PRE-SEASON TRAINING DO'S #13 - GROUP PLAYERS FOR RUNNING DRILLS

I'm currently doing the pre-season training for some local/amateur teams and on of the things I'll be implementing is the grouping of players depending on their running ability.

Using a 1-fits-all approach means that out of 40 players you might get 3 - 5 of them who get trained optimally for any given running drill, with the others being under or over trained during that drill.

The "we all do it' mantra is great for team morale but not so great for fitness benefits.

What I have done with the teams I'm training is to do a group time trial then divide them into groups based on their results.

I'm going to take myself as an example as someone who can't run long distances at pace which most people would think of as inadequate endurance.

What this shows more of though is my genetic make up (anaerobic vs aerobic) and that I am a product of the type of training I do (sprinting speed for the most part).

Between bouts of high intensity sprints I can recover better then average so my repeat speed is good even if my endurance running is not.

So if I was to run with the best runners at the club I would get smoked and potentially get slower in my sprinting.

Not a great result right there because now I don't have endurance or speed.

Here's what a good (GR) vs bad runner (BR) 5 x 200m every 90secs drill might look like:

Set 1 - GR in 40secs + BR in 40secs...both have 50secs rest

Set 2 - GR in 42secs + BR in 45secs...GR has 48secs rest v BR 42

Set 3 - GR in 44secs + BR in 50secs...GR has 46secs rest vs BR 37

OK you can see where this going.

Even by set 3 you can see the huge differences in speed and fatigue from GR v BR and you can clearly see what happens if we both do the same drill even though we are totally different running levels.

After the initial time trial I then break down every players run into a meters per second score.

This can now be used to prescribe different interval types but with the drill specified to the player, or group of players.

If you want individual improvement in your players then everyone cannot simply do the same thing and you just hope for the best as I don't think has worked in any any situation ever.

Need me to organise the fitness aspect for your footy team? Let me know