role to play in this or is it just luck?

The core muscles are responsible for stiffening the spine. When we walk if the core is working properly their is activation of these deep muscles a fraction of a second before heel strike.

As you dorsi-flex (pull your foot up to prepare for heelstrikes), a muscle located around your shin tenses and in turn sends a signal through your hamstring (Peroneous longus) and eventually to your deep muscles via a ligament called the ilioinguinal ligament. This provides a stable base just before heels strike and absorbs the impact of the force as we hit the ground. A weak core would be the missing link in a chain that is supposed to not only provide stability during gait but dissapate the forces coming from the ground. Just think of a strong chain with nothing to anchor to.

This is probably the most pessimistic I have felt in November about our finals prospect for the following season. I'm probably more pessimistic than in November 1996 when our first squad hadn't even been announced. At the moment I reckon we will struggle to win 10 games.

The one bright shinning light I feel is Cameron Falloon and his assistants, who will have a second full pre season to get the boys fit and increase their strength. With us having so many players under 24 he will be a big influence on how much they will progress next year. Hopefully the defensive know how of Laidely and Hocking's development skills will help fill the deficiencies our side showed in 2009 but i think the work Falloon does over the next 4 to 5 months will shape our season substantially.

So to Power freak, Ford, Natman and others who attend training sessions over the pre season I look forward to your reports on how our young squad is progressing and hopefully it will change my pessimistic attitude.

RussellEbertHandball said:

So to Power freak, Ford, Natman and others who attend training sessions over the pre season I look forward to your reports on how our young squad is progressing and hopefully it will change my pessimistic attitude.

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I wish it could change my attitude. Last summer we had 'everyone looking stronger' so it was we - 'won't be so easily pushed off the ball', 'be able to finally break a tackle', 'hold a tackle', 'run out games'. None of which happened. Still I suppose the next installment in 'Look like Tarzan, play like Jane', will at least waste a few summer hours.