PG the PT – Do you love training more than playing?

WE’VE a couple of teams using The Edge as their base for pre-season at the minute. Getting close to nailing those last few double weekly gym sessions before they’ll be shepherding men toward the pitch for some work on the field.

I was talking to one of the coaches as I watched on at the pre-season session taking place on the gym floor and said to him how impressed I was with the numbers they’d been consistently getting out. He said the tough job was maintaining those numbers as they move onto the pitch, never mind as the season kicks into gear.

He reckoned that there’s a subculture of players within GAA that aren’t actually all that into the game at all, they much prefer the training. A social environment in which they can work on their fitness with a structured routine where they know that all they have to do is show up, do the work – with their friends around them – and head home again.

Then, when the pressure of performing on the field when the whistle is blown becomes the main focus he says inevitably boys start dropping away.

Some use the excuse of not getting games, but in reality it’s a mask for not really enjoying the cut and thrust of the game itself.

Does that sound familiar? I was a little sceptical – it seemed back to front to me. We train hard so we can play hard. The reason all the work is put in on the gym floor, on the forest runs, on the pitch is that when it comes round to putting on the jersey and playing we’re the better players for it.

But the more you look at it maybe there’s some truth in what he’s saying. Numbers do seem to drop off as the year goes on, so what is it that’s causing players to disappear when there’s games to be played?

From my point of view, if you are someone who knowingly or not enjoys the actual training end of things rather than playing that’s no big issue.

Just remember that the reason you’re training is to be a better athlete, which will make you a better player. The reason you’re training is because you’re playing a game that you, at least at one stage, loved to play.

Start thinking about training to improve how you play, not training to be better at training. Once the boots are hung up you can change your emphasis. You can spend the whole year working on getting stronger, lifting big weights or running all the miles in the world but that window of playing and representing your club, gets smaller with every candle. No matter if it’s junior reserves or captaining your county, you’re not a gym monkey, you’re an animal on the field.

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