Footy Strength

So why are these mistakes still so widespread?

The simple answer is that the knowledge and information just hasn’t been shared, and to a lesser extent, it probably isn’t understood properly by many people in the first place.

We believe that the fitness industry at large is greatly to blame. The fact is that the fitness industry itself has been driven greatly by the desires of bodybuilders and the desire for looks and aesthetics rather than function.

The wheel is slowly turning and more inroads are being made to correct the fallacy of athletes training with bodybuilder techniques, but once something is deeply ingrained its hard to get rid of.

Furthermore, whilst there is more of a push from professionals espousing the benefits of ‘functional’ training for football and other sports, there is still a lack of understanding on just what ‘functional’ means in its application to football.

Often times what is out there being pushed as a football strength training program, is simply a standard bodybuilding - or slightly better - strength training program re-packaged as a ‘functional football training’ program.

What may be termed as functional for one sport or one task or goal won’t necessarily be of value to Australian Football

Plenty of work has been done at the elite level to refine the practices involved in strength and conditioning, however, for whatever reason, the information doesn’t seem to have filtered down to the grassroots level. However the life and reality that exists at the elite level is so vastly different to that that exists for the other levels of the game and its participants. Not only in terms of what the game looks like, but also the realities of how much time you can dedicate to your strength training for football.

As a result, a lot of the information that may start to filter down from the elite level in terms of their programs and methodologies will be unusable to you or others who cant dedicate 30 hours a week to training and recovery anyway.

However what isn’t unusable are the principles of functional movement for Australian football.

There is a great lack of readily available information out there for comprehensive functional strength training for Australian Football. Other sports have a lot more information readily available due to their more global nature, and perhaps simpler skill sets (although a lot of this information is still of a limited quality.) However, it is important not to fall into the trap of expecting a strength and conditioning program aimed at basketballers, to be of benefit to you as a ruckman in football for example.

So despite the fact that this sort of information should be common knowledge, and be the baseline of every strength training program for football, the fact is that this information remains largely hidden. But with this program now at your disposal, you are ahead of the pack with your knowledge, and its just a matter or applying it.

So why are the majority of junior and amateur level footballers still training like bodybuilders?

Being a bodybuilder is no where near as tough as being a good footballer. Or more specifically, the training required to be a bodybuilder is nothing compared to the type of strength training required to be a better football.

This is why there are so many people out there who are bodybuilders now. It doesn’t require much in terms of your training program. It can be very basic and generic, and largely dependent on your diet. Basically, it doesn’t matter what exercises you are doing, as long as you blast the hell out of the major muscle groups and eat a very strict diet you will see the results sooner rather than later.

To improve your vertical leap, or your first 10 meters in a sprint, or your ability to jump, land change directions and tackle on the other hand, requires a lot of work, and more importantly a lot of the correct type of work, before you notice any improvements. Because after all, only your performance in matches or competitive match simulations will tell you whether you are improving. Simply looking in the mirror and having bigger quads and biceps won’t give much indication (although it may look good.)

Be honest: do you think your current strength training program is providing the necessary challenge on your body to actually be able to improve at any of these? Or are you still purely focusing on the size of your shoulders, chest and biceps?

Training the nervous system for physical performance is vastly different to training muscles to look bigger and better. If you think that having bigger muscles automatically means that they are now stronger and equipped for the physical nature of football, think again!

Whilst a bigger muscle and therefore a bigger cross section of muscle fibres has the potential to be stronger, this will only be the case if the training techniques have had the appropriate effect on the nervous system. After all, muscles are controlled by the nervous system, and despite the fact that people tend to think mostly in terms of muscles when it comes to strength training, all gains that you make in performance are actually improvements in the performance of your nervous system and the nerves that feed your muscles for movement.

That’s right, in terms of functional strength training for football, your muscles per se, are almost irrelevant. Yes you will develop some muscle mass performing a functional strength training program, but we are far more focused on the improvements made by your nervous system and the movement and strength that this builds. Remember, training to be a better footballer requires training to move better (in a variety of ways.) And movement is controlled by your nervous system, not your muscles.

Football is about movement, not muscles, so lets focus our strength training accordingly

Functional Strength Training for Australian Rules Football is your definitive guide to performing a strength training program tailored to physical improvement specifically for football

Don’t fall into the trap of just doing something because everyone else is doing it, nor believing that just because no one else is doing it, it must be wrong.

Don’t forget, most people around you at the gym aren’t there for the same reasons as you. You want to improve your performance as a footballer, they want to look better in the mirror. That doesn’t mean that you wont have both, its just that you will have to train a lot smarter and more specifically to achieve you goal.

By the end of simply reading this program, let alone performing it, not only will you have the blueprint to greatly improve your performance, but you will easily be able to identify useless exercises being performed around you by guys with the same goals as you, as well as be able to explain in simple detail what ‘functional for footy’ exactly means. You will also have absolutely no problem being able to explain why a leg press is useless for improving vertical leap, and why just performing a heavier bench press will not instantly mean that you are better equipped to push off an opponent, but rather only give you more potential too do this, provided a couple more exercises and footy specific variables are added into your pushing program.

Includes both the in-depth 170 page eBook, as well as the video demonstrations of the key functional exercises included in the program, with over 40 demonstrations.

A complete and comprehensive program with all the essentials required for a truly Aussie Rules specific strength training program