Thoughts on Fitness and Coaching for Gaelic Games

[Logan]

.... a few more notes ...

Strength exercises should be part of training not separate entity to maximise benefit. 
(Knee flexion and extension are essentially useless exercises.)

Stretching is not important in sport except for gymnastics. Mobility is what is key.

Great benefits can be made from shock training the player – sudden increases in intensity – but the athlete must be physically prepared to handle the nervous system stress or shock.

I know this is repeating ...
1.   A coach not knowing physiologically what he is doing is endangering his athletes.
2.   A coach not understanding the methods he is applying is endangering his athletes.

#1 Rule- Achieve everything with a minimal amount of training.

When asked about Midfielders having heavy slow movement?
This is poor 'reactive' or 'elastic' movement 
Most Midfielders have poor reactive strength and this must be developed with jump training and especially landing ... so for example when training a midfielder to land should have no less than 135° of knee flexion upon landing from catching a ball. It is critical to teach the lads to land to be able to jump! They must absorb all the shock (elastic energy) that is created. One must think of landing 'soft' to absorb force. Also develop the ankle complex and joint.

General Coaching Session Training Principles
1.     Warm-up - this is where mobility is taught & basic skill rehearsal - slow
2.   Gradually increase in the speed of movement or skills, start slow, speed up slowly.
3.   Technical Development - giving priority to specialized drills and exercises in training – these must be done first in the training session.
4.   'Superimposition' of training. "Construct motor abilities upon motor abilities" – never jump or skip stages. Skill is a physical quality
5.     Tactical development of team work, starting with linear work, then groups and finally whole team
6.   Special Skills and Physical Preparation – prepare body to handle training comes next in the training year
7.   Separation of time in between stressors that are different in nature example – do not sprint and heavy weight lift

What strength abilities do GAA players need?
1.   Maximum power
2.   Movement - Muscles have to be prepared for particular exercises.
3.   Force - Ability to display strength with speed (RFD)
4.   Starting strength – in the beginning of a movement, it's faster than RFD.
5.   Reactive ability – how quick a muscle can respond to stretch.
6.   Strength endurance – local muscular endurance ability to continue same movement for a prolonged period of time.

They must be developed in that order

In children avoid early specialization of sports at all costs.

Volume based extensive training generally shapes the metabolic profile in the body while intensive training constructs the CNS changes.

Hypertrophy/size is not an important factor in the strength of an GAA player.

In GAA players size is in many cases a huge disadvantage – but this is only the case when then player is strong.

[lynchbhoy]

interesting stuff
however one aspect about flexibility I think is important is the ability for flexible leg movement (mostly hamstrings).
If you look at punters in the NFL american football, their kicking leg almost ends up hitting their face.

A tight unflexible hamstring impeded accuracy of a kick, so flexibility imo is important to give both accuracy , speed and distance.
I compare this the swing of a golf club, you follow through the shot and dont pull up before or when the target impacts.

[Logan]

Yes, flexibility is important - but not best achieved by stretching - rather using mobility work

[lynchbhoy]

Yes, flexibility is important - but not best achieved by stretching - rather using mobility work

I'd say a combo of both, stretching certanly wont do much on its own. Too many people overlook the flexibilty issue, they do loads of weights and cant kick a ball or injure/strain/pull muscles too easily.

[Logan]

Yes, flexibility is important - but not best achieved by stretching - rather using mobility work

I'd say a combo of both, stretching certanly wont do much on its own. Too many people overlook the flexibilty issue, they do loads of weights and cant kick a ball or injure/strain/pull muscles too easily.

I agree in general - we disagree on the method of achieving it I think   
The point was explained to me - that the key is to stretch the muscle through movements - not isolated stretching which simply stretches isolated muscles - but not the group that are actually going to work together.
The analogy was that when sprinting if you take a section of the muscle - you might have a group of 3 or 4 major muscles working together -  you have laid on the ground and stretched 1 or 2 that you'll use in a stretch - so when you run there is an imbalance and the stretched muscles aren't doing their bit when you start. Stretching in effect weakens the muscle too for a limited time.
By performing movements you develop the flexibility spread across the group equally as you will use them for your sport.
Also the important factor is the joint as the attachments go around the joint usually and there are much more added benefits ... the reasons for this are a bit beyond me - but there are some (I know ... leap of faith and all that).
Anyway .... I need to add it's not the difference between 4th Div and AI winner, but it may help reduce injury.
     

[Zulu]

What strength abilities do GAA players need?
1.   Maximum power
2.   Movement - Muscles have to be prepared for particular exercises.
3.   Force - Ability to display strength with speed (RFD)
4.   Starting strength – in the beginning of a movement, it's faster than RFD.
5.   Reactive ability – how quick a muscle can respond to stretch.
6.   Strength endurance – local muscular endurance ability to continue same movement for a prolonged period of time.

They must be developed in that order

Just a few thoughts of my own on this issue, first off I'm a bit confused by the above, I'm not saying it's wrong and as Logan knows I'm aware of at least some of his sources so I appreciate the expertise of his contributors but the order seems a bit strange to me. Also with individualization and position specific training I'm not sure there is any set order for that type of thing.
There was one or two other interesting points made also;

1. Fitness testing is a waste of time

I agree but I'm not sure if it is for the same reasons, I have basically found that since you don't have control over all aspects of the players training that you can't influence most of their physical development and therefore testing what you can't chnage is a waste of your time. Now if you're with a sqaud who will do the work you set for them in their own time it might be different but for most of us I think fitness testing is a waste.

2. Hamstring injuries can be healed in 3 - 4 weeks

Too general a statement for me and one that isn't really true at club level, most of us have the local physio and that is it, a professional sport is different but even there I don't think you can say all hamstring (or any other kind) injuries can be healed in a set amount of time.

3. The most important thing to coach is the nervous system

While it undoubtedly plays a vital role in the human body functioning, I think it is a bit pointless asking GAA coaches to even consider it as a goal of their training. Besides training improves all aspwects of human function so any training will effect the nervous system. However if Logan can expand on this I'd be very interested.

4. There is no excuse for soft tissue injuries

Again I find this too general a comment, you can do everything right and a guy can still pick up an injury and this is especially true of an amateur set up where players may be doing physical jobs or playing other sports

5. Talent is trainable, nobody is 'born with it'

A difficult one, yes all players can improve and some of the best young players don't become great adult players but I coach underage a lot of the time and some kids have 'it' and others don't. That's just my experience and I'm not stating it as a fact but from what I've seen some kids do have it.

Finally I think all of us interested in coaching should be grateful to Logan for taking the time to put up the thoughts of some of the experts he has spoken to, it makes for interesting discussions and debates like this challenges all our individual opinions and helps make us better coaches which should be the only real goal. So thanks mate and maybe some of my own thoughts will help develop and flesh out the points made or lead to new ones.

[DuffleKing]

Again Logan, this is all physical conditioning specific. Coaching the game, the lost art, is where the real inches are to be found nowadays

[Zulu]

I don't think you can, or should, necessarily seperate the two. You could also give us your own thoughts on coaching rather than complaining about the thread title.

[DuffleKing]

well i have my thoughts on coaching but wouldn't have the time nor inclination to get them transferred onto a website - fair play to logan for doing that on conditioning.

I do believe that there are small percentage points to be achieved now in logan's area but i believe there is much more scope for getting ahead through enhancing how you play as a team and particularly how each player approaches and executes his role within that team.

[Jinxy]

I would completely disagree with the assertion that fitness testing is a waste of time.

[Zulu]

I would completely disagree with the assertion that fitness testing is a waste of time.

Why?

well i have my thoughts on coaching but wouldn't have the time nor inclination to get them transferred onto a website

You don't have 10 minutes in the week to jot down a few points or thoughts?

[Jinxy]

There are a wide range of tests that can be used to quantify aerobic and anaerobic performance, sprint times, jump height, time trials etc.
The more data you have about a players physical capacity the better for you and him.
It is a valuable psychological and physiological tool.
It's all very well for a player to think he's fit.
It's much better if you can show him he's fit.

[Zulu]

The two reasons you would fitness test IMO are to find out where your players are (fitnesswise) and to design appropriate training programs to improve on these areas. However when you only have them 2 nights a week you can't do everything in those sessions so many of the areas you'd like to improve are out of your control. You can give the players programs to do on their own but due to a lack of committment, playing other sports or a lack of time many of them don't do them or don't do them enough.

When I started coaching first I did wide ranging fitness tests but I found it very difficult to get the group together again to retest and even if I did I'm not sure the results would have changed my training program in any way. I had to do most of the coaching myself so breaking up the squad into small groups was generally impossible, so at club level I'd only advise a coach to fitness test what he can actually change and only retest during the season if he feels he has the room and ability to change his program.

At IC level it is different but even there I feel some fitness testing is done without any real purpose.

[Jinxy]

Lack of co-operation from the playing group doesn't make the principle of fitness testing any less valid though.
It's a separate issue I think.
Any fitness testing regime needs to be standardised and implemented with the full co-operation of the players.
If it isn't, then I'd agree it is a waste of time.

[Dinny Breen]

Perhaps I have more resources at my disposal as I have 3 other coaches under my but I find fitness testing very important, 6 weeks before pre-season begins the players are given a programme and are tested at the start, we test vertical jump, body fat percentage, flexibility, aeroibic (150m shuttle) and sprint time over 40m. This gives us a baseline to work off they are then tested at the start of pre-season where the expectation is results will have improved and depending on results we can adjust our own pre-season plans.

Players need to know the hard work is paying off and fitness testing results show that.

If you don't test, how do you know they're getting fitter?