Here are the components of Physical Fitness;
Health Related Fitness
- Cardiovascular Endurance
- Muscular Endurance
- Muscular Strength
- Body Composition
- Flexibility
- Agility
- Balance
- Coordination
- Speed
- Power
- Reaction Time
But a GAA player has to have everything, so get used to it!!! Obviously this makes training difficult to plan and organise, but at alot of the training can be done at different times of the year and just maintained and much of it will be done by just playing the game, especially if you have a good coach who uses conditioned games well.
So lets have a look at when you use these components, to help you understand their importance in a real situation.
Aerobic Endurance
During aerobic (with oxygen) work, the body is working at a level that the demands for oxygen and fuel can be meet by the body's intake. A definition is "the heart's ability to deliver blood to working muscles and their ability to use it (e.g. running long distances)"
Basically from a GAA point of view Aerobic capacity is the ability to keep running/moving for 60 minutes, but the caveat for this is true aerobic running which would be more like below;
The reason its not entirely true is that we don't keep running for that long continuous at a steady pace and Football is interspersed with bursts of speed, strength, agility, power and any number of skill based components depending on the situation. Having said that you still need a high Aerobic capacity to help you perform all of these functions throughout the entire game. One simple reason (and there are many) is a high aerobic capacity helps keep your brain "fit", your brain is what tells you what to do when you are playing. If the brain is tired then your technique will suffer. This can lead to poor completion of simple passes, poor shooting and more importantly and worse for your team, poor decision making. I would rate these neurological reasons as important as any other physiological loses from poor Aerobic Endurance.Aerobic endurance can be sub-divided as follows:
- Short aerobic - 2 minutes to 8 minutes (lactic/aerobic)
- Medium aerobic - 8 minutes to 30 minutes (mainly aerobic)
- Long aerobic - 30 minutes + (aerobic)
A explanation of sorts for training for Speed Endurance (ref.brianmac.com); Speed endurance is used to develop the co-ordination of muscle contraction. Repetition methods are used with a high number of sets, low number of repetitions per set and intensity greater than 85% with distances covered from 60% to 120% of racing distance.
Gaelic Football for the purposes of this last 60 minutes (2 halves of 30 minutes) at lets say Senior club level. In that time it has been calculated that Gaelic Footballers spend 43% of their time is spent in "High Intensity Activity" (ref.Alan Henry). For distance covered in a game this "HIA" accounts for 16% of the total distance covered. Compare this to Soccer which is at 8%. Its very rare i see Soccer teams at any level run very long runs at near max capacity, or have i seen programs that include that type of running. They train very hard, but smarter.
That means that Gaelic Footballers need twice the amount of High Intensity training than soccer players (not necessarily twice the training though. Yet many of the teams i have observed or been part of have Gaelic players doing some very High Intensity training, but not enough of the right training. Players come off the pitch after doing 6 x 3-400 meter runs @ full belt (95-100%) and they are absolute screwed. Yes it was intense, no doubt about it, but was it of benefit? Yes possibly it was to a very small degree, mentally i would argue it creates a mental toughness and possibly a team bond from the togetherness of the hard training, but is it worth that? NO is the very definitive answer from me, and many many other Field Sports Conditioners & Sports Scientists. The evidence is there for us, but just think about this, do you ever run full belt around a pitch for 3-400 meters? No i didn't think so. Now we'll get into it later but i'm sure some are thinking to themselves, i might not run around for that long, but i could be moving or involved in the play for that long, lets say 1-2 minutes. That is absolutely true, but its not all going to be running alone, some of it could be sprinting, tackling, jumping, kicking, punching (the ball i hope). Well that's where our metabolic conditioning might come in again down the road, or indeed the use of our small pitch conditioned games.
In summation Speed Endurance is a vital component of Gaelic Fitness, and a detailed and varied program must be implemented throughout both the pre-season and in-season. The volume and intensity may change, but its an all year round component.
Power
Power is the "functional application of both strength and speed and is the key component for most athletic performances" or described another way "the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movements. The two components of power are strength and speed" . High intensity work involved in Gaelic football such as jumping, and accelerating from a stationary position requires players to have adequate power.
Where does power come from? Well it comes from speed and strength (again!!!) as suggested above. Where else do you use power while playing Football & Hurling. Well if you are sprinting hard and go to change direction, we'll say to turn left in this case, you will generally (if technically proficient) plant your right foot into the ground and drop your left shoulder to turn. The push of the ground from your right foot needs power to send you in the change of direction. You use Power every time you sprint, or indeed in an attempt to break a tackle. Power is huge is Gaelic Football and Hurling.
Speed
Speed is the quickness of movement of a limb, whether this is the legs of a runner or the arm of the shot putter. Speed is an integral part of every sport and can be expressed as any one of, or combination of, the following: maximum speed, elastic strength (power) and speed endurance. Because Speed is so important we'll learn a little bit more about it (for the nerds here);
"Energy for absolute speed is supplied by the anaerobic alactic pathway. The anaerobic (without oxygen) alactic (without lactate) energy system is best challenged as an athlete approaches top speed between 30 and 60 metres while running at 95% to 100% of maximum. This speed component of anaerobic metabolism lasts for approximately eight seconds and should be trained when no muscle fatigue is present (usually after 24 to 36 hours of rest)".
That last bit is important coaches. Its telling you, don't have sprint conditioning at the end of training!!!
Also important is this point, speed comes into play at lets say 30 M, whats happening before that? Well thats acceleration, and to have really good acceleration you need good technique. How many coaches have you had teach acceleration & technique? Not many i'd imagine, yet i have heard many of them say "its all about the first few yards lads". You won't find much argument here with that, but train for it!
"The need for speed" hey! There is no doubting speed is a hugely important component of Hurling and Football. You could argue its the most important and often the clear difference between levels of the game (from Inter-County down to Senior to Junior etc) is the speed of the game. The higher the level the faster you have to do things, generally at least. There are anomalies though when some teams are successful because of a couple of unusually gifted individuals or indeed a particularly physical team. But this will often be the case at an amateur level of any sport, this would be less prevalent in professional sport where in most cases speed is a given.
The thing about speed is this, everyone can get faster, everyone, with correct training. It was a commonly held perception that you either had "God given" speed or you didn't. Now some people have natural abilities to run and perform physical activities faster than others, of that there is no doubt. But Speed development is such a misunderstood training component by so many GAA coaches. You don't get faster by just doing sprints. Sprints are obviously a part of speed training, but i would suggest they are really the final part of the puzzle and as well as part of conditioning you for Football and Hurling, Sprints are a way of testing you . If you put in some good basic strength & technical work for sprinting the best way to see if you are getting faster is to test your speed in a sprinting situation with maybe 30M sprints, flying sprints and 60M sprints, depending on the goal.
Of course this only tests or trains you in the act of running. your ability to transfer the ball quickly to a team mate is another obvious "act of speed", this is skill based as well as an upper body movement. This could be trained possibly with a combination of Skills drills, conditioned games as well as Power Cleans and Russian Twists in the gym just as examples.
Training for changes in direction are paramount in Hurling & Football, as you very rarely run in straight lines, but for development and technical improvement off season i would suggest work just in straight lines off-season.
Here's an interesting point from Alan Heary to add to all this;
Another aspect of speed in Gaelic games is the requirement of moving at speed while in possession of the ball. This is referred to as possession speed. A study involving Australian Rules players found that the time required to complete a specific distance increased 4-5% when the player had possession of the ball (37). Interestingly, those players who recorded the fastest time without possession were not always the fastest when they were in possession of the ball.What does this tell us? It tells us we'll get more out of conditioned running training if there is a ball involved. Simple Stupid.
Agility
Agility really is changing the direction of your body through a collection of different physical attributes, which are;
- Balance
- The ability to maintain equilibrium when stationary or moving (i.e. not to fall over) through the coordinated actions of our sensory functions (eyes, ears and the proprioceptive organs in our joints)
- Static Balance - ability to retain the centre of mass above the base of support in a stationary position
- Dynamic Balance - ability to maintain balance with body movement
- Speed
- the ability to move all or part of the body quickly
- Strength
- the ability of a muscle or muscle group to overcome a resistance
- Co-ordination
- the ability to control the movement of the body in co-operation with the body's sensory functions e.g. catching a ball (ball, hand and eye co-ordination)
Well the conclusion is that there are a lot of variables in Gaelic Football & Hurling, and these days to be successful you have to cover all the bases. We will in time break all of these down and go through different ways of approaching these components. There looks to be more to it though than actually is, but the ideal scenario for any team is to have a Football or Hurling Coach working with a Strength & Conditioning Coach to get the best out of the team. Many GAA coaches double up of course, and this can be successful, but its an awful lot of work for one man. Remember we haven't even touched on "Football" or "Hurling" coaching or training yet or have we gone year tactics. Of course that can be somewhat difficult for small clubs. I am acutely aware of the financial and logistical strains that small clubs acn have. But with some good planning and mutual appreciation all of the goals can be met. A Coach can get consultancy help from a S&C Coach, or there might be the possibility of help from students looking for work experience. Often you will find people within the club that nobody really knew about it. Widen the net and don't take on too much.
Over the next few months i will hopefully help you through designing a training plan and getting to work for next year. The big thing is, don't let starting your off-season work too long. You should really be starting in the gym by Oct 1st-14th. But if you are out of championship now i'd be looking at starting soon or maybe by middle of september.
A teams pre-season of preparatory Football & Conditioning should take 10 weeks at the very least in my opinion, probably starting January. By this time though you should be at least 2 months into your Strength Program. Its getting more and more important in Hurling & Football and teams shouldn't be left behind. That's why a combination of Football coach and Conditioning coach will make such a difference. Also i like to work on a Hard day/Easy or Off Day basis. If you leave the gym work till Dec/Jan/Feb you are going to have possibly 5-6 high volume sessions a week. That is too much, and will lead to injury due to lack of recovery time. Recovery is key, planning is key. Train Hard - Rest Hard. That is the motto. Believe me i know this is very important.
The days of taking 3-4 months off completely are gone, you are only asking for injuries and a real struggle in getting back fit. Remember this, aerobic capacity starts dwindling very fast after 14-21 days, strength dissipates after 8-10 days. And while we're on the strength subject, and this is especially for the Managers/Coaches/Trainers, don't organise Circuit training for 4-6 weeks and not touch it again for the year. You are actually doing more bad than good. Most of the circuits involve huge amounts of plyometrics - INJURY. Plyometrics have a massive part to play in Hurling & Football and strength & Speed development, but in blocks and high reps they are dangerous and counter-productive. You are better off forgetting about strength training altogether and doing extra football and skill work than those circuits.
One final thing for today, on the theme of taking massive amounts of time off in the off season, playing another sport at a high intensity level (lets say soccer with 2 trainings a week and a game) will do nothing for your Football or Hurling. You need off season to recover from knocks etc, build yourself up again. Get specific and be really good at one sport as opposed to average and tired at a few. This does not include 5-a-sides, basketball pick ups, squash or the like, which i would encourage as they are fun and once a week will help keep you sharpish and help with your short distance speed intervals. But expect yourself to do 4-5 sessions a week, they won't knock the crap out of you, but its exercise, its healthy and good for you and should be part of your life anyway. Don't be intimidated either by 4-5 sessions, some of these can be doubled up. Playing any decent level of Football & Hurling nowadays is a lifestyle choice, and a dam good one at that.
Soon we'll look at programs, strength training, speed development, club development etc. For now, if your still in championship, best of luck, if not rest up for another little while.
Excellent post. Thank you for sharing.
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