30/3/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Long skills
Training was better than Tuesday, the ball moved around the ground quite well. Also my legs felt much better, most of the soreness is gone. I did however dislocate my thumb during some contesting work. I always have it strapped but it still pops out occassionaly if the ball hits it a bit funny. It’s sore and swollen but nothing major. I keep getting these annoying niggles that aren’t major but affect my training. This week I’ve done no weights because of my legs and now my thumb and although a lighter week is ok I don’t want it to become a consistent thing.
Mate I play mainly at Centre Half Back, sometimes full back if my man drags me down there or for a particular matchup. Very rarely up forward these days although I started senior footy as a forward. I can sometimes be a shocking kick for goal for some reason.
1/4/06
Practice match
We played against a team from another league again, actually a team my brother plays against. We won pretty comfortably, about 8 goals in very windy conditions. The game was a bit lacklustre really, we probably always knew we were going to win and the conditions made it hard to play good attacking footy. Personally I played ok, not my greatest game but not to bad. I made one bad mistake kicking in after a point, I didn’t kick the ball high enough and it was marked by the oppposition about 30m out directly in front. Thankfully he missed. Oddly enough I went to full forward in the last quarter and missed a shot from almost exactly the same spot.
I’m looking forward to a big week of training with the first game of the season next weekend.
3/4/06
Circuit3
Squats10 47kg
Bench press10 47kg
Skipping1 min
Bent over row10 47kg
Heavy bag1 min
Stretching - 15mins
Just a quick workout to get the blood moving around, I was wearing long pants and sleeves so I got pretty hot quickly. I had a decent stretch afterwards and feel much better for it.
4/4/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Long Skills
Weights
Power clean 43 76kg
Single leg squat 36 56kg
Bench press 36 86kg
Bent over row 36 76kg
RDL 3*6 76kg
Training was a bit of a mixed bag. The coach had some personal issues to deal with so the U18’s coach and one of the assistants took training. The boys struggled to get the intensity up to the required level early on and we were punished with a couple of 200m sprints. Not to good considering the opening round is on Saturday. After that we picked it up and there was some good ball movement and good competitive stuff.
Weights went ok except for missing the last rep on the bench press and my power cleans were a bit off until the last set.
Had a good win against our arch rivals who were pretty determined to beat us after we knocked them out of the finals last year. It was very even all day but in the end our fitness and class took over and we were able to overrun them in the last quarter when we had the advantage of a breeze. I played well except for some of my kicking and decision making. At times it was very good, at others it was so bad the coach described it as deplorable. Something to work on this week. The only stat I’m going to try and track is the amount of marks I take from opposition kicks, the best measurement of my play reading and ability to repel their attacks. This week I had 5 and dropped a couple of others, averaging 5 would be doing pretty well so hopefully I can continue.
We’ve got next weekend off due to Easter, hopefully I can get some good training in and work on my kicking.
11/4/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Long skills
Got out onto the ground early to do an extended warm up and then went back in to get my thumb strapped, I can’t catch the ball without it strapped or it pops out. By the time the trainers got there training had well and truly started so I missed the first 5-10 mins. Everything was pretty good apart from that although the intensity droppped with about 15 mins to go. No training on Thursday and I didn’t do weights so I’ll have to make that up.
12/4/06
Weights
Power clean 43 75kg
Single leg squat 36 60kg
Bench press 26 87kg, 16 80kg
Bent over row 3*6 75kg
Did weights at home and I’m not sure if the weights at the footy club are accurate but these felt much heavier. Single leg squat still improved so I’m happy about that. Looking forward to the easter break, 4 days off work and a chance to relax a bit.
14/4/06
Circuit -10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 reps
Single arm snatch 22kg
Squat 22kg
Push ups
Medicine ball slam
Burpees
Spent the Easter break away from home and relaxing, watched a fair bit of footy on the telly with this circuit and a round of golf being just about my only exercise. Feel pretty refreshed and looking to get back into the swing of training again.
18/4/06
Football training
Warm up
3*100m,75m,50m,25m runs with jog back
Short skills with a 200m run every 5 mins - 4 runs total
Long skills
Weights
Power clean 43 76kg
Single leg squat 36 66kg
Bench press 36 86kg
Bent over row 36 76kg
RDL 3*6 76kg
I guess the extra 200m runs were punishment for a lack of intensity at the start of training, they had the desired effect. The boys pulled up their socks and we ended up having a pretty good session.
I was fairly tired during my weights but the single leg squat weight went up again which I’m happy with although I missed the last rep of bench press again.
20/4/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Long skills
Weights
Power clean and Push press 6*3 71kg
Training went pretty well, we’re playing one of the weaker teams on Saturday so the coaches were trying to ward off complacency. Charged through the weights easily. Looking forward to the weekend even though the weather is supposed to be crappy.
Well we gave one of the teams battling relagation an absolute flogging. I lost the toss and we had to kick into the wind in the 1st quarter but we managed to be 6 goals ahead by quarter time. It only got worse for them from there culminating in a 13 goal last quarters from us. I played pretty well, 5 marks again from opposition kicks, and the only backman to get in the best players. To be honest the ball wasn’t down there much so it was a bit difficult for anyone else to get in the best. I spent the last 15 mins of the game having a rest on the bench. We’ll have a much stiffer test in the next 2 weeks, playing 2 potential finalists, this win should set us up for it though.
24/4/06
Football training
Weights circuit
Short skills
Running
Trained on Monday night instead of Tuesday due to the ANZAC day holiday on Tuesday. Training was very light, really just a rehab and recovery session, looking forward to a good, sharp session on Thursday leading into a big game this weekend.
Yeah the score was 182-31 I think. I can’t remember playing in a bigger win. No goals for me though unfortunately, I was taking it easy mopping up anything that made it’s way down into the backline.
Tougher game this week but we should have won by double what we did. We kicked inaccurately in front of goal all day kicking 13.21 including 1.11 in the last quarter. I played ok, probably not quite as well as the 1st 2 games though. Had 4 marks from opposition kicks. My disposal was much better, except for 1 bad clanger when I was trying to center the ball.
I need to work on my second efforts a bit more, I was tending to just spectate once I’d been in a marking contest. It’s just a mental thing of getting back into the contest straight away rather than seeing what happens.
2/5/06
Football training
Warm up
Short skills
Long skills
Our coach wasn’t at training and we started training like he wasn’t there, no intensity, fumbling, missing targets. We got called in by the assistants to start another drill and I thought I’d better say something. It took another 5 mins for it to sink in but we ended up training ok. I was feeling sore and tired by the end so I skipped weights, I’ll try and make them up though.