The AFL Community Website has some excellent resources to assist coaches and players build and maintain their fitness from the pre-season right through to the end of the season.

Strength and Conditioning:

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=78

Pre-Season Training (10 Commandments):

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=334

The Competition Phase:

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=335

Football Specific Fitness Games:

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=332

Maintaining Football Specific Fitness In Season:

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=333

Preparing For Finals:

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=331

STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

– by Murray Green

During the Pre-Season Murray Green kindly offered to lead the Under 14’s and Under 16’s through a number of strength conditioning sessions. An outline of the program is provided below:

The strength training program covers body weigh resistance training and is ideal for any person of any age. This type of training sets the foundation to good health and allows for easy progression to more advanced training techniqes.

The program is broken up into three parts.

1. The warm up.
2. The workout
3. Cool down and recovery

The warm up will be: 

• 3 mins Jog
• 2 mins Dynamic stretch

If you aren’t sure what Dynamic Stretching is here is a 6 minute YouTube overview:

http://www.youtube.com/Dynamic Stretching Long

And one for shorter attention spans

http://www.youtube.com/Dynamic Stretching Short

Plus a soccer specific one which would also be useful for proper footy

http://www.youtube.com/Dynamic Stretching Soccer

The workout will be:

• Body weight Squat 15-20 Reps

http://www.youtube.com/Body Weight Squat

• Push up 15-20 Reps

http://www.youtube.com/Push-Up

• Pull up 15-20 Reps

Annoying video first then a brief demo one

http://www.youtube.com/Pull-Up Annoying

http://www.youtube.com/Pull-Up Demo

Complete this 3 times with 30 seconds rest between each exercise

Cool down and recovery:

• 2 mins light jog
• Full body stretch starting at calves then work your way up: quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes (bum), lower back, chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps

This covers most of the exercises Murray showed

http://www.youtube.com/Full Body Stretch

Frequency:

It is important to hold each stretch for 20-30 seconds and to breath while stretching.

Also remember to drink water before, during and after training.

Please also see the attached articles that provide information on healthy eating guidelines for AFL players.

This training program shoul be completed 2-3 times per week with 2 days rest between workouts. As I mentioned on Tuesday night, good nutrition and adequet rest are just as important as training. Also I am asking all players not to consume ‘Energy’ drinks before training or games as they have been known to cause nasty side effects when combined with cardio training.