Review The pre-season Altitude Experiment

[mish33]

Hi guys,

I generally just lurk on here, with the odd post, but this is something that I've been thinking about a bit lately and it's probably about the time that we can start assessing its success.

What are your thoughts on the pre-season Arizona trip? Has it benefitted the players (Brown, Black, Adcock, and Rockliff IIRC) significantly? Should the club continue down this path next year? Should they send a small, select group again, or take the whole group over?

I think the benefits they were talking up were:

Less load on older legs
Increased aerobic capacity
Improved injury recovery

To be honest I haven't noticed any significant (eye-catching) differences in aerobic ability from that group. That said I think Sauce has taken his running game up a notch. Browny is fit and firing, and is showing no signs of his usual end of season fade out and Black came back earlier than expected from his broken hand.

I don't know if it has aided Adcock or Rockliff or not. They are both having good seasons and Jed has been injury free which has been rare for him lately. Considering how young Rocky is, he's handling a really big workload, more attention this year and has maintained his consistency from last year without breaking down. Is this due to further maturity or better condition from OS?

It seems like it's helped our older players stay on the park, it would have been good to see how much a younger player (a Green or Patty K for instance) would get out of it.

I suppose I expected the players that went to become absolute running demons, but if it has only meant being able to keep them on the park for longer, than I think it has been benefitial to the team.

I guess I'm a little ambivalent as to the need to send the whole team next year. But there are some players that I think could get something out of it, namely Leuey, Drummo, Cal - all in the injury-prone gun category, as well as our veterans, including McGrath. I'd also be sending Polec along to get an idea of how he can improve his fitness in altitude.

Your thoughts?

 

[POBT]

I reckon one of the biggest benefits was to change up the pre-season drudgery for the likes of Brown and Black. I recall Black made a comment about how refreshing it was to do something new. Black looks fresh at the moment - obviously his role has changed but I do wonder if Arizona broke up the monotony for him.

I'd like to see us continue to send the old blokes there - I think it is good for reducing their workloads. In terms of the younger guys, it could definitely have an advantage for the blokes that we'd like to see take the step into the midfield - thinking guys like Polec, Karnezis, Docherty might be options there.

Having said that, I believe TBD has made the point in the past that clubs are sending their players to really hot environments for pre-season work which we have available on tap in Queensland. There is something to be said for those young guys sweating it out in December in order to improve their footy.

 

[Gibbo_88]

It must be a pretty expensive exercise. I think it is necessary to send players like Brown and Black, they get the greatest benefit out of it and their bodies need to be managed if they are going to play past this year. I don't think it's a great idea sending the whole team, especially guys in their 1st-3rd year. Yes they will get fit far quicker and have more time to work on footy skills but...they need to work their butt off to make it as a player and high altitude training shouldn't be relied on. I'm hoping we send a small group of senior players again because I think the chances of Black staying on one more year are better if we do.