OPTIMAL AGE for AFL GRAND FINAL and KANGAROOS
It is often surprising to look at teams and do profiles on their age and experience. I did this in 2002 as a backdrop to studying development in sport and teams. As expected there was a real trend with teams and different sports and I have added a lecture I did on this blog that explains the trends. It is in the section “Lecture Development AFL Grand Final Conference Optimal Age” on this blog. Here it is also below.
I copied the Kangaroos team that beat the Hawks and same again…..25.7 years of age and 97 games as of RD 17. This is a distribution curve of the Kangas on word doc.
Obviously there are some teams that sit a little bit outside the trend ( EFC 93 and Carlton 95) but the trend exists and both were not far out. Takes years to develop a team.
How many teenagers in the Kangas team? But they seem to have a good group coming through at 23 to 24.
Geelong has 2 or 3 teenagers playing at times but their team you will find is very experienced and balanced around the 25 to 26 age group. Almost perfect really.
By the time Brisbanes reign was over their distribution looked like a boob. Heaps of young kids and heaps of oldies and nothing in the middle.
Also the draft system has made things equal and as we know one cannot buy a team anymore like in soccer in the UK.
So as I said this is only a trend but when teams play heaps of first years………….. OUCH!
Proprioception and Volleyball
Interesting looking over some studies from Italy on fitness preparation from a National Conference (3rd Corso Nazionale di Preparatori Fisici per la Pallavolo” Cavalese ) and there seems to be quite a lot of work done with core strength development and proprioception in volleyball specific settings. In fact some of the videos available look a bit dangerous. But the take home message is that proprioception work can be done in sports specific settings, and thus a coach can do a circuit with young players ( development players) that involves bodyweight strength work and core work and balance work, all in one session after Skills.
Some of the exercises that were outlined
1. Some basic prone holds ( on elbows and in push up position) and also on a swiss ball holding a ball in prone and doing a back raise and holding in a block specific pose.
2. Doing a half sit up on a swiss ball and holding a weight and holding the 1/2 sit up simulating a block position with arms extended and strong upper back.
3. On a bosu ball with 2 legs and hold a swiss ball against a wall at varied angles. IE 30 secs hold or less at varied angles.
4. On a bosu ball but without a swiss ball and holding the arms up for 30 seconds in varied positions a few cms away fromt the wall without touching. Do the same exercise but with 2 Bosu Balls. IE One foot on each.
5. Standing on one leg in front of a wall the player can lean to the left or right and roll/hold a ball in an extended position to simulate these positions in volleyball.
6. Do the same exercises on a court in front of a net.
7. Then 2 players can face each other with one on 2 legs and the other on one and balance and simulate blocking over the net.
8, Then in front of the net and on one and two bosu balls do small stable jumps working on core strength and balance Eg: 3 sets of 5 to 6 jumps. ( be careful!)
9. An extension of this could be to do sideways movements across the net and “mount” a bosu ball and then plant and hold and do a block ( even with a coach there) or do the sideways movements, move onto a bosu ball and jump carefully and land on it with balance.
Adding skipping and small hop scotch type activities and landing activities to a full circuit can mean that the coach works on proprioception, strength work and core strength all in a volleyball setting and all in 10 to 20 minutes. Bodyweight squats to pushups to balance work as discussed to lunges to medicine ball work/core work and so on. Use lots of variety but always good technique and relevant to the group you are coaching.
And as always be very careful and don’t do anything stupid or something one would see in Jackass and make sure it is all supervised by a good coach. Thats a disclaimer!
loris bertolacci 