What are peoples feelings in regards to the ‘peak’ theory when applied to team sports eg soccer and specifically a contact sport like rugby. Can someone ‘sports qualified’ tell me how you can train to peak at a final when you need to peak in the quarters and the semis just to get to the final? Or is the peaking theory only realsitic for disciplines such as athletics?
Peaking theory can always apply to some extent, though you must peak according to needs. If you don’t get by the quarter finals, you don’t need to worry about the finals!
So I wanna know how someone is going to get the players to match a physical and mental peak through controling awareness, sharpeness and familiarity, when all these factors can change dramatically during the period of 80mins, regardless of their ‘arousal’ at kick off. Has anyone achieved this in a big competition with games been played every week which then lead into q/finals, semis, finals?
4 parts to a sport -Technical, Tactical, Physcial, Psyhcological
Awareness, sharpeness and familiarity should be part of the coaches plan ie.Technical and Tactical prep. A good coach will have his players go into a game with no stone left unturned so that when game day rolls around the palyers will instinctly perform there game plan and skills sets (read Rod Macqueen’s book!). If you follow Rugby Union, take Jonny Wilkinson as an example. He spends so much time practising that he enters a game confident enough to know that no matter what situation arises he will cope because he has practised. Awareness, sharpeness and familiarity should be there by the business end of the season. A good team will be prepared and during the game arousal should change little because they are confident and prepared enough to deal with and adjust to any variables during a match.
In terms of the physical peak, the influence Technical and Tactical prep have is underestimated. When finals roll around most time should be spent running through moves and keeping the training as specific as possible. If this means concentrating soley on technical and tactical do so in a way that maintains as much as possible the training effects gained during the season (this is within reason of course!). England did no soley fitness training during the last 2wks of the recent RWC campaign. They one!
Psyhchological readiness is predominantly enhanced during finals by the knowlegde that they are as prepared (in all facets of their prep) as the can possibly be and that when the end of the season rolls around, there will be no regrets in terms of preperation and everything was done to the best of everyones knowledge.
Essentially, physcial and mental preps are not mutually exclusive! One influnces the other. Its up to you to figure out at the begining of the year and during the season what the best action is to take to help achieve the optimal level of Technical, Tactical, Physcial, and Psyhcological prep. Obvoiusly if you only look after one aspect of prep then a cohesive decision has to be made and agreed upon by all support staff. Keep in consideration, and this is very relavent to team sports competing in weekly competitions, the use of multiple peaks during the season. This will be influnced by factors such as the draw, injury list, skill level of athletes and team, length of the season and season goals for example.
Hope you get abit out of this
Best of luck
Cheers Naki, that was very informative. I’ve got a few friends that believe that the ‘peak theory’ cannot be applied to team sports in particular contact sports for mainly two reasons. firstly, they feel players ‘clicking’ (peaking) with each other is a matter of combination and experience, not conditioning and secondly, players don’t have a mindset of peaking. They go out and play every game hard because that’s the type of sport it is. Some are consistent, some are not. eg a player like Jerry Collins has such mental hardness and stubbornness to play through the pain of injuries that getting a peak from him would be impossible. I assume you are involved in the physical conditioning of rugby players?
I’ve got a few friends that believe that the ‘peak theory’ cannot be applied to team sports in particular contact sports for mainly two reasons. firstly, they feel players ‘clicking’ (peaking) with each other is a matter of combination and experience, not conditioning and secondly, players don’t have a mindset of peaking.
I’ll have second go, just went back to see what you had written again and came back to my reply to see what i had written was gone! YOU’LL HAVE TO SORT THAT CHARLIE!
Yes i am involved with rugby.
What i was saying was essentially rugby is a fickle sport and very multifaceted in terms of match prep. With the rugby played at the recent RWC many of the coaching staff, including fitness coaches, will have to sit back and analyse and determine new ways foward physically speaking. I think NZL prob was a little bit of an overreaching issue rather than Mitchell’s tactical approach causing the early exit (of which us KIA’s (Kiwis In Australia) are still realing from). There inability to adapt seemed to be more of a ‘physical tierdness causing poor option taking’ rather than them going into a RWC Semi without a plan B or C. I’m sure Mitchel and Deans are more thourough than do do something that fundimentaly stupid!
Back to the above statement. I don’t agree completelty with your mates, although i see where they are coming from.
Firstly, to say ‘clicking’ (peaking) with each other is a matter of combination and experience, not conditioning is not entirely true. Take yourself back to the 4 components of sport and the influence each can have on the other. Its a good exercise to do on paper to delve into these components and really thinking about thier interdependability. No amount of expeience is going to make up for lack of conditioning. Speed repeatability for example can help get an ouside back in position for the double cut time and time again. Having the ability to repeat fast, precise runs will help put player in position and thus influence combination. Having said that timing is a learned skill. Rugby is fickle!
Secondly, to say players don’t have a mindset of peaking is not at all true. In amatuer ranks maybe, but in any high level team players understand that they want to be the best thay can be come d-day. Isn’t that having a mindset for peaking? As someone incharge of thier fitness you have the dubeous honour of ‘peaking’ the athletes in your team at the optimal time (which is influenced by many factors as I said yesterday), you should tell your athletes that they are peaking its amazing what they can believe.
As a working example, the Hurricanes played execptionally well through most the S12 this year untill the form slipped when it was needed most at the end of the season. This can be interpreted in a number of ways. Did injuries compound the results? Did the team have internal probs? Or were they overreaching and miss their ‘peak’? I suggested the later was the most obvious thing that stood out this year for them! Just my thoughts.
In any case - Success is the result of good judgement, good judgement is the result of experience, experience is the result of bad judgement. As they say experience is inevitable, learning is not! Live and learn… and learn, its continual!
Thanks for the reply.
Naki I feel the same way about the canes, they went off in South Africa and after that they slowly went downhill. such a shame. Anyway you mentioned that england stopped all structure conditioning work 2 weeks before the final. Do you have any insight in regards to what conditioning work (gym work , rep running etc) they were doing during the cup and before the cup?
Unfortunately Jericho, the specifics of the england prep are privvy to a few pepole and those involved are sworn to secrecy by confidentiality agreements. My knowledge of there prep is general and I’ve been lucky to get that info!!
It will be interesting to see what happens to the S&C positons in this new propsed NPC for 2006. I have a feeling ther may be more options open to individuals in the 12 professional teams. My understanding at present is that there is appoximately 13-15 fulltime positons in NZ rugby at present that could sweel to about 20 i reckon. To you have any inside gossip about this?