Game Day Performance

AI results.

After a significant amount of time off any serious, and consistent training, I really enjoyed the last 15 weeks of training.

Was able to modify training sessions based on pre-training questionnaires which in most cases worked well. There was also a nice mix between competition lifts and accessories designed to target “weaknesses”.

Looking forward to a 2 week bribing block before starting a more long term hypertrophy phase and move away from the specificity of the main lifts towards some more “athletic” movements

Pre-Season vs In-Season training

An athletes season can be divided into 2 main ‘components’, pre and in season.
Based on this, the training in terms of sessions, exercise selection, loading protocols and desired outcomes are significantly different.

Pre-season is (typically) a 3-4months period of training prior to commencement of a competition. It’s during this time where s&c coaches and head coaches can work collaboratively to both develop the physical attributes and skills of the athletes. It’s during this period that the training can have specific goals and therefore adjustments can be made to training modalities to suit.

In-season, as an s&c coach we have two priorities. Recovery and preparation. We aren’t looking to make crazy strength, endurance or speed progressions but rather, we are looking to prepare our athletes as best we can through modifications of loading; both in terms of volume and exercise selection. Generally speaking, in a weeks worth of training sessions, only one session will be reasonably difficult. This will be after enough time to recover from the previous game and enough time to then be at optimal condition for the following game - usually somewhere at GameDay+3 (three days after game).

Unilateral training 🦵🏻

Unilateral training can be used throughout any stage of a training program, regardless of the goal of the program.

Often used in lower body movements such as Bulgarian split squats, front foot elevated split squats, single leg leg press, it can also be used in upper body movements. Movements such as alternating db bench press, single arm standing db press can also be implemented.

This kind of training allows for us to be able to work on a few different things whilst typically using much lighter loads. We are able to work on building strength and stability and promote better alignment and joint movements which in turn may help to reduce incidence of injury.

Additionally, unilateral movements allow for the ability to build strength by reducing the ‘reliance’ of the stronger limb taking over to complete the movement - ie, barbell bench press vs db bench press. With barbell bench, the stronger limb can sometimes ‘take over’ from the weaker limb and may result in imbalances.

Furthermore, reduction of imbalances and increases in stability can also result in increased athletic performance such as increased running speed.

Aim to implement this training type into your program either within the main session or within your movement prep/pre-hab movements

Core (trunk)training 🌲

Training the core musculature is very important for all athletes. Strength through the trunk is essential for force production and absorption.

The muscles of the trunk play a role in flexion/extension, lateral flexion, rotation/anti-rotation. Yet most people think of the muscles of the ‘6-pack’ - sit-ups and crunches etc.

however, if your sport requires you to be able to wrestle, punch, throw and resist force then 3x10 sit-ups won’t cut it.

Aim to include 2-3 of the above movements, 3-4 times per week. Also, don’t forget to add unilateral and bilateral carries such as farmers and suitcase carries.

Strength training 💪🏻

All successful athletes have a few common traits. They are usually the most committed, most skilled and are very strong 😤.

Strength training protocols are relatively simple yet sometimes misinterpreted.

You need to lift heavy (85-95% of 1RM), for moderate to low volumes (generally within the 2-5 rep range), and have longe rest periods (4-5minutes).

Seems simple right? But often athletes get carried away and change a few of the above variables. They might rest for

Endurance training

Endurance training sometimes gets a bad rap and it’s mostly due to confusion resulting in lots of heavy breathing, expletives and sometimes vomit.

The ultimate goal of Endurance training is to improve aerobic capacity. This is pretty much a fancy way to talk about how long you can exercise at a given intensity.

To do this most efficiently you should aim to train at or slightly below your anaerobic threshold - generally between 75-85% of your maximal heart rate.

The trick is to over time build the amount of time that you can exercise at this given intensity. Initially you should aim to improve the time durations and eventually this will translate to distance targets ie, Km.

Aim to build your consistency over time. Rather than relying on short spurts of motivation over a 3 day period and then nothing at all for the next month. You should aim to achieve the bare minimum and build from there.

This might look like.
Week 1 - 3: 1x per week for 20minutes of continuous running at a pace that you feel slightly out of breath but able to continue running if you had to.

Week 3-5: 2x per week (Monday and Thursday) as above.

Week 6-8: as above but for 25-30minutes.

And so on.

GameDay Performance Podcast - Episode #1

I thought it was only fitting for the first episode of the GameDay Performance Podcast that I invite one of the most (if not the most) intelligent up and coming strength coaches in from One of the co-owners of Zero Weakness Mackay, Kahn specialises in powerlifting not only being a super smart dude but also boasts a 315kg squat, 190kg bench and a 295kg deadlift. He shares some program design considerations and his approach to coaching the big 3 lifts as well as some important words of advice for up and coming athletes that is applicable to any sport.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7MjZDA4jFbutAkH13mIAaI?si=5O6eUi5zTR-5bi1c8YTGoQ

5 month progression for 10km TT

Things that helped achieve this
1. Managing training load
2. Finding a balance between strength training and aerobic training.
3. Making your ‘hard days’ HARD and ‘Easy days’ EASY.

Want more information on how to achieve the above, find yourself a strength AND conditioning coach... I know a guy 😏

Was chasing sub 50...
Settled for sub 45 for 10km 😤

Just a 110kg rugby league prop building the engine