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By Fraser Smith on Wed 23rd November 16
As most coaches will tell you pre-season training is the most important training players will go through over the course of a year and as most players will tell you it is also the most painful.
With the Western Force into their third week of pre-season training the team is putting more focus than ever before on their conditioning base and tailoring their training in order to allow the side to run out full 80-minute performances week-to-week.
Head of Athletic Performance Will Markwick says the training has been building over the first few weeks of the pre-season and is now really ramping up.
“In the first week we had no rugby at all we just had an athletic development week, we did some physical testing and a series of pretty arduous training sessions mainly based around the players' conditioning,” he said.
“In the second week we introduced the rugby content. There was a lot of technical learning around our tactics and our philosophy on attack and defence and now this week we are going to put all of that together, ramp it up and go pretty hard.”
Markwick says every aspect of training is designed to mimic or prepare players for game situations.
“It isn’t standalone conditioning; it isn’t just the athletic performance staff telling the players to run harder. We work very closely with the coaches on how we design drills around what these blokes need to do at Super Rugby level.”
“Every drill we are thinking about how we can best prepare the players for what is required of them in a game right down the small details - in specific parts of the field, at different times in the game and for different periods of time.”
After the team were found dropping off late in games last season the athletic performance staff have opted to adjust the way they approach pre-season training.
“As a high performance team we just have to tweak little things to take it to the next level, rather than being really efficient for one single effort we need the players to be able put together repeat efforts in all areas – strength, power, running.”
“The main thing we are doing we differently this pre-season is we aren’t preparing for the perfect picture, that is the common theme throughout our training.
“We aren’t preparing for the perfect phase, and that means when teams have us under pressure we will be able to cope and vice versa when we have teams under pressure we will have the capability to take advantage.”
Markwick believes the club has surrounded the players with the best athletic performance staff possible including Head of Strength and Conditioning, Scott Johnson who joins the club from the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Head Phyiso, Dave Dawes.
“Scott Johnson has been brought in with some great experience in rugby league and that was something we were really keen to utilise as a point of difference from a conditioning background and also his ability to work across many fields including strength, power, conditioning and rehabilitation.”
“Michael Symes manages our athletic performance data, it’s a crucial role that helps us design and measure our training to make sure that we’re actually doing what we are setting out to do.”
“We have a very skilled team of physiotherapists. Head Physio Dave Dawes is very knowledgeable and oversees all of the maintenance of our playing group. Ben Mather is our Senior Physio who brings great rugby experience and covers all of our injury prevention and rehabilitation and Nick Blackah is another awesome addition.”
With pre-season in full swing the 2017 Super Rugby season is just around the corner so renew your Membership or join the Sea of Blue today! http://bit.ly/2017Memberships
https://www.westernforce.com.au/arti...-fitness-focus
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Education is Important, but Rugby is Importanter!
I'm sure they just changed the date from the article published last year
Where has Emidio Pacecca gone? He was Head Physio only a couple of months back and gave us a brilliant talk at the members' forum in Sept! Gone the same way as the team doctor I imagine.....usurped by ARU ring-ins
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I hope we don't start seeing updates like: "X has just set the new record for the bench-press". I hate it when teams spend too long in the gym perfecting their abs or quads or whatever.
Learn the skills you need and perform them hard and often; repeat as often as you feel necessary; then do a bunch more.
Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon
One week of arduous conditioning? One week?
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Port Macquarie
"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!" - Rocky Balboa
I'm in shape...round is a shape...
Wow.. they should have come to TWF for their panel of fitness experts
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did Jono Lance break his arm vs French Baa Baas in Bordeaux??