Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pre Season

It is that time again when teams start thinking about pre season and that time that players hate. How is it best to structure a pre season program. Firstly the most important question is to determine what the coach wants and by what time. The other question is what level are the players you are working with at. Often players who are semi professional come back to training is very poor physical conditioning and are open for injury if the training is too intense too soon. I am more in favor meeting with players 1 month prior to the official start of pre season and giving them a home based program just to get them to a level of fitness that we can work with. I think a 4-6 week schedule is fine obviously well planned and increasining in intensity as the weeks go on. Too often there is no planning and this is why pre season is so unliked, give the players a structure, inform them what will happen over the next 4-6 weeks and make sure you use basic periodisation principles.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! what kind of programs do you give to your players to do at home? Stuff like low intensity long runnings and fartlek?

Dr Craig S. Duncan said...

Hi During this phase I dont like low intensity long running but longer intervals such as 4 x 4minutes with 3-4 minute recovery (Work@90% rest at 60%)Maybe fartlek for 30 minutes would be the maximum but I would specify how many bursts of speed I would like such as 30 minute run with 20 bursts of speed for 100-200 metres. I also include a strength training program and speed technique etc. The point is long running really has no place and even for me the 4 minute intervals are long