Fitness levels at the start of the season

[SBD Gonzalez]

Something I'm just not getting (having never played Aussie Rules at a professional level- hah!).

As a Sydney Swans fan, I'm constantly hearing that right now, the Swans' training is a month behind that of teams who didn't feature in September. (Presumably fans of other teams who made the finals hear this about their teams to a degree relative to how deep into September they went.)

Yet as I watch some games in the first round, we're seeing teams fading towards the end of quarters, and markedly so towards the end of games. The commentators constantly tell us that you can train all you want, but there's just no substitute for match fitness, and teams won't reach full fitness till deeper into the season.

Surely it can't be both?

Surely if there's no substitute for match fitness, the intensity of finals footy means teams which played finals last year would be in awesome form.

Or... surely if you're a month ahead of other teams in your training, that's a huge advantage.

If it can't be both, which one is it?

Or is it more a question of skills maintenance Vs stamina?

Please explain.

 

[DardySingh360]

Wut.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

It's the first game of the year and the players are not accustomed to the rigours of full length games yet. ta-daa

 

[yaco55]

Round 1 is always a struggle for players fitness wise - Wait until 2013 - Three extra games, an earlier start to the season, many players not starting training to January 1.

Round 1 will be interesting in the future.

 

[calyam]

The Swans started their pre-season later than the teams that missed the eight since all players have a guaranteed holiday period. That explains why some consider them a 'month behind'. Any fitness gain from playing through to the end of September is lost in the month off. Of course sometimes talent wins out over fitness even at the beginning of the season.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Hmm, maybe I didn't express myself so well.

I'll put it a different way:

By "match fitness" I mean the kind of fitness that can only be achieved by playing games in the season proper. (If there's a more correct term, please fill me in.)

Time and again, ex-players, commentators etc say that no matter how hard you train, you just can't get that match fitness from normal training sessions and practice matches.

And they've been saying it ad nauseum during Round 1, with teams visibly wilting during the games.

I get that.

But if that's the case, Sydney and Hawthorn should be the two fittest teams in the comp right now, because they played right through to the end of September. (At finals levels of intensity, to boot.)

But all I've heard in the press in recent weeks is how Sydney are underdone because they had a month less preparation.

Doesn't make logical sense to me. Can someone explain it?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

The Swans started their pre-season later than the teams that missed the eight since all players have a guaranteed holiday period. That explains why some consider them a 'month behind'. Any fitness gain from playing through to the end of September is lost in the month off. Of course sometimes talent wins out over fitness even at the beginning of the season.

Thanks calyam, you must have posted this while I was composing my post which appeared straight after.

"Any fitness gain from playing through to the end of September is lost in the month off." - but if we subscribe to the theory that match fitness can only be achieved by playing matches, I'm not sure that adds up. Three tough finals + regular training during finals + guaranteed holiday surely puts you in better stead than holiday during finals + one extra month of regular training?

 

[the dog's kennel]

Hmm, maybe I didn't express myself so well.

I'll put it a different way:

By "match fitness" I mean the kind of fitness that can only be achieved by playing games in the season proper. (If there's a more correct term, please fill me in.)

Time and again, ex-players, commentators etc say that no matter how hard you train, you just can't get that match fitness from normal training sessions and practice matches.

And they've been saying it ad nauseum during Round 1, with teams visibly wilting during the games.

I get that.

But if that's the case, Sydney and Hawthorn should be the two fittest teams in the comp right now, because they played right through to the end of September. (At finals levels of intensity, to boot.)

But all I've heard in the press in recent weeks is how Sydney are underdone because they had a month less preparation.

Doesn't make logical sense to me. Can someone explain it?

Real simple. There is more than one kind of 'fitness'. There's the "running lots and lots" kind of fitness. And there's the "tolerating the rigours of AFL matchplay" kind of fitness. Everyone needs to get up to speed on the 2nd kind. But the Swans are a month behind on the first kind.

 

[half_back_flank]

Hmm, maybe I didn't express myself so well.

But if that's the case, Sydney and Hawthorn should be the two fittest teams in the comp right now, because they played right through to the end of September. (At finals levels of intensity, to boot.)

But all I've heard in the press in recent weeks is how Sydney are underdone because they had a month less preparation.

Doesn't make logical sense to me. Can someone explain it?

The GF was 6 months ago.

It would be impossible to maintain finals fitness for 6 months, especially with the player breaks.

 

[calyam]

Thanks calyam, you must have posted this while I was composing my post which appeared straight after.

"Any fitness gain from playing through to the end of September is lost in the month off." - but if we subscribe to the theory that match fitness can only be achieved by playing matches, I'm not sure that adds up. Three tough finals + regular training during finals + guaranteed holiday surely puts you in better stead than holiday during finals + one extra month of regular training?

But only if you assume that you don't lost a great deal of fitness during that month off. If you accept that all teams return to some base level of fitness during their time off then teams that finish lower have an advantage. For example, at the end of September Swans and Hawks players are the fittest in the league but by the end of October their fitness is now below players from other teams that have begun their pre-season. I doubt the Swans and Hawks players begin the pre-season at an elevated fitness level - which seems to be the implication of what you are sugggesting.

As for 'match fitness', this is essentially the ability to take a hit and keep going. Until you reach the actual season everything is done at below full intensity, so even if you are extremely fit in a running sense you may still struggle once you get laid out a few times. After a few weeks, they body gets used to that a bit more and so players begin to finish off games at a higher level.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

The GF was 6 months ago.

It would be impossible to maintain finals fitness for 6 months, especially with the player breaks.

But the holiday would have been pretty much that long ago too, surely. Don't they cancel each other out?

I guess we're getting into some pretty rarified analysis of residual fitness levels. (Something I know nothing about, not being an elite professional athlete myself.)

 

[GoTheSwannies]

Simple, you don't maintain fitness for very long once you've stopped training/playing.that's why pre season involves building your fitness base first so you have general fitness, but its not until you get a few games under your belt that you build up the right fitness. There's a difference between the fitness you build from merely running, and the fitness you require to run out a game, which involves general running, keeping your feet while being tackled, tackling, getting up after being tackled, chasing down an opponent, short bursts of running at top speed etc

 

[GoTheSwannies]

Put it this way. Say you drop 5% fitness every week after the season has ended. And say its 10 weeks until you start pre season. You're at 50% fitness when you commence pre season training. You've got to build as much of that fitness base before the season starts. The swans lost 4 weeks worth of pre season so other teams who missed the finals have more time to build back up. Teams that go deep into finals have less time and have to cram the preseason into fewer weeks which gives them less time to build up their fitness base (compared to the rest of the league). So its relative to other teams.

Now if you were asking who is more fit in October, of course the teams that played deeper in finals would be more match fit, but we're talking about fitness in late march here

 

[half_back_flank]

But the holiday would have been pretty much that long ago too, surely. Don't they cancel each other out?

I guess we're getting into some pretty rarified analysis of residual fitness levels. (Something I know nothing about, not being an elite professional athlete myself.)

Teams don't spend the whole season at peak fitness. The season is divided up into sequences of building up and tapering off, all with the view of peaking for finals.

If teams don't maintain peak all through the season, how do you expect them to do it over the preseason with no games to push them.

 

[Tippett2Goal]

Surely it can't be both?

It actually can be.

GF was 6 months ago, and match fitness is quickly lost when not playing, so it generally means that those with the longest preseason will have the higher fitness base at this time of year.

Also by the time of the finals you're not really building a fitness base as much as managing players niggles etc to get them through the next few games.

Whilst the opposite is generally true at the start of season, everyone comes back refreshed with no niggling injuries, and need to get back to match fitness.

 

[Tas]

I am surprised off-season training doesn't emulate match fitness fatigue. I guess if you don't get enough of a break then you would be prone to getting injuries.

 

[Damon_3388]

I can understand it with younger guys who are completely new to the system or have only been around a couple of years, but I have a hard time believing that Senior Player X, with 7-8 pre-seasons under his belt, drops off that far during his month off at the end of the season. Surely veteran players have built themselves up to a certain level over time that it shouldn't take them up to a month into the season proper to "get up to speed".

 

[GoTheSwannies]

Sure, seniors would get up to speed quicker, but they'd still be off their mid-season fitness levels. Plus, theyre playing against other seniors who have the same base level fitness but have had an extra month to build. It's all relative in the end

 

[telsor]

Players lose match fitness if they're out injured for a few weeks, and often need a run in the 2s to regain enough of it to play.

I don't think there is any hope of players retaining sufficient match fitness from last season to make a difference, finals or not.

That said, some levels of fitness do stay on, which is why players are physically better off after (say) 5 pre-seasons than they are after 1.

 

[Footypie32]

I think the OP makes a good point. I understand that the Grand Finalists lose fitness in their time off, but the non-finals teams would have more time off, meaning their fitness base would drop down lower, which would mean it would take more training to get it back up. However, if match fitness is the only fitness that really matters, they would never be able to make up that lost ground.

Personally, I think it is just a bunch of rhetoric and cliche.

 

[Dustin Credible]

The OP is something I something I occasionally wonder about too.

Is the non-match fitness gained in 6 months (on top of what one would assume to be a good base fitness) so much greater than that gained in 5 months for a grand finalist?

I can understand the match fitness part applying to all teams getting back into the swing of things.

 

[markr]

Injuries would come in to it too. Every club would have guys who go off for surgery at the end of the season, and even guys who don't need surgery would have knocks and niggles that might need extra time to settle down.

 

[FRUMPY]

I am surprised off-season training doesn't emulate match fitness fatigue. I guess if you don't get enough of a break then you would be prone to getting injuries.

The problem is it doesnt matter how much match-simulation training you do in the pre-season, NOTHING can compare to the playing your first proper game for the year. Every player is pumped up, ready to go for round 1 and the adrenaline takes you to a completely new level. It takes a few weeks to get aclimatised and then games begin to slow down as wear and tear takes its toll.

You can not replicate the mental build up for round 1 and the adrenaline rush you get for it. Thats why rnd 1 is the fastest/most taxing game of the year, except for finals id say where again you get the big build up and adrenaline rush in do or die matches.

 

[Tas]

The problem is it doesnt matter how much match-simulation training you do in the pre-season, NOTHING can compare to the playing your first proper game for the year. Every player is pumped up, ready to go for round 1 and the adrenaline takes you to a completely new level. It takes a few weeks to get aclimatised and then games begin to slow down as wear and tear takes its toll.

You can not replicate the mental build up for round 1 and the adrenaline rush you get for it. Thats why rnd 1 is the fastest/most taxing game of the year, except for finals id say where again you get the big build up and adrenaline rush in do or die matches.

They can release the hounds.

 

[blitzer]

Its really tough to evaluate how fitness levels are affected by different preparation. Mature teams (lets say ones where the average no of games is 100 or more) definitely have a significant advantage in reaching their optimal fitness levels a lot quicker though, because its more of a maintenance issue than needing to build their fitness levels.

I would argue that a young team that goes deep into finals would be more negatively impacted by the shorter preseason than a mature one . Maybe Adelaide is an example case here. Certainly they hit the ground running in the NAB cup last year and this year they were ordinary in the NAB cup and lost round 1. Of course there is the hard to quantify benefit of extra games of football with finals intensity which may have other benefits.
I would expect teams like Collingwood, Hawthorn and Sydney with their experienced and mature bodies to be able to easily handle it however.

Of course there are a ton of other factors as well which affect pre-season fitness levels. Eg Injuries incurred throughout the pre-season, quality of the training, injuries incurred prior to the end of the prior season which prevent training and the age of the players (younger players are mostly going to need to build up endurance and size).