13/2/06
Football training
Warm up
3*30m,20m,10m sprints
Skills
Sprints went well again. It was a bit windy so our skills were a bit all over the place. The session felt a bit light hearted, lots of joking and mucking around. Ok to have a session like that every now and then, as long as we pick it up on Wednesday.
15/2/06
Football training
Warm up
25300m tempo
Skills
We did all the 300’s in under 50secs with about 1min rest between reps and 3mins between sets. I thought it would take a lot more out of me but I’ve pulled up ok. Our skills started off slowly after the running but we picked it up and had a pretty good session.
Thats awesome fitness mate. Back to back 300m like that, u would only see that in afl training, most rugby league players couldnt do that could they?
I’d assume most of the backs would be able to complete that sort of session but the forwards would struggle a bit.
17+18/2/06
Training camp
This was ridiculous. It was run by some Special Ops guys from the Victoria police. We started at 8pm on Friday night and bushwalked to 10 different checkpoints, about 50km total. No food at all, slept from 2.30am til 6.30am outside on the ground next to one of the boys who snored like a train. Each checkpoint had a different challenge to complete like a puzzle or pushups or walking to the next point without talking and with eyes shut. My group came second because we couldn’t complete the last puzzle. We got to the last checkpoint first but I think with our relief of getting there we mentally shut down and just couldn’t solve it.
We had a camp last year run by the same guys that was more taxing but this was completely different to anything most of us had done. Hopefully we get more out of it as a team than just extremely sore feet and legs.
20/2/2006
Football training
Extended warm up
Skills
Not surprisingly our skills were poor and the whole session was a bit ordinary. The coach asked me before the session what I thought we would be capable of and I told him I thought it should be a recovery session like we would have for our first session after games during the year. I don’t think he took my advice on board though cos the session was a fair bit harder than that and he got fairly pissed off with the way we were training. Hopefully we’ll be better on Wednesday.
22/2/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
10100m on the minute ~16,17secs with 40 secs jog back
10shuttles starting on the minute, about 40 secs recovery
Long skills
Training was much better tonight although we had a lot of young kids there who haven’t trained much before and didn’t really know what they were doing. Once they got the hang of it and got used to talking a bit we got going pretty well.
23/2/06
Warm up
Medball throws
Backwards overhead10
Push press style10
Slams10
Rugby style10 each side
Shot put style*10 each side
Dot drills2
3 step jump10
Ok session, I got a few decent throws off.
24/2/06
Warm up
2*10m,20m,30m,40m,50m sprints
Worked into these, I thought my second 40m sprint was the best, got out well and maintained acceleration right through. I dropped off in the 50m’s a bit though.
25/2/06
Warm up
Hang cleans 43 75kg
Lunges 43 67kg
DB Incline bench 36 30kg DB
DB Bent over row 36 30kg DB
It was very hot when I did this and I really struggled through it, I thought it should have been much easier.
27/2/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
2*40m,30m,20m,10m sprints
Strained my hammy on the 2nd last sprint which was the first 10m one. Just tried to overstride on the second step and felt it tighten. Hopefully it’ll recover quickly. After the sprints the rest of the boys did some match simulation stuff. It was the first time we’ve done any of it this year and we looked a bit rusty. Most of the senior players looked okay but the younger boys were very unsure of themselves.
28/2/06
Warm up
Bench press 36 80kg
Bent over row 36 67kg
Only upper body, my hammy was still tight and sore. I’ll give it a light workout next session. I’ve been icing non stop so hopefully it’ll improve quickly.
1/3/06
Football training
Warm up
4*100m,75m,50m,25m jog back recovery
Short skills
Took it pretty easy with the hammy. Just cruised throught the running and the short skills. Once we went into longer drills I stopped and went and iced. There’s still definite tightness in my leg so it looks like a bit more rehab is in order.
2/3/06
Just rehab for the hammy, some massage and ice. It’s coming along ok, hopefully back to normal by the start of next week.
6/3/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
2*40m,30m,20m,10m sprints
Long skills
Weights
Power clean 43 70kg
Single leg squat 33 64kg
Bench press 36 76kg
Bent over row 36 66kg
RDL 3*6 76kg
The hammy still isn’t great at full speed, but it’s ok during acceleration and below 90%. Our skills were a bit sloppy at first but we picked it up a bit. Did weights straight after training with one of the boys. Our weights room is terrible and it was a bit hard to find matching weights. We pushed each other though which was good after doing them by myself for so long.
7/3/06
Warm up
500 medball throws
Did this instead of tempo, not a bad workout. Got a blister on the middle finger of my left hand though.
8/3/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
10shuttle runs starting every minute
10100m jog back starting on the minute
Long skills
Weights
Hang clean 43 66kg
Lunges 43 56kg
Bench press 36 80kg
Bent over rows 36 76kg
RDL 2*6 76kg
Heaps of numbers at training, it was good to see just about everyone there for a change. Practice matches start next week so I guess everyone wants to be a part of that. We took a little while to get going in our long skills stuff but once we did training went really well.
11/3/06
Warm up
Explosive med ball throws
10*100m tempo
The throws were pretty good but I did the tempo way too fast. I was struggling by the 7th and had to call it quits after the 1st set after initially planning to do 2 sets.
13/3/06
Warm up
10*100m tempo
Only planned to do 1 set and did it at a much better pace. Looking forward to 1 more training session and then our first practice match on Thursday night.
14/3/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Longer skills
A reasonably short session given that a lot of the boys are playing on Thursday night. I however am not, which I’m fairly pissed about. I’m being rested which is funny cos it’s our first practice match and we haven’t played since last September, I should be pretty well rested. Only 1 of the 4 blokes in the leardership group is playing so I’m not to sure how we’ll go, a lot of the younger blokes are playing, hopefully some of them grab their opportunity.
16/3/06
Practice match
I didn’t play this and just watched but we won easily despite a fairly inexperienced team. We had a lot of positives to come out of the match and basically controlled the game. Our conversion let us down a bit though, I don’t know the exact score but I wouldn’t be suprised if we kicked quite a few more points than goals. Also our Centre half forward kicked one of the longest goals I’ve ever seen. The man on the mark was about 60m out from goal so he probably kicked it from 65-70m and it went through post high so about another 10m past the goal line. He had a fair breeze behind him but it was just a lazy 75-80m kick, just one of his 6 or 7 goals for the night in just over a half of footy. Also we played at the other teams ground and the quarters were supposed to be 25 mins long. The first and third quarters when we had the wind only went for 20 and 22 mins, while the 2nd and 4th quarters both went for 28 mins. I guess they needed the extra time with the wind.
Had last week off work and didn’t go near a computer, just watched a lot of Commonwealth games action. I went along to the athletics on the Wednesday night, saw the mens 400m, long jump and high jump as well as some other heats and stuff. The high jump was interesting towards the end, I thought the Canadian was going home after he packed his bags and started to leave. Not too sure what was going on but he eventually won on countback and then didn’t show up for his medal ceremony the next day.
Got through all my training this week and played a practice match on Saturday. We played against a team from a stronger league and ended up losing by a goal after leading basically all day. It was about 30 degrees and I played the whole game so I felt pretty spent afterwards, also very sunburnt. I started pretty slowly, in fact I spent the first quarter running around with no idea where the ball was going and cursing the fact that I didn’t play last week to get some touch. Got back into the groove after that and took a few marks despite my timing being a bit off.
As a team we started really well, winning the ball out of the centre on most occassions. We got ahead of ourselves after that, decision making was a bit poor, got ahead of the ball, and the heat took it’s toll. Also the opposition pushed a lot of numbers behind the ball and stifled our forwards. It’s something we need to come to terms with cos I think a lot of teams will play that way against us especially if we keep starting games well. We’ve got one more practice match next week before the season starts, hopefully we can work on our weaknesses and get our game plan happening.
28/3/06
Football training
Warm up
Running with the balls involved
Short skills
Long skills
Both my hammies were really tight after Saturday’s game so my movement was a bit limited. One of the other boys actually tore his hammy during one of the drills so I went off and iced after that as well as a precaution. Training started fairly slowly and took a while to get going, hopefully the guys that haven’t been training can catch on pretty soon so we can get going a bit quicker.