Planning to Survive Pre-Season – Part One
Published on
20 Sep 2019
Call us on: (03) 9975 4133
With many winter sporting competitions now done and dusted for the year, many players look forward to the well earned break from those cold winter nights training and spending Monday limping about the office, recovering from the weekends bruises.
As much as we all enjoy the first month or so without our regular routine, it’s about now our focus quickly turns to next year as we start to miss the weekly catch ups with mates and the weekend release of endorphins and competitive juices.
Over the next 6 months, I am going to guide you through pre season training to ensure you hit the ground running in 2020. I will be discussing a range of topics from injury prevention, goal setting, strength sessions, recovery protocols, running conditioning and many more. I will be sharing my own experiences and thoughts with you.
So before we start, we need to look back at the season that was and reflect on what went well and what we can improve on. Ask yourself these questions to get you started and look for areas of your game you would like to improve. Did you play every game? Were you in and out of the seniors? Did injury interrupt your season? Were you happy with your performance? Did you play in the position you wanted or get the game time you were after?
Having started your reflection on last season, we can now look to 2020. What are you goals and aspirations? Setting goals sounds like a basic and easy thing to do. But very few people do it well. We need to ensure our goals are S.M.A.R.T goals and we write then down to make ourselves accountable. Remember S.M.A.R.T goals are defined as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. The purpose behind goal setting is to guide training with a purpose, provide motivation, measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.
Goals will vary from player to player. You may be looking to play at a higher level, at a different club, play multiple positions or simply play consistently each week. Over the next week write down one S.M.A.R.T goal for 2020. Remember S.M.A.R.T goals are defined as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Enjoy the weekends footy. I’ll be back next week to discuss my goals for 2020 and what I am doing to achieve them, along with how I’m scheduling my sessions and what they entail.
