MATT GLOSSOP MURRAY BUSHRANGERS (TAC U/18'S) HEAD S&C COACH: IN-SEASON TRAINING

We roll on with part 3 of our in-season training series this time with my old mate Matt Glossop from the Murray Bushrangers who I've interviewed previously and chat with quite often about all things footy training.

Here's what went down:

What differences are made to training compared to the off and pre-season training periods?

The technical and tactical aspects to training take priority over the physical side for the most part. 

During a pre-season, you can really forecast each session/microcycle/macrocycle because you have full control over what the team is exposed to but as game play is introduced that control diminishes and you are reacting and changing your training plans constantly according to what happens on the weekend. 

For example, this week we played a tight, in-close contested game of football and have a 6-day break, so we won’t do much small-sided game work because the game style (and GPS) tells us that the accel/decel/COD load was very high on the weekend, so training might slant towards some more longer run and carry drills to expose them to some top-speed work since they didn’t see much of it during the game.

Further Reading; I love this last part and even without GPS trackers and alike, you know as a player or coach what type of game you just watched which is usually dictated by the weather and ground conditions at our level. 

What does a full week look like?

On a Saturday to Saturday week:

Sunday- personal recovery, cold water immersion, foam rollers/stretching

Monday- personal recovery, flush run/bike or hydro plus weights with lower body emphasis

Tuesday- local training, generally 90mins

Wednesday- TAC training focusing on vision, training, recovery and weights

Thursday- local training, generally 30mins skills, then weights with upper body emphasis with some jumps/med ball throws for lower body

Friday- Off

Each player will be different as some prefer to do something light on Friday and some prefer to do their lower body weights on Tuesday instead of Monday etc, I try to let them customise their week according to their experiences and what works best for them.

Further Reading: Even at 16 - 18 years old they are left to do their own recuperation and are also left in charge for some of their preparation. What's holding you back then?

Do you have any specific requirements for players to abide by from Thursday to game day?

We will educate them about preparation, specifically sleep, hydration, nutrition and posture. Again, it’s something that I like to leave to the players to take ownership of their own prep and develop a routine they are confident in.

What does game day look like?

-90 mins: team meeting, no new material, reinforce key points

-75 mins: own prep, strapping/foam rollers/glute activation/cns activation, players do what they feel is best

-45 mins: quick lines meeting (backs/mids/forwards) to reinforce structures/rotations

-30mins: on-ground warm-up.

-15mins: back in rooms, jumpers/mouthguard/toilet etc

-5mins: coach last minute

-4 mins: on-ground

At half time they come in and choose from fruit, lollies, energy gels, sports drinks/water etc and break into their lines for the first 10 mins. Then the coach addresses them for 5 and we are back out with 3 or 4 mins to bounce.

What recovery interventions do you put in place immediately post game as well as in the days following? Do you do these as a team or leave blokes to do them themselves?

Once they come off the ground, they sing the song (hopefully), get hit with a 2min summary from the coach then immediately weigh in, grab a sports drink and into the ice bath (10 mins @ 10 degrees), followed by flavored milk, compression garments on for travel home and get a solid meal (free hit) about an hour post.

Game Day +1- cold water immersion and then by around 24hrs post-game they should be starting to restore some movement through stretching/rollers/mobility drills etc.

Game Day +2- They have a choice of run/bike/pool sessions according to how banged up they are and what they feel works best for them.

Sleep and Nutrition are the key focus points during this time, no amount of extra recovery sessions will compensate for poor sleeping and eating/hydration patterns at these crucial times.

Further Reading: yep that beach session on 3hrs sleep after 25 pots is probably a waste of time.

What types of personal/wellness/readiness testing do you do during the season?

They fill out Smartabase (online wellness tool) daily, rating themselves in sleep quality/duration, fatigue, stress, soreness and mood each morning.

We do some light screening also looking at knee to wall for ankle mobility, groin squeeze strength etc. I have recently been experimenting with some counter-movement jump scores as well, but we only get them for 3 hours a week so it’s hard to get everything in.

Do players do their own training on top of team training in their own time and if so, how do you monitor it so that it doesn’t interfere with team training and games?

That’s the biggest challenge of the role, we might have 2 players go to local club training on a Tuesday night, one goes to a team who got a touch up on the weekend and gets hit with 100 x 100m sprints or something ridiculous, the other might get there and they have a night off and play laser-tag instead. 

To counter this, we send both the player and the local coach our individualised training parameters for the week along with a summary of his wellbeing data, GPS data and total games/minutes played so they can get a holistic view of each athlete.

Great responses and always appreciated Matty!