My Personal Story of Overtraining and Why Player Monitoring is More Important Than Training

At the elite level, player monitoring is HUGE. It dictates training volume and individualises training load for each and every player to ensure that they are at their peak each every game.

As local/amateur footballers like us, that should also be our aim but instead of training Thursday, having a decent dinner Friday and expecting to be at 100% come Saturday, we can take the guess work out of it.

Over the next week or 2 I’ll be focusing on this, as well as in-season training programming, because as practice games commence, you should be entering your in-season/competition phase of training to peak for round 1.

Fatigue is a prick and it can come in various forms:

-          -  Physical (heavy legs, decreased power output, sub-optimal sleep quality etc)

-           - Mental (hard to concentrate, scattered brain, lack of motivation etc)

-           - Acute (short term)

-           - Chronic (long term)

Life can also be prick, especially for us non-professionals. As well as training Tuesday/Thursday and playing Saturdays, we also work 5 – 6 days a week and often have the sole responsibility of supporting our families, and all the physical and mental stress that comes with all of those things.

To cap off, the greatest invention in history – the Internet – means we live in an age where technology has infiltrated our society with the instant needs for information, communication and the completion of tasks.

I tell you what, the days of postage only were totally underrated because how long would it take you to write a letter, get the response in a week and respond back in a week? That’s all done in a couple 2min emails now which means now we’re doing 10’s to 100’s of those “letters” a day!

This all builds some form of the stress outlined above, and sometimes a combination of all of them.

Now as men (not discounting the girls here either though!) we don’t get tired, we’re tough so we take these things in our stride, don’t show any weaknesses and just get the job done, but at what expense?

Well if you’re serious about your football, then it’s probably at the expense of your on-field performance.

Player monitoring is probably more important then your training because as stated above, it should dictate your training. Fatigue is very real, even at lower grades of footy.

When I was a youngster in my late teens/early 20’s I was a training machine. I’d start my off-season training on my own in the 1^st week of October and do long runs 3/week. I’d hit the gym 3 – 4/week and I’d also be playing local basketball 1 – 2/week too. I was also pretty active in my own hours having a kick of the footy and a shot of basketball.

I was big on the local nightlife in Warrnambool (if you can call it that!) hitting the pub (and the dirty chips and gravy) 2 – 4/week as well with a few bevs most nights of the week in summer.

Sleep wise I was going to bed in the am’s and getting up in the pm’s most days.

Good fun but not healthy.

Anyway I’d train the house down and never miss a session, or a game, but when I started playing senior football something weird started happening. In the back end of the season I’d really have a case of the can’t be f%$ks and pretty much just show up to these games.

My motivation was shot and looking back it’s all about fatigue.

My body had been stressed to the max for 9 – 10 months by that stage, and it just couldn’t give anymore. This happened for 3 – 4 seasons.

It wasn’t until I started decreasing my training load (starting training later, not training as hard all the time etc) that I could get through a full season with my motivation intact.

This is the worse part about fatigue. You can have it but not know and/or not notice the signs.

Player monitoring ensures you know exactly where you are fatigue-wise at all times. It lets you know when you’re fresh and when you can put in a big session. It can let you know when you need a recovery session (something is always better then nothing…ALWAYS!). It also let’s you know if you just need to back off for a session or 2.

The end game is every Saturday because that’s what you’re judged on. At the end of the day you might train the house down but if you’re not 100% come Saturday then it’s pretty much a waste.

I have developed my own player monitoring system that I will be using with my club’s senior squad this year. It can be used for an entire team or for individual players.

Elite sporting teams, and Port Adelaide have invested heavily in this sport sciencey type of stuff, invest huge casholla in this type of stuff and is the big thing in sports performance around the world right now.

All you need to do is provide me some information which takes 2mins of your day and get it to me and I’ll do the rest.

From there I can give you a periodic report and also recommendations on how to structure your week.

I can also work in conjunction with your coach if you wish.

I'll be posting more about this in the next week or so so but hit me up at auusierulestraining@gmail.com  if you or you’re club is interested.