Training Team Fitness

[breeno]

Okay, so I got around to watching a delayed stream of the match versus GCS.

For me, the thing that stands out like the proverbial dog's ****s, is our inability to run, and run, and run - a problem most notable in our midfield, but probably contributed to by our flankers.

Opposition midfielders are quite simply making more repeat efforts than we are, and this is being reflected in the disposal counts each week. When we were smashing teams in the clearances in previous years, as well as tackles, this probably got papered over a little bit. Now that we're losing the clearances, it is glaringly obvious as we get exposed both around the ground and when chasing.

Why did I post this today? Because it became glaringly obvious after seeing how hard Luke McDonald was running and the reward he got for it. Our low disposal counts week after week probably contribute to this. Our mids aren't running in waves and it replicates in those counts. If only Gibson and another bloke are fit enough to run to receive, it reduces the amount of options we have when we do get the ball. This is when you get people handballing to stationary targets and so on.

I noticed it against the Bulldogs when we were kicking out from the back pocket and *dogs* players were leading ours in every single match-up across the ground, with our blokes trailing them and running like they had lead shoes. Unsurprisingly, the kick went to a contest where the Dogs swarmed and it went straight back into the I50. If this is what's happening regularly, it's not a shock that we have blokes making poor decisions.

This isn't a good situation for a side to be in. Losing clearances and not running as hard as the opposition is a combination that would make any coach tear his hair out. But it also shows to me that if we can fix this, maybe our back six and forward six would have us rocket back up in a short period of time.

Swallow (whose effort is unquestionable IMO), Ziebell, Cunnington, Dumont are all not fit enough. Gibson runs hard all day and supposedly Clarke is one of our harder workers but I'm yet to see it. I need to watch Mountford a bit more to see if he can assist in this regard.

I have a little bit of experience in the body composition area, and over the pre-season we need to target repeated anaerobic efforts (not my specialty) as much as we possibly can whilst trying to maintain the size and lean-muscle mass that we have packed onto our midfielders. However, given how dire the running situation is, I would not be disappointed if we chose to sacrifice a little bit of weight for an improved running capacity.

If someone like Cunners can increase his TOG and/or get to 10 more contests per game, then this would help us immensely. I would gladly take a 1-3kg loss in body mass to make that happen (do this right and much of that body mass loss will just be fat anyway). If all of our mids and our rotational mids can get to a few more contests per game, we might see things change very quickly.

However, it begs the question. How much of this is a lack of fitness and our much of this is a lack of effort or will? Are we unwilling or unable to sustain a higher work-rate?

Can the people who attend training take note of how much repeated sprint work we do?

 

[roos_fanatic08]

This is a fantastic post.

I've been saying for years that Cunners and Ziebell are way too heavy they simply can't cover the ground. Their repeat efforts are nothing short of terrible for an AFL footballer.

 

[Zondor]

Yep. Ripping Post breeno. I blame Scotts. He can shove his Sports Science Degree up his arse. :stern look

 

[Tas]

The problem isn't that Cunnington or Ziebell don't have an elite tank, you can sort of cover a few dubious inside mids, the problem is the lack of endurance almost everywhere. We don't have a lot of good runners, so bad that guys like Hansen, Wood and the like do better than most of our midfielders/running players which isn't good enough for this level.

A problem is the game has changed with rule changes, when we recruited Ziebell and Cunnington, we just rotated the s**t out of them so it wasn't a big deal, but the interchange cap has been a problem for our existing players.

I am not sure if our recent recruitment/development has been a whole lot better.

 

[shinboner magic]

Okay, so I got around to watching a delayed stream of the match versus GCS.

For me, the thing that stands out like the proverbial dog's ****s, is our inability to run, and run, and run - a problem most notable in our midfield, but probably contributed to by our flankers.

Opposition midfielders are quite simply making more repeat efforts than we are, and this is being reflected in the disposal counts each week. When we were smashing teams in the clearances in previous years, as well as tackles, this probably got papered over a little bit. Now that we're losing the clearances, it is glaringly obvious as we get exposed both around the ground and when chasing.

Why did I post this today? Because it became glaringly obvious after seeing how hard Luke McDonald was running and the reward he got for it. Our low disposal counts week after week probably contribute to this. Our mids aren't running in waves and it replicates in those counts. If only Gibson and another bloke are fit enough to run to receive, it reduces the amount of options we have when we do get the ball. This is when you get people handballing to stationary targets and so on.

I noticed it against the Bulldogs when we were kicking out from the back pocket and *dogs* players were leading ours in every single match-up across the ground, with our blokes trailing them and running like they had lead shoes. Unsurprisingly, the kick went to a contest where the Dogs swarmed and it went straight back into the I50. If this is what's happening regularly, it's not a shock that we have blokes making poor decisions.

This isn't a good situation for a side to be in. Losing clearances and not running as hard as the opposition is a combination that would make any coach tear his hair out. But it also shows to me that if we can fix this, maybe our back six and forward six would have us rocket back up in a short period of time.

Swallow (whose effort is unquestionable IMO), Ziebell, Cunnington, Dumont are all not fit enough. Gibson runs hard all day and supposedly Clarke is one of our harder workers but I'm yet to see it. I need to watch Mountford a bit more to see if he can assist in this regard.

I have a little bit of experience in the body composition area, and over the pre-season we need to target repeated anaerobic efforts (not my specialty) as much as we possibly can whilst trying to maintain the size and lean-muscle mass that we have packed onto our midfielders. However, given how dire the running situation is, I would not be disappointed if we chose to sacrifice a little bit of weight for an improved running capacity.

If someone like Cunners can increase his TOG and/or get to 10 more contests per game, then this would help us immensely. I would gladly take a 1-3kg loss in body mass to make that happen (do this right and much of that body mass loss will just be fat anyway). If all of our mids and our rotational mids can get to a few more contests per game, we might see things change very quickly.

However, it begs the question. How much of this is a lack of fitness and our much of this is a lack of effort or will? Are we unwilling or unable to sustain a higher work-rate?

Can the people who attend training take note of how much repeated sprint work we do?

Right onthe money- this is the main reason teams exit our fwd line so easily - we just can't do the repeat running.

 

[Gasometer]

Wouldn't most of the running be done in Pre Season?

And begs the question of the high altitude training.

 

[Gasometer]

And tackle consistency from week to week.

 

[breeno]

Wouldn't most of the running be done in Pre Season?

Theoretically yes but I have seen wrestlers turn it around mid-season. During the season the actual match takes up a lot of that volume, so total volume often remains the same. The guys I know usually train their athletes in intense high volume blocks with de-load weeks, which is hard to replicate in-season due to having to peak for the match, but we're doing something wrong for our boys to seemingly get worse as the season wears on.

 

[Zondor]

Don't forget that Endurance is built over a number of years. The question that needs to be asked is have we been able to build the Endurance base of our playing list to an acceptable level under Scotts Guidance? Look deep within yourselves my friends. The answer will hit you in the eye like a Turkey Slap. :stern look

 

[muttley45]

We mostly don't even run to provide leads/blocks/shepherds when we have posession of the pill, and you expect 2 way running to chase, tackle, and pressure opposition when they have it, good luck with that, requires a whole new game plan and team wide intensity.

 

[Snake_Baker]

I'm not quite sure if i'm following you here breeno.

IMO, we have been running out games well.

4th quarters

North (6.3) v StKilda (3.2)
North (4.3) v Dogs (3.3)
North (6.2) v GC (5.4)

 

[breeno]

I'm not quite sure if i'm following you here breeno.

IMO, we have been running out games well.

4th quarters

North (6.3) v StKilda (3.2)
North (4.3) v Dogs (3.3)
North (6.2) v GC (5.4)

With all due respect, there is a difference between aerobic conditioning and anaerobic conditioning (you know this, I'm not trying to condescend). You can run a game out better than an opposition whilst still lacking in the sphere of intense repeat efforts. Tortoise and the hare type stuff but we seem to be getting blown apart throughout the middle of the game when our players are just quite simply unable to match the opposition's intensity for the same period of time that they can. As the game breaks open and the opposition drops off, we seem able to match our previous quarter efforts (even slightly improving them), but that doesn't mean that we can go with them in the early-middle of the game.

One could make an argument that by the fourth quarter the opposition is unable to match our repeated intense efforts for as long as we are able to, showing that it evens out, but late in games repeat efforts tend to drop overall as players are worn out. It's the ceiling on those efforts that we need to raise.

It's that crucial time when their players are stepping up the intensity and repeat efforts and ours are hunched over gasping for air that is killing us. This is why I have hope that we're not as far off as people think we are.

 

[Snake_Baker]

With all due respect, there is a difference between aerobic conditioning and anaerobic conditioning (you know this, I'm not trying to condescend). You can run a game out better than an opposition whilst still lacking in the sphere of intense repeat efforts. Tortoise and the hare type stuff but we seem to be getting blown apart throughout the middle of the game when our players are just quite simply unable to match the opposition's intensity for the same period of time that they can. As the game breaks open and the opposition drops off, we seem able to match our previous quarter efforts (even slightly improving them), but that doesn't mean that we can go with them in the early-middle of the game.

One could make an argument that by the fourth quarter the opposition is unable to match our repeated intense efforts for as long as we are able to, showing that it evens out, but late in games repeat efforts tend to drop overall as players are worn out. It's the ceiling on those efforts that we need to raise.

Interesting.

I believe we have been beaten in the centre square because we have come up against better talented midfields, not necessarily fitter midfields. Cunnington is elite, but Jack is forced to play a role for which he is not best suited and Spitta has slowed down due to injury & age. Goldsteins drop in form has also affected this area. Depth wise, we really fall away. Higgins is solid, but I don't rate Dumont. The we are left with taggers, Jacobs & the raw Mountford. We really are skinny in the guts.

I will keep an eye open for the points you raise.

 

[breeno]

Interesting.

I believe we have been beaten in the centre square because we have come up against better talented midfields, not necessarily fitter midfields. Cunnington is elite, but Jack is forced to play a role for which he is not best suited and Spitta has slowed down due to injury & age. Goldsteins drop in form has also affected this area. Depth wise, we really fall away. Higgins is solid, but I don't rate Dumont. The we are left with taggers, Jacobs & the raw Mountford. We really are skinny in the guts.

I will keep an eye open for the points you raise.

Not disagreeing there, but I think it's kind of heartening to note that even with our rather untalented midfield (or comparatively less talented), we should still this season be in contention for the top 8.

If you get the chance and the time, please watch our midfielders and see if you notice this same phenomenon that I have noticed with admittedly only one eye to it, the other to the game. When McDonald blitzed it earlier I could not help but notice that he was our one player apart from perhaps Swallow who was consistently around the ball. The others had far too many times where they fell back unable to keep up, a tell-tale sign of just not being able to match the intense repeated effort that the opposition was serving up.

Too many periods of that dropping off does a lot of damage. If too many of our midfielders fail to keep up with their opponents' repeat efforts ten times in a single quarter, then they usually get a wave-run happening, they have time to dispose of the ball, and almost certainly will get an inside 50 (especially if this same pattern is repeated all over the ground and their half-forwards get separation on our half-backs). That could be 6 or 7 shots on goal per game gifted to them which may be the difference between us finishing 17th or 7th.

It's much easier to pick out particular players and follow them, or in our case, to pick out the players who can keep up during those intense quarters. McDonald seems to be one of those and it's through watching his game that the lack of ability to run of some of our other players really stood out. You think: "wow McDonald gets another possession, I wonder why [insert midfielder here] isn't?" Then you look at where they both started McDonald and Player X side by side, only to see McDonald up the other end of the ground in the thick of it and Player X lagging 15-20m behind.

 

[breeno]

And tackle consistency from week to week.

I think this is a symptom of the aforementioned issue tbh. You've got to be within a few metres of the ball carrier to even think about laying a tackle. Tackling (like wrestling) is one of the more anaerobic-based efforts in my experience.

 

[breeno]

The problem isn't that Cunnington or Ziebell don't have an elite tank, you can sort of cover a few dubious inside mids, the problem is the lack of endurance almost everywhere. We don't have a lot of good runners, so bad that guys like Hansen, Wood and the like do better than most of our midfielders/running players which isn't good enough for this level.

As I said to Snake, I don't think that it's endurance that's the problem, but ability to endure repeat intense efforts for a considerable length of time. Guys like Hansen and Wood have good endurance time trials but I haven't watched them enough to see if they are as adept in say 10 x 80m sprints (and without noting the degree to which pace drops off at the end). Lots of guys struggle with the latter and excel at the former, and vice versa.

 

[naturally north]

Our issue and tge reason we feel we are struggling is our lack of spread. Sides know this and exploit it. Offering millions to Martin and Kelly isn't built around hope. Its built around rectification.

 

[Zondor]

Our issue and tge reason we feel we are struggling is our lack of spread. Sides know this and exploit it. Offering millions to Martin and Kelly isn't built around hope. Its built around rectification.

Well then recruiting Annabel Chong could be on the cards. She would sort out our issues with spread. :stern look

 

[naturally north]

Well then recruiting Annabel Chong could be on the cards. She would sort out our issues with spread. :stern look

International rookie?

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

International rookie?

Category D.

 

[Rockstar6]

I don't think it's fitness. I think it's laziness. They seem to have the tank to run forward when we have the ball but when it gets turned over or we kick a point they seem to just jog and play 5-15 metres off their opponent which allows the opposition to pock through our "defense".

 

[Twinkletoes]

Well then recruiting Annabel Chong could be on the cards. She would sort out our issues with spread. :stern look

Also a hard ball get specialist and particularly good in the wet. Good call!

 

[Groin guru]

Okay, so I got around to watching a delayed stream of the match versus GCS.

For me, the thing that stands out like the proverbial dog's ****s, is our inability to run, and run, and run - a problem most notable in our midfield, but probably contributed to by our flankers.

Opposition midfielders are quite simply making more repeat efforts than we are, and this is being reflected in the disposal counts each week. When we were smashing teams in the clearances in previous years, as well as tackles, this probably got papered over a little bit. Now that we're losing the clearances, it is glaringly obvious as we get exposed both around the ground and when chasing.

Why did I post this today? Because it became glaringly obvious after seeing how hard Luke McDonald was running and the reward he got for it. Our low disposal counts week after week probably contribute to this. Our mids aren't running in waves and it replicates in those counts. If only Gibson and another bloke are fit enough to run to receive, it reduces the amount of options we have when we do get the ball. This is when you get people handballing to stationary targets and so on.

I noticed it against the Bulldogs when we were kicking out from the back pocket and *dogs* players were leading ours in every single match-up across the ground, with our blokes trailing them and running like they had lead shoes. Unsurprisingly, the kick went to a contest where the Dogs swarmed and it went straight back into the I50. If this is what's happening regularly, it's not a shock that we have blokes making poor decisions.

This isn't a good situation for a side to be in. Losing clearances and not running as hard as the opposition is a combination that would make any coach tear his hair out. But it also shows to me that if we can fix this, maybe our back six and forward six would have us rocket back up in a short period of time.

Swallow (whose effort is unquestionable IMO), Ziebell, Cunnington, Dumont are all not fit enough. Gibson runs hard all day and supposedly Clarke is one of our harder workers but I'm yet to see it. I need to watch Mountford a bit more to see if he can assist in this regard.

I have a little bit of experience in the body composition area, and over the pre-season we need to target repeated anaerobic efforts (not my specialty) as much as we possibly can whilst trying to maintain the size and lean-muscle mass that we have packed onto our midfielders. However, given how dire the running situation is, I would not be disappointed if we chose to sacrifice a little bit of weight for an improved running capacity.

If someone like Cunners can increase his TOG and/or get to 10 more contests per game, then this would help us immensely. I would gladly take a 1-3kg loss in body mass to make that happen (do this right and much of that body mass loss will just be fat anyway). If all of our mids and our rotational mids can get to a few more contests per game, we might see things change very quickly.

However, it begs the question. How much of this is a lack of fitness and our much of this is a lack of effort or will? Are we unwilling or unable to sustain a higher work-rate?

Can the people who attend training take note of how much repeated sprint work we do?

Breeno aren't you only a personal trainer? Leave the body comp stuff to the experts with a DEXA license. Not those who use BIA scales in a gym. Anaerobic burns less fat than aerobic respiration does. Here's an example taken from a dodgy website (still a good example and i can't be bothered scanning a better example):



It's pretty common knowledge that we stuffed up last season with our pre-season planning (2016 pre-season). The fitness staff assumed the reduced interchanges would result in a more enduranced based style. They were wrong. Almost every other club opted for repeated bursts or as it is more commonly know (HIIT). I assume we rectified it in the 2017 pre-season but we would still be a bit behind the 8-ball. Training AFL athletes is hard (I'd argue they are one of if not the hardest athlete in the world to train). Hinkley brought in Burgess widely known as one of the best in the business (came from liverpool and is now leaving port for Arsenal). They started off great and their repeated bursts were torching opposition players. But it's not a magic cure. They haven't been that good since (this season they have performed better).

I'd argue it comes down to laziness coupled with a lack of pace. Cousins has said that he would try to break opposition tags by using his pace. Against Cross (dogs - who at the time was one of the best taggers) he would start in the back 50 and sprint down the centre of the field and cross couldn't keep pace. He did it time and time again and cross couldn't go with him. Of course you still need a ridiculous fitness base behind you to pull that off.

I think that's why we get exposed on the counter so often. Ziebell, cunnington, dumont and co can't keep up and it forces others to zone off and cover. It's okay if the opposition bombs it in long because thompson, hansen, and tarrant are good at reading the play and chop it off. But if the opposition lowers their eyes or if the kicker has no pressure placed on them we tend to leak goals.

 

[Royal Flush]

I'm not quite sure if i'm following you here breeno.

IMO, we have been running out games well.

4th quarters

North (6.3) v StKilda (3.2)
North (4.3) v Dogs (3.3)
North (6.2) v GC (5.4)

Yes I agree I don't think it's fitness.
Those last quarter stats highlight that fact.
I witnessed , in the third quarter , the sun's For example just did not run and spread when transitioning from half back.
They allowed us to get back into the game.
The way the game is played today, teams can not run 4 quarters, it just doesn't seem humanly possible.
Once upon a time six goal leads were the basis of a 10 goal win.
It rarely happen these days and most teams , in particular this season, have clawed back those deficits in a quarter and a half of footy.

My guess is the better teams that hold of opposition momentum shifts, do this by minimising turnovers and have better disposal when they have the ball.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Unity-28]

Yes I agree I don't think it's fitness.
Those last quarter stats highlight that fact.
I witnessed , in the third quarter , the sun's For example just did not run and spread when transitioning from half back.
They allowed us to get back into the game.
The way the game is played today, teams can not run 4 quarters, it just doesn't seem humanly possible.
Once upon a time six goal leads were the basis of a 10 goal win.
It rarely happen these days and most teams , in particular this season, have clawed back those deficits in a quarter and a half of footy.

My guess is the better teams that hold of opposition momentum shifts, do this by minimising turnovers and have better disposal when they have the ball.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

yep, and the lack of our speed and foot skills just magnifies how slow we look...
time and time again though, you see our guys trailing the oppos, once they have the ball.
our training (endurance and hiit) has been our of balance. i believe we did better balance it this past pre season, but we are well behind other teams.
cunners for instance looks a lot leaner this year.