Australia is home to a wide variety of sports, and wide variety of athletes. We mostly see them in their moments of glory – fleeting snapshots that can stick in the mind forever.
What we don’t see is the hundreds, the thousands of hours of training that make those moments possible.
When it comes to the major team sports leagues in Australia – such as the AFL, NRL, Super Rugby, A-League, NBL, and team sports that go across multiple competitions like rugby union and cricket – they share a very similar training pattern.
For these athletes, their year is divided up into three distinct periods – the pre-season, the season, and the off-season.
The pre-season is where training is done most intensely. It’s all about getting the players as fit as they possibly can be ahead of the season itself.
It’ll vary from sport to sport and level to level, but generally during the pre-season players dedicate the majority of their time getting into shape. That might be through aerobic exercise, or weights, or really anything their team physicians throw at them.
As the season gets nearer the focus typically shifts from improving fitness to improving skills, a change that becomes more pronounced once the season starts.
In the main season, training becomes less about trying to make fitness gains and more about maintaining the gains made in the pre-season.
Recovery becomes a buzzword, and players have a much greater focus on improving their skills and the other technical aspects of their game than they would have in the pre-season.
Eventually the season comes to an end, the off-season begins, the players take a well-deserved break, and social media is awash with players posing for photos in international locations.
There’s no formal training in this time, though athletes are expected to keep themselves fit. Showing up to pre-season out of shape can have dire consequences. After that, the pre-season begins again, and the cycle continues.
Various sports are difficult to compare in terms of their training loads, since the players within a team will vary greatly in terms of their own fitness requirements.
You will tend to find a bigger difference between the training loads of individuals in a single team than you would between the average training loads of different sports.
In terms of individual sports, measuring the training load difference becomes greatly dependent on the type considered.
A cyclist in training might cover up to 1000 kilometres in a single week, a distance runner might be more in the realm of 200 kilometres a week – but obviously the great difference between these sports accounts for this gulf.
Generally speaking, aerobic, endurance-based sports have the heaviest training loads. These sports require athletes to go all day, and the training requirements reflect that.
Athletes competing in ironman events, for example, will regularly clock up 40 hours of training in a week.
This is a bit different in terms of skills-based sports where the training hours are generally lower, say 20 to 30 hours a week, but the athlete’s preparation will likely involve other components, like analysing past performances, or studying the theory of the sport in greater detail.
Even athletes who play highly technical sports find themselves in the gym at some point. Golfers are always looking to improve their strength and flexibility. V8 Supercar drivers can spend more time in the gym than on the track, preparing themselves for physical and mental fatigue of high-speed driving.
All things considered, there is a great deal of variety in sport, and there is a great deal of variety in people, and so follows a great deal of variety in athletes and how they train.
At the end of the day, the one characteristic all elite athletes share is their dedication to training and to fitness. They know that preparation brings success.
Perry Bridge
Guest
A recent interview with Western Bulldogs Jake Stringer was interesting - he'd been a midfielder during his junior days but had broken his leg severely while still playing in the TAC Cup Under 18s. He was subsequently drafted to the Western Bulldogs and has been impressing very much as a dangerous mobile forward. He spoke on SEN where they asked him about returning to the midfield post the leg break and he indicated that it had taken him the last 2 1/2 years to regain his strength and power through the leg and he anticipated another two pre-seasons would be needed to build up the fitness to be able to run properly through the midfield. That was interesting as the interviewers included Tim Watson (Andrew Maher and Andrew Gaze) and they were clearly surprised (judging by their reactions) as they exclaimed "Four and a half years". The 'elite' athletes dedication to training and fitness may be a similar dedication although how it plays out from sport to sport certainly does vary. And again - we've seen that with the sub standard (for AFL) fitness levels of guys like Karmichael Hunt and Izzie Folau. Folau ironically moved into Rugby Union where his fitness post his AFL 'career' was suddenly an asset. Different games require different conditioning - however - there's an important element of being 'match fit'. And during the season, the match itself will retain the match hardened fitness levels. Clearly though - a single basketball match a week wouldn't be enough so basketball comps play multiple matches. NRL players get challenged backing up from SoO matches, and soccer often have a mid-week club or representative match too. Player management is clearly an important factor. There is also the point of diminished returns beyond a certain point or possibility of stress injuries from too much training.
Aransan
Guest
In the AFL the training loads must vary considerably through a player's career. The load on players for the first 2 years would be significantly less than the years following and the load on mature players also has to be carefully managed. A 15y.o. like Tim Watson wouldn't be physically able to play football these days and of course players can't play until they are 18 now. Not too many players can play every game in their first year, this would be more likely for a smaller player than a bigger player -- Bontempelli truly is an exception, especially as he was young for his draft. It is very hard for a ruckman to be drafted as an 18y.o., unless they are good enough to start in another rôle like Paddy Ryder who started on the backline. Will players be held back until they are 21 in the future? This would at least give them a chance to complete an apprenticeship or their education.