What is Strength and Conditioning and Why is it so Important?

Peak Fitness High Performance Youth Academy can implement safe and effective training methods to reduce injury risk and improve competitive performance.  See how below!

Talk held on 23/1/15

Speakers – Jimmy Payne, Pat Flanagan, Stephen Vereker, Liam O’Hara, Rosaleen Flynn.

See Slideshow Below.

Slideshow

The post The Importance of Strength and Conditioning in the Development of Young Athletes – Peak Fitness High Performance Youth Academy appeared first on Peak Fitness.

If you are a Team Coach or Manager, a Strength and Conditioning Coach, a Parent or Teacher of Athletes or if you are a competitive or elite athlete then this is the event for you.

This one day workshop delivered by those who have achieved national and international sporting success will help you design a programme that will help you to perform when you need to and ensure that when you compete you will be at your best.

Topics covered include physiology, nutrition, performance planning, coaching styles and techniques, periodisation, mental preparation, measurement and much more.

For more information Peak Essentials Kerry for a brochure or book your place online now here.

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In relation to psychology, he would give players little phrases to help them remember the playing system, such as ‘Fear Fatal Fouling’ Even more impressive was his two and three week training camps where a balance of hard training, diet, relaxation and spirituality (Daily mass was compulsory) was meticulously planned. Well before we started to take teams to nice hotels in sunny climes to train in the late 1990’s and early noughties, he had residential camps in Killarney in the late 40’s and 50’s. His emphasis on recovery after training through rest is one of the main planks of modern day periodised training. The only surprising thing is that more teams did not adopt his approach years ago. Maybe like many aspects of Kerry’s success over the years they just kept it low profile and kept on winning.

It was not until the late 1990’s that the phenomenon of the physical trainer was widely observed in GAA teams. Sometimes referred to as the ‘PE’ person, as many were PE graduates and teachers, these specialists took over the training of the team especially in the winter months. The aim was to help the team reach higher levels of fitness than previously considered possible. Successes by trainers like John O Keeffe in Kerry, Joe Dooley in Cavan and Dr. Liam Hennessy with Tipperary heralded the era of teams needing more than just a manager to achieve success but a more ‘professional approach’ by qualified personnel.

The advent of strength and conditioning specialists, merging both physical training and the skills of the game has been at the cutting edge of training in the last 5-6 years. Indeed the importance of this type of person and what they do to aid team preparation has seen those who do this work gain greater prominence nationally. Paddy Tally (Tyrone), John McClosky (Armagh), Martin McElkennon (Monaghan), Val Andrews (Cavan), Pat Flanagan (Waterford) Cian O Neill (Tipperary), Martin Kennedy (Dublin) and Michael Dempsey (Kilkenny) are synonymous with the successful scientific preparation of top class teams.

This change towards specialists in each area of training, including strength and conditioning causes a real problem for your mainstream voluntary sports club manager or trainer. The volunteer coach, who are essential to the development of our sports are expected to be qualified in all areas and be a great coach and motivator at the same time. This is unrealistic and may make good and potentially great coaches reluctant to get involved at any level.

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It is a far cry from the days of the great trainers of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s such as Mick O Dwyer, Kevin Heffernan, and Sean Boylan. They did everything for their team, physical training, tactics, psychology, even injury management and nutrition. The teams played with a style developed and inculcated by the trainer. They were held in great regard, knew each player personally and were supportive and protective of their players both on and off the field. What was interesting about many of these well known trainers and others was the number of years which they stayed in the position. Trainers were generally given plenty of time to build a team over a number of years. A major success every few years was more than enough to warrant county board support neigh adulation.

Staying in charge or being allowed to stay at the helm of a county team for 10, 15, 20 years is very much a thing of the past with 2-3 years the most a manager will now receive to reach the holy grail. Indeed the pressure to achieve clearly takes its toll with many modern mangers stepping down from the position after three years even when success has been achieved. Sometimes a desire and expectation to be successful can lead to mangers being removed from their position after a year or less in place, even when these expectations are unrealistic based on the level of operation of the team. This revolving door system can be very detrimental to all teams as players need a consistent approach to develop and not a new type of training and playing each year. From a preparation point of view, I feel, that it takes at least three years work to get a team to learn and reap the benefits of a new system of training and playing. I don’t know of any team who change their management every one or two years being consistently successful.

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