Well after reading these journals for a while I’m starting my own. I’ve just started my off season training for next years football season. Thee weekly format will be 3 high intensity days focussing on acceleration and weights and 2 tempo days which will mainly consist of throwing a medicine ball a bunch of times and chasing after it.
A bit of background info - 26 years old, 190cm ~ 6ft3in, 90kg ~ 200lbs. From 18-22 I played VFL football which is the level below AFL (the elite league in Australia) but since then I’ve been playing for my local team in a league that is a few steps below. Last season was my 1st as captain and we went on to win the premiership. Not a bad season at all, but the celebrating has taken a toll and I hadn’t run for a month.
On to the training
6/10/05
Warm up
Footwork
Hill sprints 1010m walk back recovery
Weights
Power snatch 101 47kg
Single leg squats 3RM Worked up to 72kg
DB bench 8*3 26kg DB’s
Pullovers 10mins EDT 15kg 40reps
I started badly on the 1st couple of hills but once I got used to moving again I was ok. The snatch and DB bench were pretty light and I will use more next time I do these, I was pretty happy with the Single leg squats and probably could’ve done more but knew I’d be sore. Pullovers sucked, I haven’t done them before and my shoulders weren’t happy with them at all.
Should mention I’ve been back doing weights for a couple of weeks now. The format is
Olift
Legs
Upper push
Upper pull
7/10/05
This morning I did my 1st tempo session. I did about 60 medicine ball throws with a 3kg ball and chased after the ball each time. It only took about 10mins so I’ll work to number of throws up as my fitness improves.
8/10/05
Warm up
Footwork
Hill sprints - 3330m, 3mins recovey between sets
Weights
Hang clean 54 67kg
Good mornings 46 47kg
Push press 3*3 55kg
Had a big weekend. Got up early on Saturday to workout despite being tired from being woken at 2.30am by my smoke alarm telling me to change the battery. Took me ages to get back to sleep after that. I had to cut the workout a bit short cos I had a mates bucks party at the races starting at 10am. Felt sore in the glutes and hammies so I didn’t push the good mornings at all. I got a bit messy at the races which I shouldn’t have cos I had to go to an engagement party that night instead of staying with the boys from the bucks party. Woke up Sunday feeling sick and sore so I didn’t exercise at all. Went up to mum’s for lunch and my brother made a pitch for me to come and play with his team. It’s a bloody good pitch as well cos it includes a job with a $10,000 a year pay rise over what I get now. I really don’t want to leave the club I’m at now especially after just having captained them to a premiership but the job complicates things. Anyway I’ll have to talk it over with a few people and see what happens.
Have had a good chat with a few people about the job offer and am meeting the officials from the new club tonight to see if I like the place and if the job’s everything it’s cracked up to be. Just have to wait and see what happens with that one. Training wise I’ve decided my work capacity is pretty low so I’m going to try and work on that for a while.
Yesterday 11/10/05 I did
Warm up
3 sets of (circuit style with minimal rest)
3Standing triple jumps
5each armone arm snatch+10metres waiters walk with each arm 22kg
6each legsingle leg squats 40kg
10handstand push ups
I couldn’t really work out how to do the handstand push ups cos I couldn’t slide my feet up and down the wall so I just ended up doing them of a high chair. All up it took me about 20mins without the warm up and I was completely gone afterwards and had a massive headache. I feel fine today though so I think I’ve recovered ok.
Met with the new club and the job sounds pretty good, basically finding sponsors, organising functions etc. I haven’t really done anything like that before but if I play there I will become reasonably well known to people quickly which will help out a lot. Still need to hear back from my club with the counter offer, I don’t think they’ll make it easy for me to leave though.
Yesterday 13/10/05
Warm up
2510m sprints - 3mins between sets
Max effort Deadlift 347,87 1127,147,160,168kg
2Circuit that included
5Overhead squats 20kg
20Russian twists w/med. ball
10Push ups
10*Hanging leg raises
Would’ve liked to get 175kg on the DL but I nearly missed on 168kg so didn’t even go for it. The rest was ok though.
Interestingly my STJs were bigger on the last set than any others. It was definitely a learning thing cos I started to get much further on the hop part. The other exercises were fine and I can go up in weight on the overhead squats.
15/10/05
Tempo - same as last time I just did about 60 medicine ball throws and chased after the ball each time.
Had a mates wedding in the afternoon, saw all the boys from the bucks party last week and had a few more drinks. The wedding was a pretty formal affair and it showed in the behaviour of my mates who are a pretty rowdy bunch that they didn’t get out of hand.
I saw the overhead squats, brah. Those are, in my opinion, one of the most effective weight exercises you can do. Cleans and overhead squats have done more for me than any other weight training exercise. It’s good to see I’m not the only one doing them. Try to get to the point where you can do bodyweight for a few reps; when you get that, you’ll be one strong mofo.
At a university in the US (can’t recall exactly), the track/field coach won’t let his shot and discuss throwers outside to throw until they can do overhead squats for 15 reps with bodyweight!
Heatwave,
Yeah I saw that on Dan John’s website I think. Got a fair bit of work to do before reaching that stage, the 1st time I tried I nearly dropped the 7kg bar on my head. Flexibility and stability are coming along slowley though.
17/10/05
Warm up
210Box jumps 2ft box
Circuit - 3 sets
3Power snatch 47kg
6Step ups 47kg
10*Chin ups
Just a short session today, I was in and out in 30mins but everthing felt pretty good.
Dan John is one of my favorite writers on the topic of Olympic lifting and sensible strength training. I’ve used many of his ideas. He’s off the chain, fo shizzle.
18/10/05
Warm up
Power clean 55 75kg
Overhead squat 55 27kg
15min EDT
Bench press 75kg 30reps
BB Bent over row 55kg 30reps
This went pretty well. I saw a tip to raise my heels for the overheads squats which made them much more comfortable. I should be able to keep progessing with them. Feeling happy with the way the training is going.
19/10/05
Just some tempo rowing stuff today. Also did some core work and push ups. I’ll start doing proper tempo next week but I’m a bit reluctant to do to much cos my shins and feet got really sore last season. We’re in a bit of a drought at the moment so most of the grounds are really hard. I’ll have to get some new runners and see how it goes.
21/10/05
Warm up
Stair sprints 52 - 1min recovery between sets
Power snatches 53 60kg
Step ups 26 55kg
Pull ups 26
RDL’s 28 67kg
Push ups 220
I hate working out in the morning, I can never seem to get going. The stair runs are really short, only about 16 steps and go up 2 at a time but I felt slow. Was ok for the snatches then died completely. Looking forward to watching tonight’s International Rules game between Australia and Ireland. We’ve gone for a faster squad this year so hopefully we can keep up with the Irish since we’re playing basically with their rules.
NO. 23,
Yeah this is the 1st time we’ve really picked a team based on what we need for the hybrid game though. Previously we’ve gone with the bigger, heavier players who don’t really suit the pace of this game. Also rather than trying to kick the ball so much, cos we really struggle with the round ball, we ran with it more and handballed it around. I know you don’t have tackling in Gealic but it looked like your guys just weren’t prepared to be chased down and brought to ground. Hopefully the next game is a bit tighter.
22/10/05
Warm up
Power clean 80kg 3.3.1.1.1
Overhead squat 31kg 5*5
This was rubbish. Worked out in the morning again and couldn’t get going. Also tweaked my left hip flexor during the cleans and could feel it right through the squats. It’s still pretty sore so I gave it some time to recover and will try some light tempo tonight.
True we don’t have a tackle like you do (we can’t tackle the man - we can only tackle the ball), but I was embrassed by our failure to front up to the agressiveness of your guys.
It’s good to have some footy on anyway. Actually I was wondering why players didn’t just run from one end to the other in Gaelic, is there a limit on the number of solos allowed or can tackling the ball really be that effective?
24/10/05
Tempo
Did 10*100m on the minute, took about 20secs to do the 100 and 40secs to jog back to the start.
My hip flexor felt ok during this but my right hammy has pulled up a bit tight, I might have done a few of the 100s a bit quick.
After last year it appears we completely underestimated you guys.
You’ll notice a number of things,… we aren’t strong enough to handle your athletes. We can’t break a tackle or hand-off either.
So running through you guys isn’t really an option - whether we’d be fit enough also is another thing.
We’ve a small team, sure you do too, but your small is still much bigger then our small - if you follow me!
We aren’t used to a wrap tackle like you have. In Gaelic the ball must be tackled (well in theory).
In Gaelic it leaves the game cleaner and more focused on skill rather than focusing on the man. We had to clean the game up - 20 years ago it was dog-rough, but that was some time ago (as a friend of mine says “back when men were men and sheep were afraid”)
We are not off-loading fast enough and neither are we tackling your men well or hard enough. Partly as we don’t have the strength to do it and partly as we havne’t learned it enough.
There is a lot of anger too that we are not matching your agressiveness.
We’ve too much to improve on before the next test!!!
Last year was a debacle for us. We used to have a selection policy that the players from our All Australian team had to be chosen first but a lot of the bigger taller players didn’t really suit the hybrid game. This year we had to change that and did a lot of scouting and preparation especially with the goal kicking which we were so much better at than last time. We still can’t judge the round ball in the air though. It seems as though each country reacts to the others strengths which should continually raise the standard of the games. Also the AFL has really been cleaned up in the last 20 years as well. It’s gotten so much faster and the skills are so much better that watching games from the 70’s and before look almost like a completely different game.
25/10/05
Warm up
Box jumps 65 85cm box
Power cleans 53 67kg
Speed bench press 55 67kg
BB Bent over rows 38 67kg
Pleased with this session. The weights were light but felt like they went up fast. Body and especially legs feel pretty good as well.
Yeah, they felt pretty good. It’s funny but if I do something fast like box jumps or accel work and then go straight into lifting I find my lifting is much better. I just have to make sure I keep the volumes pretty low.
26/10/05
Tempo
Same as Monday I did 10*100m on the minute taking about 20secs to run the 100m and another 40secs to jog back before starting again. It shouldn’t be a suprise that this kind of session works but it does cos I feel heaps better the next day.
