Steven Poacher – Too much training, not enough matches

An imbalance exists in the GAA where county players experience intense periods of matches, while club players sit idle

I PENNED an article back in January after having read a very interesting piece from Donegal physio Dermot Simpson, who worked with the squad from 2012 to 2015, on the volume of training in relation to matches.

Pre-Championship it was six sessions to one match and in Championship season it was 10 training to one match. He revealed that 66% of Donegal’s injuries were accumulated during training.

Now this is not to say there was anything specifically wrong with Donegal’s training but the law of averages would suggest you are going to get more injuries in training than a match if the ratio is 10:1.

Donegal certainly aren’t the only county where this situation occurs and I feel it’s not just restricted to inter-county level, it’s becoming more and more common even now at club level where you hear reports of club players going weeks, sometimes months without playing.

Dermot also goes on to say, “If the GAA season was structured like the AFL model, the intensive training would be performed at the beginning of the season with only maintenance of fitness between the weekly matches. AFL’s hard training is done in the longer pre-season, which stems from mid-November until the end of February.”

Back in January I also raised the following point after having chatted to Marty Clarke about the volume of games/training during his time in Australia.

Marty talked about CKs, a test where protein in the muscle is checked. If you are not at a certain level you don’t train, making the observation that the fast twitch athletes (those that run at high speed/intensity) can take up to five full days to fully recover to a safe level.

When you consider all this, in a professional sport and then you consider what GAA athletes are expected to do at an amateur level, probably coming home from a day’s work on top of that, it seems incredible.

The massive emphasis not on training during the week but on the recovery between games in the AFL is the most interesting thing and can only happen if you have a regular flow of games, something the GAA is going to have to address very soon.

Then there is the other extreme of too many games too soon. Just last week we had three senior club games in sevem days in Down Division One.

On the Friday night we travelled to Ballymartin, on the Monday night we travelled to Mayobridge and on the Friday we were at home to Warrenpoint.

It may come as a surprise to many but on the Wednesday between the Mayobridge and Warrenpoint games we didn’t train at all, just a small bit of video work, some foam rolling and a stretch.

The guys that didn’t play on the Monday participated in a small conditioning block of running. We are faced with a similar scenario this week; we again have three games in seven days.

That is very demanding on amateur club players, some who are working six days a week and travelling but even more so on the club/county player.

For some unbeknown reason Down seniors are training this Sunday morning, despite gaining sole access to the players for the next month, sandwiched in between two crucial league games in three days for the clubs, and then the management and medical team at Down are wondering why their players are picking up injuries?

We must start addressing the balance of training/games particularly at inter-county level where serious problems exist when a team is training three days a week for 12 weeks for one game, and which ultimately has a knock-on effect on the club players season.

Also at club/county level as coaches we have to get the balance between work/recovery spot on and maybe now and again forget about the scientific approach and just adopt some good old common sense.
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