youve heard of sore losers. now meet the sore winners? booooring.

love em or hate em it's still a good result

Smith,

I guessed you must have missed 06 State Champs when Sturt won 12s thru to 18s. While I am sure our teams are disappointed that they lost the Grand Finals (and were beaten by better teams on the day), I'm sure they know that their main preperation is for the big tournaments in May and June.

BTW - would you mind posting your clubs results from Summer Season Finals and their record from last years state champs. In fact, why not put your results from the last five state champs and we can do a comparison.

My advise, instead of sniping from behind your computer, why not take up Scotty on his offer and learn something.

Smith,

"But I would not mind going out and watching some of the sides that won the Grand Final train."

Most of my sessions this week are with the grand-final winning Under 18 1 and 2 teams/players. Strength and Conditioning is tonight and Skills are tommorow morning, call me for exact times and venues.

Tuesday night is Strength and Conditioning for the Under 16's and as they only finished 2nd (said in sarcastic tone) you can
miss that one. However you will need to be there later for an Under 18 practice planning meeting and for 3 hours on Wednesday night for Under 18's.

See you there!

121348,

At last some positivity. Thanks for raising the level of discussion.

At the start of every term we review the player's goals (long, medium and short term for basketball and school) and their time management, or their schedule for the term (eg school, homework, basketball, social, rest and recovery).

If the player has goals that include playing at higher levels (eg state, national, college, NBL etc) they must do a lot of work if they have a chance to reach their goals. We then work out what sessions he must do (eg skills, strength and conditioning) in addition to the SASI, State and team sessions which are not negotiable. The S & C (eg weights, plyometrics) we try to get done before or after these sessions.

Schedules are adjusted throughout the year. An example is players generally don't do any senior trainings in the high volume times of the year (eg now!). We will also back off Under 18 training after Classics and before/directly after State. At the moment we are in a very heavy strength and conditioning phase, term 2 will be much lighter for example.

The aim is to give the players the maximum workload they need so that they can achieve their goals, without overloading them. So far it is working. Hope this answers your question. Call me if you need any extra info.

SB,

Interesting you say sturt has designated S & C sessions. Out of curiousity do your coaches run these or do you have a CSCS to run it? What model do you use (eg undulating periodisation, linear periodisation, classical model etc)? What phase are you in now (you said it was a "very heavy strength and conditioning phase", so you are in a strength phase? or do you mean your volume is high)?

How do you calculate training monotony, strain and load to maximize benefits and predict sickness and injury? How many ground contacts do your plyos sessions consist of?

You said sometimes you do these sessions before or after a SASI (for example) session, what are the benefits/limitations to doing them before or after such a session? How do you manage concurrent training.

Do you test for improvement to justify your S&C and how do you factor improvements due to the athlete getting older into the equation (as natural development of the athlete means they will get bigger/quicker etc without training... for juniors anyway)? Are your athletes significantly better (physically) now than they were say 5 years ago, and how can you show this?

Before starting any S&C work do you give each athlete an individual program or do you have a generic list of exercises you work from? You mentioned weights, do you give them a list again or do you supervise their form? What is your pre-screening protocol for a weights program?

That should do for now, If you answer these I'll ask some more, seeing as you are so willing to share. Thankyou in anticipation.

ITA - you seem to have a lot of knowlege on this subject - perhaps you could offer your services to make sure that things are being done correctly? in the interests of the game and players?

ITA,

So many questions and very good ones at that. You seem to have a great deal of knowledge on the subject.

If you come to Concordia College Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday I can show you the plyo and strength programs we use. You could even advise as to ways for us to improve. They are just cut-downs of the SASI and AIS programs, nothing startling.

The S & C coach, assisted by myself, mesecke and some other coaches supervise and correct technique.

A general summary would be:
Oct-Jan Off-season
Feb-Mar Pre-season
Apr-Jun In season
Jul break
Aug-Sep Extension phase

Plyo
10 week blocks no more than twice a year and not in-season. Either 2 or 3 times a week depending on maturity of athlete. Ground contacts in Week 1 = 90 + 2 min skipping, Week 10 = 330 + 5 min skipping. All done on a plyo floor and soft mats and hurdles.

Strength (Upper, Lower, Core)
Either 1 per week technique only or 2 or 3 times a week again depending on athlete maturity and training phase. Split programs would be applicable for some mature athletes later this year, currently we have no athletes doing this. 2 four week mesocycles per term. Difficulty (eg heavier weights, lower reps) and complexity of sets,reps in each mesocycle increase as athletes move up levels (3RM strength tests compared to body weight used to determine levels). Athletes must satisfy technique requirements before pushing any meaningful weight.

Normally team training after plyo or strength sessions. Not ideal but there are only 7 days in a week. Don't do heavy lower strength or plyo concurrently.

SASI athletes have physical testing results analyzed and individual programs formulated. For example one athlete at the moment is doing extra PNF stretching this term to improve flexibility.

Vertical jump scores in SASI athletes doing plyo jumped by up to 7 cm this term and 20 metre times were better in some cases by .1 second. Our injury rates and physical testing results are better than when we started 5 years ago but I only have anecdotal evidence of this. Ankle injuries are still our most common, we have wobble boards.

Hope this answers some questions. Come to Concordia and see for yourself if you like. Any input would be appreciated.

Right you are Anon... and I do. I coach basketball and S & C at another club, it is pretty obvious who I am so I probably need not say.

I was just curious since SB says they do these things, how they go about it since he is so willing to share...

Thanks SB,

Bit slow on that last post, phone rang. I appreciate your offer, but will decline for the moment, not being a snob, maybe some other time. I am working with my athletes most nights at the moment... It is always good to see other S&C programs. 7 cm I would assume statistically significant, 0.1 I am not sure about, but SASI use dual beam swift if i am not mistaken, so may be.

But I was meaning for the sturt program, in terms of testing, as said SASI probably have more equipment and those athletes given programs seperately, I assume it is a lot different with the vast numbers at a club and mostly volunteer coaches.

We have tried mass physical testing and it is too cumbersome and time consuming. Our time is better spent on other things. In a perfect world we would test twice a term. Strength testing is done on an ad hoc basis when athletes want to "move up".

7 cm in VJ represents a 10% improvement, statistically significant by any measure. .1 in 20 m only represents a 3% improvement but the difference between 3.1 and 3.0 over 20 metres is significant when you see it in person. 2.9 is fast and 2.8 is scary!

I look forward to compare notes some time.

SB,

A couple comments/questions as well.

I will work from the top of your answers so I don't miss anything.

You have broken your season into blocks (pre season etc) seeming like a more traditional training model. ok just read further on in strength paragraph finishes this question I think.

Your ground contacts are very good numbers and fit within most research or papers I have read or written.

Sturt has weights? you guys don't have a court! (not bagging, asking a question). sturt kids do weights? or are you simply referring to SASI. (excellent you focus on form as an aside, you see heaps of kids at the local gym and they are an injury waiting to happen). Why did you chose 3RM as a bench mark, I have been involved in debate for juniors from both sides arguing 1RM is/is not safe, some recommend a 6RM (or 3 as you use), there are valid points both ways, but what made you choose 3? or is that just what SASI use?

I would never do plyos after a team training, before is when I do explosive conditioning, which is what you said, but before you said before or after, so I am guessing it is due to time availability not purely planned to be first?

Concurrent training was more referring to aerobic and strength training, and could deserve it's own thread.

Well I may write some more questions later, I am off to train some athletes. Which I guess you are about to as well. Thanks for your comments.

Yes SB maybe we can.

And I won't go into stats but generally you can't say 2.9 is faster than 3.0 due to error from a number of reasons, but you can if it is statistically significant, eg if I measure with a stopwatch I may get 2.9, and another person gets 3.0, then athlete B i get 3.0 and another measurer gets 2.9, who is quicker, ok I butchered that explanation (gotta go and trying to type quick) and it is a little different if you were using light gates but you get the drift.

Also worth noting is VJ is the type of jump 1 foot 2 foot take of standing jump, countermovement jump, and even the method used to get the data (Western Australia Institute of Sport results were about 5 cm higher on the yardstick than wall mounted chalk board, Ellis et. al. in Gore, 2000).

damn, after reading allll of this.... the important question has still not been answered???

who's piss was higher?

hahaha

#121524 - you certainly are bitter and twisted and have some issues that you haven't dealt with - I wish you good luck with that!

Maybe, he who laughs last, thinks slowest.

Thank you SB & ITA for high quality posts that, unlike others, were worth reading for a change.

SB, there are people out there that don't begrudge Sturt its success - but are working their backsides off to try to make sure it's only short lived!

#121524, OK I'll take your advice and not care about anything you just said. Your comment does nothing to raise the level of the discussion. My blood is not boiling (no really, I'm not too phased, I'm used to it here!). If I knew who you were and respected your opinion it might be different.

Anyway back to the real stuff, ITA, we use Concordia's weight training facility which we help set up. We use 3RM for testing only because that's what SASI use and it works fine.

Plyos are always the very first thing they do and so are always before any other training. Something about fast-twitch fibres which you could explain better than me.

SASI use the timing gates for their tesing so the 20 m results are probably +- 0.005 s I guess.

The VJ test for SASI is 1 step 2 foot take-off.

Yes thankyou SB and ITA.

ITA, not sure who you are you seem to have alot of knowledge. I'm sure all clubs would be interested in working with you in some capacity. Are your services available even if its for a fee?

121578, your not been a little over sensitive? What are you trying to achieve with that comment?

121348 (121583),

Possibly after winter for a fee, yes, I have too much to do before then, I am like SB and other coaches 8 days a week at the moment if you get my drift. I am sure you will work out who I am, ITA should give you a clue, from there, and my posts there are not too many district coaches I could be.

SB

Thanks for clearing this up, I can clear it up later (the plyos stuff), I have to go to another session now, but quickly jumped on here. I may talk to you some other time. Sharing is always good (even if you are from sturt lol) always looking at other programs, you never carbon copy but take bits you like. I know who you are, you may know me even though we have not spoken.

if that last comment is true - sturt need to speak to the coach.

it is unacceptable

the coach needs to show restraint

sorry the manager