This appeared on the Herald Sun website this week:
The focus of my training is not what really everyone focuses on. While 90% of other footy players are just worried about how far they can run, my focus is more on the explosive side of things.
Not that being able to run all day isn't a requirement of the game but it's 1 small part of the game, not the entire thing.
My focus this off season will primarily be increasing speed, both linear and lateral. As a by product of this I also envision an increase in vertical leap also.
The focus of speed / explosive training is either completely missed or most player's programs or not trained anywhere like it is supposed to be.
Speed training usually looks like a repeated sprint session like10 x 100m with incomplete for example which is not a program geared towards increasing actual speed - as in decreasing your time over a specific distance.
So why is speed and explosiveness so important in Aussie Rules Football?
The main reason is that there are points in the game where you need to be quicker or where you need to be able to jump higher then your opposition. I would place this of great importance, even more so then being able to run all day because you don't need to be everywhere all the time. We have 18 players that each play a position on the ground.
When you need to jump in the ruck or run for a loose ball on the wing it's just you and the opposition - and you need to win. You'll never win the tap if you can;t jump as high and you'll never get to the loose ball first if you can't run as fast.
By increasing speed and explosiveness you give your self a better chance of being a factor at the end of the game then the player who does not. Providing we can all run out a game of footy because we do pre season training and continue to train during the in season then speed and explosiveness is what can set players apart from everyone else.
Lets look at it this way:
Player A can run 40m in 5secs, player B can run 40m in 5.5secs.
Over the course of a game fatigue builds up so each quarter might look like this for a 40m sprint:
1st Quarter: Player A - 5secs / Player B - 5.5secs
2nd Quarter: Player A - 5.25secs / Player B - 5.75secs
3rd Quarter: Player A - 5.5secs / Player B - 6secs
4th Quarter: Player A - 5.75secs / Player B - 6.25secs
By simply being faster, player A is going to win a loose ball contest in all 4 quarters of footy versus his slower opponent, and this is if they both drop off in speed at the same rate.
The same works for ruckman or tall forwards and backman with vertical leap, whoever has the highest leap at the start of the game will have the higher leap at the end of the game.
You can run all day which is great, but can you run FAST all day?
This is what I program my training to do and it's exactly what it will do for the blokes who have already signed up for the off season training camp starting next week.
Get on it or be literally be left behind.
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