S&C for Gaelic Games Introduction Part 1

Over the next while i am going to do a series of posts on Off Season Training for Gaelic Footballers, Hurlers

and Camogie players. This is largely going to be the same for any field sports athlete really but most other

sports are winter sports and are in-season, as well as the fact that my predominant experience is in GAA and as

someone coaching 22 years in some capacity i believe i have learned alot about integration and where Physical

Preparation sits.

The truth is it has never been as central. Here is how we are going to process this.

Process

1. Introduction (this & next post)

2. Regenerate - Get off feet

3. Assess

4. Build stability, and mobility if needed. Address technique of Fundamental Compound Movements. Maintain

Aerobic Capacity. Work on weaknesses.

5. Layer Up the volume, build muscle

6. Get Strong

7. Get Powerful

8. Strategize the In-Season. Get stronger, more powerful and faster as season progresses.

The way coaching is going and an integretive approach is required and physical preparation more than ever has

to be as close as possible to the actual sport, underpinning skill development (and not competing with it).

It has become increasingly noticable that the teams that are being successful are the best physically prepared.

In fact due to clever preparation many dual clubs are bucking the trends of previous 8-10 years where it

seemed being dual was becoming a real burden. One would imagine consistancy and an appreciation of game

play skills would have to be central to these clubs success. It has surprised me this adjustment, but having

watched a fair bit of Cork teams Fermoy, Bandon, Kanturk, Valley Rovers and Newcestown in recent years its

noticable how well conditioned they are compared to other sides. Another noticable thing about these teams is

late in-game skill levels and decision making.

On a national front we have Dublin, Mayo Footballers and Galway, Tipp and Waterford Hurlers as shining

examples.Dublin are the standout. Every year they have layered on some more impressive athletic features.

Having Bryan Cullen over seeing their S&C is critical for me and since he took the job i have noticed a sharp

rise in the Biomechanical qualities of the Dublin players. Their running just gets smooter and smoother. It is

helping to make them look even more skillful and composed. This doesn't happen over night. And the lazy

comments about money and freak bunch of players coming along together completely misses the point and the

incredible work rate of both the players and support staff. I believe the "natural" ability of the Dublin players is

completely over played.

What has brought Dublin here is both incredible consistency in preparation but also a layered up approach.

They are not trying to re-invent the wheel every year and are not ever trying to cram in anything into Pre-

Season. In fact with an educated guess i would suggest Dublin do not train that physically hard too often at all.

Biomechanics to a field coach seems like a big fancy word and many will stay clear. However a good strength

program to an inexperienced athlete will significantly improve a players biomechanics of movement and

running in particular. In a basic sense it straightens you up for a start. Another very simple methods is using

simple running technique drills in every warm up you do. 2 mins 3 times a week will mount up over time and

really help the athletes to move better. For me this is why Dublin look so comfortable. Its also a reasoning why

Mayo, to me pretty clearly less gifted than a few other teams, are at the top and there for so long.

Its a simple concept, born from amongst others Skill Acquisition Forefather Nikoli Bernstein, "Movement

before Skill". It is a particularly important concept for coaching kids. But it is also very important for adult

athletes and it is something that can be significantly addressed every off-season, and then maintained

throughout season. The basic idea of it is without getting too technical is, the better you move the easier you

will pick up new skills or perform old skills.

End Part 1 Introduction

. Off-Season Gaelic games S&C
2. Regenerate
Letting your body get back to some form of relaxed state is critical after any season. It is absolutely
critical if you want to improve and progress.
Regeneration is difficult for some Gaelic players, especially young players and most especially successful
players as sometimes there can be no end to a season when winning. And then a 3rd level student will have the
complexity of a 3rd level team to play with. Of course this is a choice too. But invaribly players will want to
play as in many cases its a shop window for Inter County or indeed the highest level many will get to.
However, one has to ask the question, "how long do i want to play my sport for?". If that answer is anything
over 8 years of adult sport, then every year you need to find time to regenerate. This is not only a physical
necessity, but a psychological.
2 weeks of tools down is a minimum in my opinion. Now that might mean a difficult conversation with a
coach, but its also a good way to find out what type of coach you are dealing with. Anyone unreasonable in
this request if you have been hammering away since january or before does not have your best interests at heart
and does not see the bigger picture. But lets assume they do. And of course, 80%+ of players end their seasons
in september and thats it.
How do you regenerate?
There are many ways to regenerate and many of those may be down to a persons own make up. But some
suggestions would be;
- Walks, longish (45-90 mins)hilly walks are a good relaxing way to exercise and use your aerobic system
without being really taxed
- Massage
- Acupuncture
- Light gym work, reduce to 30 min sessions 1-2 times a week. Bodyweight circuits or basic Squat-Hinge-
Push-Pull.
- Leave your environment. Organise a weekend away. Remove yourself from team mates if possible at least
physically (don't worry, you'll still have whatsapp banter)
- However, lose the phone for a day or so some weekend. Its incredibly regenerating.
- Spend as much time outside as physically possible
- Use the time you would normally use for field training nights or games wisely. Go out with partner, or do
something you normally wouldn't. Sitting in front of the tv is not the answer either, at least not all the time.
- Do some very simple mobility, ankles-hips and thoracic exercises. Look them up, there is a zillion exercises
for each. Takes about 3 mins to perform the 3 exercises you choose
- Do the "Critical 3" as i call them for stability 》Bird Dogs, Side Planks & McGill Sit Ups. These will re-align
your trunk and spine.
Just chill out. The hunger won't be long coming back.

3. Assess
“Courage. It’s more admirable than any other quality. And we have it.” Eamon Dunphy (after beating
Wales in last WC game)
Who thought we'd be quoting Eamon. But he is right. Ireland do have courage. On occassion. As
likable as the Management team is though, they very often lack courage. Martin O'Neill has not
changed his approach in 25 years of coaching. Thats actually a lack of courage. Change is hard. I'm
in the business of change and it is extremely hard. Its confronting. I wonder has Martin ever
assessed his approach at the end of a season. His qualities are obvious. Gives players confidence,
he is likable, he give his teams emotional connection and purpose. Occassionally. The one thing
about his teams is they are inconsistant. That for me shows a lack of preparation. A lack of reflection
and an unwillingness to assess and change.
"Remember that nothing will change if you don't. Positive Change requires purposeful and consistent
actions." - Unknown
If you want to improve, assessment and change are going to be central. Not that you try to re-invent
the wheel, just you add a bit here, lose a bit there. But it takes courage to change. It takes courage
first of all to look at weakness
Recently well put by a peer in Sports Performance game
‘Train strengths to the physiological limit, train weeknesses to the psychological limit’ - Pierre-Jean
Vazel
But how do you assess?
Well assessment is ongoing. One very definite way is to record your performance shortly afterwards
(but not immediately). Have a note book. If you want to improve as a hurler, camogie player or
footballer you will need some critique. And this is a difficult balancing act. You have to be honest
with yourself, but not harsh or unrealistic. Writing notes down as you go thru the seasons is a huge
help. Its a point of reference. You will not remember everything. It also is good to go back and see
where tou were and how you are now making progress. I have coaching sessions from as long ago
as 2000 that i recently found in my parents house. I have been recording training sessions for that
long. Its funny as i found a point around 2006 where i probably became too technical for a while.
This funnily enough coincided with becoming more educated. Its probable i had too much
information. But to look back and see that is hugely helpful. It will hopefully restrain me from doing
that again. Of course i learned on the job as i noticed my teams decision making and flow had
actually gone back. I was over coaching. That kind of assessment is hard and confronting, but
needed if you want to move on.
You can also talk to coaches, parents friends who you trust to give honest assessments on game
day performances. Avoid people though who overly praise or overly critical.
But thats subjective assessment. And its sports performance specific which is what its all about so
its important. However it can be emotional. Anything emotionally driven in terms of improving
performance is fraught with possible biases. You mum is probably going to tell you that you are
amazing. 😉

Depending on the level you may have video footage. There is nothing as revealing as watching
yourself play. There can be immediate clarity. What a coach has been saying makes more sense
now and so on. You may also have stats available again depending on the depth of resources. Use
them, ask for them and find out for real. We all fool ourselves into thinking we are doing fine, or
choose to ignore reality sometimes. This is the very same for coaches by the way. Its why the
overused term "you learn more drom defeat" comes from. Its not that you learn more its that you are
more intrinsically motivated to improve. Cos you hate losing. The really great players and coaches
though find things to work on thru victories as well.
Physical assessment is another thing. While we don't want too much reductionism in-season and we
want our practice and preparation to be as entangled with the sport as possible, off season we can
break things down into smaller bites and try and improve them in a more closed fashion. This may
involve skills as well, striking off the left, kicking both sides etc. But for the purpose of this series we
will look at physical development.
What do we want?
Cold hard facts.
Here are some assessments you can get done;
- Aerobic Capacity Test (Lab, Montreal)
- Aerobic Power Test (MAS, 30-15)
- Movement assessment
- Strength testing
- Acceleration and flying speed tests
- Muscular Endurance tests
- Power Output Assessment
- Cardiac Output Assessment
- Biomechanical Assessment
- Force-Velocity Profiling
Do you need them all? No.
Cardiac Power and Power Outputs would be a concern for very experienced athletes with probably 3
years of good S&C .
For a young player with a low training age a Aerobic Capacity test and Movement Assessment
would be ideal. If they move well then they can do some serious strength training. If not then that
movement has to be addressed first, using stability, mobility and basic strength training possibly
using bodyweight first.
Getting assessed by an S&C Coach can be very revealling. I have seen many "good" athletes who
actually have poor movement. Very often limb length and muscle fibre quality masks asymmetries,
instability and other weaknesses. And over time these imbalances cause underlining problems and
don't become apparent until major injury occurs.
So assessment is critical. You don't have long to improve your physical abilities, so finding what you
need to do and having a plan is hugely important.

Back to basics - Train-to-Train Off-Season (Part 2)

- Maintain Aerobic Capacity.
The efficiency of your Aerobic System underpins all what people call "Game Fitness". Even though
being fit for field sport is multi-dimensional, Aerobic Capacity is still king of the Energy Systems.
The better your aerobic capacity, the more high intensity outputs you can make in a game. But
what’s probably misunderstood by field coaches everywhere is that to have a higher output of those
High Intensity outputs (tackles, runs etc) and to become more "Gamefit", its not just about more of
practising those High Intensity Outputs. What is actually critical is your aerobic system and its
efficiency at helping you recover from those bursts. The more efficient the faster you recover. The
faster you recover then logically the more outputs you can have in a game.
So maintaining this capacity, which we assume is reasonably decent at end of season from training
and games, not only helps not make the return to the field in 2-3 months as difficult but will also
actually enhance recovery between S&C Sessions.
Building Aerobic Capacity is somewhat time heavy, there is simply no getting away from this. So
(see below), if Aerobic Capacity is an issue then maybe that needs a bit of focus off-season. Much of
your aerobic capacity will be built thru playing the game. However once you build a really good
capacity, its actually reasonably hard to lose. You don't lose too much at all in first 21 days after lets
say end of season. The more you have built up thame harder it is to lose.
So lets give some examples of how you could load or maintain Aerobic Fitness;
- ***Long Slow Runs ***
- Tempo Runs
- Cardiac Output Sessions
- Cycling
- MAS Intervals (Maximum Aerobic Speed)
- HICT (High Intensity Continous Training)
Please Note Below
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Generally not advised unless you have very good biomechanics and endurance and actually like
it. Plus most people run too hard and end up over their threshold and it becomes Lactate. While
some lactate training is absolutely needed for field sport, this is neither time nor method best to get
there.
An example of the misuse of Lactate Training is no more obvious than in Gaelic Games. We all
know teams that trained really really hard and "had the shit run out of them". Very very often these
teams (often accompanied by poor warm ups) would start slow in games, often fall behind only to
then make remarkable comebacks and be flying at the last 15. This very often justified the methods
to coaches. However what was wrong the rest of the game was their body was confused. They were
not warm up and they had developed endurance in a way not condusive to a multi-directional, multi-
sprint sport. They would take ages to recover from short bursts because they had an inefficient
Aerobic system. Eventually their body would crank up and they would reach a place they were
familiar with - tiredness. However they were well trained in this zone so would drive on. As well as
the inefficiency of this approach, it was also a sure fire way to injury a few players, especially your
fastest fast twitch machines.
Another method to avoid to build "endurance" which has been popularized by former track athletes
involved with Gaelic teams is running repeated 400 or 800M runs. These will build the glycolytic
system largely, and again become heavily lactate if the correct rest is not given. Lets say 400M
takes 60 secs. To repeat that any sooner than 4 mins later will make it more and more lactate and
even less Glycolytic and certainly very little aerobic. To explain briefly, 3 main systems used
interchangeably by us in sport**
Back to basics - Train-to-Train (Part 3)
Breaking down the Energy Systems easily
1.The ATP-PCr System 》Acceleration, flat out efforts less than 12-15 secs, lifting heavy weights
2. The Glycolytic System 》15-120 secs of continuous effort, 400M runs etc
3. The Aerobic System 》 Continuous effort over 2 mins, recovery system
No.'s 1&2 are the most important in sport. Yet have been grossly undertrained or misunderstood.
You want to accelerate fast, put in high intensity bursts (1) and you want to recover quick and do as
many as possible in a game (3).
***
The easiest of these to explain and perform is Tempo running. At this stage of the year the type of
tempo running i would use the simiest for ever.
Find a soccer / rugby field or track.
Warm up
Run 100M in about 70% pace of your max 100m sprint (you do not have to test this. Guessing is ok).
Most Male gaelic players should run the 100 tempo between 17 & 22 secs. Run 1 100, walk back to
start.
Repeat until you feel you are slowing down. Start week 1 with 8-10 reps and work up gradually.
This should not be hard. You should not be gasping for breath at any point. If you are you are likely
going to fast or gone into the lactate zone.
This should be enjoyable.
There are other more specific and convoluted versions of Tempo Running, but this approach is
perfect for now.
Just to note, distance and road runners use "Tempo" in a different way, so as not to be confused.
This is tempo based off sprint speed as introduced to the world by Charlie Francis (Ben Johnsons
Coach). So it is much more appicable to field sport than distance running version which is running
slightly faster than race pace for shorter or intervals periods.
I would suggest if you feel all you need is maintainence doing one Tempo session a week, and if its
needed due to time constraints tag it on to the end of a gym session.
If you really feel you need to develop in this are i would just make one of your gym days a Cardiac
Output session.
Cardiac Output is where you do a series of exercises, and it can be pretty much any at all, and keep
your Heart Rate in 130-150 BPM zone. Not too easy, not too hard. You just continue this session for
30 minutes +. You need a heart rate monitor or you need to be able to take your pulse quickly and
efficiently. I tend to use multi mivement strength exercises as they keep jeart rate up due to full body
nature. Its also hood for emphazising good movement. You can do any of the exercises for as long
as you want as long as you are staying in the zone;
• Bike as warm up to reach 140ish bpm
• Squat thrusters
• Skipping
• KB Swings
• Hill Walking (treadmill)
• Bear Crawls
• DB/KB Hinge & Row
• Rowing
• Walking Lunge
Work that up to 60 mins over 4-5 weeks and you will feel serious changes. They are also a good
way of retaining muscle while developing aerobically as many other traditional methods can
seriously impact muscle mass.
- Work on weaknesses.
This is a difficult one. What and how do you work on a technical sports weakness in off-season?
Well its the only time you will get to do in a closed uncompetitive environment, and in some cases
that’s what is needed.
An obvious one always in Gaelic football is kicking off your weak foot. This can simply be done
against a wall.
I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of technical weaknesses here, too many options and
variables. What i will say though is that this is the time to improve those basics.
End of Stage 4.