Monday 22 January 2018

How pre-season training will win you a championship

By Zak Nothling - Renegade Performance & CF East Tamaki Coach 

“It’s not how you start, It’s how you finish - I expect to make a strong finish” - Steve Finley

In my experience championships are won or lost in the last 20 mins of a game. This is true in almost every sport. 

Let's take a quick look at the most successful team in sporting history, our very own All Blacks. In the 2015 World Cup they let in one try in the last 20 mins of any of their games & the last 20 mins is where they score 30% of their tries.



Experts put this down to their superior fitness which is developed in the lead up to every season. The All Blacks Strength and Conditioning is world class and their excellent preparation in the pre-season sets them up for success.

So if it works so well for the All-Blacks shouldn't we all put a bit more thought into our pre-season training opposed to just going for a couple jogs before the first practice?

We have 2 ways that we work with athletes and teams to get ready for the season 

Option 1: (GPP - General Physical preparedness) 

General Physical Preparedness is essentially what CrossFit is. This means you are prepared for almost any situation, with this style of training you work on your cardiovascular endurance but also your ability to sprint, you work on your max power output and also your strength endurance. There is no specialising. 

This type of training is great for preseason. A couple months of 3 + sessions a week leading into the season you will have a much better base than ever before and the benefits crossover to so many different sports.

This is a great option if you are preparing for the season by yourself and not part of a pre-arranged training programme.

Option 2: Sports specific preparation 

This is a much more specific approach to your training, We use this style of training usually when we are preparing a whole team for their season or a championship.

This preparation is completely personalised depending on the sport. 

If you have been put in charge of getting your local sports team ready for the season there are some key points that you want to consider:

  • What is the average “training age” of your team? Even though they may be great soccer or rugby players, how many years have they been in the gym squatting and deadlifting - This will drastically affect the way you programme their strength stuff. Obviously the age of the athletes will be an important factor too. The under 14 team will prepare very differently to the men's Premier team.
  • Will everyone be doing it under the eye of a trainer or will they be left to do it on their own? IF they are doing it on their own do you have a system for them to report results so you can watch their progress and adjust the programme if necessary
  • How long do you have to prepare them?
  • What energy systems are primarily used in this particular sport ?
  • What are the most common injuries within the sport and can you help prevent them with prehab exercises?
  • Does their need to be different training programmes for different positions ?
  • How much time do they have to train ?
  • What equipment do they have access to ?
  • What were the teams main weaknesses in regards to fitness last season ?

As you can see It is a very individualised process specific to the sport and athletes. 

This year we have been working with the New Zealand Ice Fernz (NZ Women's Ice Hockey team) Take a look at the outline of the training plan.


We prepared a 16 week build up which was broken into 6 phases, each that built on the previous one;

Phase 1– Learning good movement patterns, additional work on mobility. The goal being trying to reach full range of motion. Under a little bit of load. 
Phase 2 – Continued emphasis on good movement patterns, additional work on  aerobic energy system, More emphasis on building strength in all aspects (hypertrophy, general strength, maximal strength, muscular endurance) also we will start introducing power work.
Phase 3 – Keep developing max strength, start alactic power work  
Phase 4 - Holidays - Maintain and de-load 
Phase 5 – Power work under heavy load and also low load, speed work A lactic capacity and conditioning. More hockey specific patterns, transferring the newly developed strength to more relevant patterns.
Phase 6 – Maintain power work introduce transitional speed training and agility. A combination of lactic and aerobic work. 

As you can see from above it is a lot more detailed and specific for the individual demands of Ice Hockey.

Athletes were based all around the country so we have had them video specific exercises each week for us to give movement cues to improve on next time. Also the group of athletes we were working with had a diverse “training age” so we accompanied each exercise with a matching “how to” video to to give them the best chance of performing it safely and effectively. 

Each style of training is very effective. Depending on the level you play at will determine which preseason option you choose to to help you prepare, regardless of which one you go for the goal is the same, get you as fit as strong as possible for your sport so that you can outperform your opponents - particularly in the last 20 mins. 
  


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