Sports Science and Athletics
We have seen a huge growth industry in sports science in Australia. Recently an article by Ralph Doubell (1:44.40/15-Oct-68/Mexico Olympic Gold Medallist) spoke about the fact his record still stands even though there is this industry in OZ. I dont think there would have been more than a handful of people then working in sports science in Australia.
Can sports science help track and field? Certainly in AFL it provides a lot of useful information with heat prevention strategies and tools to measure game demands and training loads for example. These measuring tools are often invaluable to justify training interventions with coaches for example. On the other hand some aspects of sports science sometimes often only creates work and data for researchers.
I find physiological testing in the lab to be very useful for example. Simply doing this lets one link fitness tests and performance trends to the athlete profiles and positional needs. Add to this genetic profiling and one can have a pervasive argument available to a coach to play someone at full forward or as a midfielder.
I have databased every player on an AFL list using ultra sound for TA control. Very important despite the hoo ha on this stuff. The explosion in information on rehabilitation has been critical to my work .
So back to athletics? Steffenson has to go overseas to improve. Ron Clarkes name is still in the books. Charlene Rendina (Aust National 800m record holder 1:59.0 on 28-Feb-76) was one athlete I watched train at Preston year in and year out and saw her methods. My brother in law trains many champion throwers at Ringwood and in fairness to Gus Puopolo he would not pass Exercise Physiology at University today. My best man at my wedding Ken Lorroway jumped 17 46 30 years ago!
How can the famed sports science industry help OZ track? Can it? Of course in cycling and rowing and swimming things are easily measured and then fed back to training. A number of obstacles exist I believe. I have heard criticisms from both sides about this. Coaches saying Institute conditioning programs are not relevant, soft and too focused on core and not strength and power and that staff at ground level are not good enough. Institute people saying that athletics people simply don’t access them enough and have closed minds. Both arguments have merit. But maybe it is the systems that dont allow sports science to filter through.
Added to this is a problem with Little Athletics where kids do Aths so early when I believe they should play football and basketball for instance. Multilateral development.Average age of sprinters is almost 26! It takes so long from little aths to produce champions. Another argument for another day but senior numbers are down? Why?. Probably the lure of money in other sports. Little Aths is good for health and fitness but track and field ?
I believe that Athletics is a sport that requires coaches who have enormous knowledge and experience but at the end of the day simply a track and some weights. The key is to get highly qualified and highly experienced coaches at ground level out there in the suburbs. And more importantly pay them! These people need to be hardcore athletics people who ideally have sports science backgrounds and UNI qualified if possible. But first they must live the sport. World Champions can be produced anywhere in athletics. But is the expertise and are the professional coaching structures out there?
The world has changed as it always does and married professional people cant go the track and coach for nothing anymore from 4 to 8pm. Work hours have exploded. One goes to clubs and their rooms are often locked. True business like structures don’t exist because there is no money! At the end of the day Franz Stampfl made a living out of athletics and he certainly produced a few!
The biggest mistake I made was leaving Preston to go to the AIS in 1981 on Day 1 of the Institute. I had gone to Europe and studied my sport inside out with all the gurus, had a video camera then and created a venue at Preston and was on the way. Went to Canberra and simply it was far too early in its history. What I needed was video technology and biomechanics and sports medicine back up and moreso a coach willing to watch every throw but not a new venue.
It is a tough call but I think we have some great venues in Melbourne stacked with non paid well meaning coaches. If these venues had qualified paid coaches who had to clock in and out and be accountable ( and were qualified) with back up provided then kids I believe would come through. The kids dont need money. That is a fallacy. Parents will pay if this is available.
Thus the Sports Science explosion could filter through to the practical and varied environments that exist. It is very sad that highly paid strength and conditioning gurus abound in OZ but many wouldn’t have a clue how to program elite athletes in their conditioning programme and are not the solution for track and field. So yes sports science can help Athletics but it is a unique sport and requires unique solutions.
Leigh Colbert and Loris Bertolacci and VCFL
Leigh Colbert asked me to do the fitness in 2006 for the VCFL team. It was also an opportunity to work with Jeff Oxley who used to be the physio at GFC with me. Leigh organized a few sessions at the Lexus Centre and dragged everyone in from James Hird to Paris Hilton .
Anyway off to the Gold Coast ( hard gig in July!) and game 1 at Carrara . It was pouring and we played and lost and then the other games were called off. That night we hatched a few plans to get through the tournament with more rotations, more gatorade and better breakfasts. Also Anthony Stevens and I had a dance off that night. I won. He was a great footballer but wont get a gig on Dancing with the Stars.
We were eating brekkie smack bang in surfers and bacon and eggs was the favourite. We had to change that to cereals and toast. Mind you I must admit the original brekkie was nice but not sports science friendly. Recovery sessions at Surfers and Lectures on the beach were the go.
Next day the games were at Surfers and due to the rain the rooms were shocking. So Leigh decided to set up the rooms under some trees in a park about 400m away from the ground. Shaded and airy and simply beautiful. I poured Gatorade down their throats and we won all our games and clawed our way into the finals the next day.
Finals day was a challenge. Real hot. I went all over the Southport ground and sought out anything I could use. Fans, cups, ice and so on. I made the VCFL staff buy so much drink and ice and get so many fans they thought I was crazy. We warmed up in a primary school under some trees about 100m away from the ground to get away from the sun and there was a concert being set up there. The organizers of the concert turned the speakers up to 100% volume and let loose with classics like “eye of the tiger” whilst we warmed up. Out of control and more gatorade.
Game was a beauty versus ACT. We went into the shade at the breaks but ACT stayed in the sun. So be it. We rotated the players and poured gatorade down their throats and cooled them down at every opportunity. Basic heat prevention strategies. We were a goal behind at the end of the game and Joe McLaren ( ex St Kilda) kicked a huge goal from the centre. Massive kick that if done in an AFL final would have been legendary. Extra time and we bolted away and maybe that is when the cooling and gatorade kicked in. Thats the theory. Big day and big win and great fun.
C Grade Italian Womens Volleyball Fitness Program
I translated this, or moreso copied it from an Italian website for volleyball . Pretty big focus on strength and power and proprioception. Just some information and hope it is interesting. I dont know if Serie C is semi pro. Seems so given they only train 4 days a week.
Victorian Country Football League win against VAFA
Last week I went to Ballarat with the VCFL where they conquered the VAFA in a thrilling game. We arrived in Ballarat on Saturday.
Off to training in a bus with coaches and players and staff. We were driven to a small barren ground and the driver bundled us out. In the bus we had the Collingwood and Geelong game blaring on radio in front of a huge crowd and what we stepped out onto under this mountain could not have been further removed from the MCG. It was freezing and eerie and very quiet. I think it was right next to Mt Helen but it was so cold and misty it could have been Kilimanjaro.
Anyway this ground was just a little kids ground and was overun by shrubs. The rooms were well too old to be given National Trust rating and anyway we couldnt get in and I think if we opened the door a few skeletons would have fallen out. I saw a small human being on the other side of the ground and ran to him hoping he could get us in but it was a kid with a Geelong jumper on. He ran away! Wonder why? What had happened was that the driver had dropped us off at the wrong ground.
There was no water tap for the bottles so I ran into a front yard over the road and filled the bottles up. Anyway the boys were very positive and trained and to be honest it looked like a scene from the TV AD for AFL footy with kids “gimme that thing” .
On Saturday night the boys had a dinner, team photo and coach Kevin Morris spoke to them. Nathan Bower presented a video to the players that was very motivating on the difference between country and city players.
The game on Sunday was tight all day and really my main function was to hydrate the guys and make sure they were well nourished and warmed up. This is an area that is always lacking at anywhere below elite level. Like last year in Queensland Brett and Shaun Connell gave me everything I needed.
Great result on the siren with Saad Saad marking and kicking the vital point. I had to leave on the siren and drive straight to Green Gully to warmup the soccer team prior to a draw with South Melbourne. Long day and really Green Gully could have used Saad Saad to get over the line. Should have put him in the car. After all he is a Brunswick boy!
Anyway I think I should also document last years final in QLD with Colbert and CO because that was an amazing sporting experience.
Do fitness tests reflect speed on the ground
Recently I was asked whether the 20m test generally used as a speed test is reflected on the ground. To be honest most times yes. Some players just read it better so in games dont look as slow as their tests suggest. Watching Pearce from Port Adelaide run at a draft camp a few years ago one could see he would explode later. The 20m test obviously doesnt measure max speed and/or many other variables. But in reality if one strips the science away from it I have always found that players who test quick generally look quick on the ground. Agility as researched by Young and Shepherd is a complex mix of speed, acceleration, change of direction abilities and many other attributes, with the ability to see what is happening and process it a crtiical factor. So players such as Harvey from St Kilda may have just reasonable tests results ( don’t know his speed) but due to decision making and change of direction abilities can get on their bike and scoot away from supposedly quicker players. Players like Dustin Fletcher at Essendon tested very quick and with his tennis background and football ability has been the package deal. Of course in his prime a player like Saverio Rocca at Collingwood was the best over 5 metres, a reflection of his ability to power clean nearly 150 kgs and throw a discus 60m plus. Wanganeen was simply the quickest I have measured over 10m ( 1.54) and I saw him run 11.1 sec for 100m at Aberfeldies one day without blocks and untrained. Again the package deal and like Fletcher these two were fast twitch animals with not so good aerobic qualities. In fact that day he ran 11.1 and Michael Long ran 11.2 and I think Lachlan Ross 11.3 and the next one home was a guy called Mick Symons who ran 11.6 ( 2,75 for 20m in gates). So yes test in a straight line and then test change of direction but as Warren Young and Jeremy Shepherd found in their research on reactive agility , getting away from players requires quite a lot of variables to come together. Then put it together at game speed in enclosed areas. And get strong in the gym and powerful with plyos in both legs. Some quick players can run one or two repetitions but after a few repeat speed efforts “slow” guys run past them. This is why rotations have had a big effect in footy allowing the fast guys to come on and smash it and why limiting rotations coupled with the new rules from 2006 will even more bias aerobic “slower” players and possibly stunt the explosive bursts from “fast” guys as the game goes on and even maybe limit their careers.
Hi from Loris
I have started this space so that I can share some of my experiences in coaching, strength and conditioning and rehabilitation since the early 70’s. I trained in Europe for 2 years in the late 70’s and I was an Australian Champion in Athletics in 1980 and in the first intake in 1981 at the AIS. After that period I was a teacher and gym manager. I coached sprinters, jumpers and throwers for a number of years at National Level. I even tried my luck at veterans sprinting for a year and ran a scintillating 11.6. HA. From 1987 to now I have been involved in the AFL with Essendon, Collingwood, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs. In fact now I also work in soccer with Green Gully a great club in the Victorian League under Ian Dobson. I have assisted athletes from many sports from netball, tennis, water skiing to boxing amongst other sports and worked with many different organisations. My daughter has played for Australia in Vollyeball as a setter and I assist her with her S&C. Thus I have learnt so much since my days with my father George who initially coached me to working with people like Franz Stampfl, Victor Verez, Gus Puopolo, and many other coaches here and overseas . And in the past ten years I was able to grow with the sports science boom in OZ and given my academic science background couple this with my practical background. In team sports I have been privy to many famous coaches from Kevin Sheedy to Leigh Matthews and Mark Thompson who have taught me a lot about the politics of sport. Recently I have had a very enjoyable experience coaching Royden Pattison who is a marathon runner. He had severe Osteitis a few years ago and then a hole in the heart operation in 2006 and now is competing again. This is a very small snaphot of my career and hopefully underpins this space.
loris bertolacci 