GAA Reference Guide!

Finnos Left Peg

Hi all...long time browser, first time member so I know this has been covered in other places, but I'm looking to get information for the "average" GAA Joe. Basically, I'm returning to play at a handy enough Junior standard in Mayo. Problem is, I'm after 18months out of the game, where I was travelling round the world and so copious amounts of alcohol, wrong food choices and little or no alcohol mean I'm in the worst shape I've been since first year of college! I'm 24, 5'11 and 78kg, with about average cardio performance considering my indulgences of the past year and a half. Since I returned back to work after the Xmas break, this is my week so far (on top of a forty minute round trip walking to and from work each day):
Monday: 1hour 5-aside soccer in the evening
Tuesday: Stretching session in morning, a few core exercises on swiss ball (back and abs) 1hour circuit training in evening
Wednesday: Club training (predominantly runnning-based at this stage)
Thursday: stretching and swiss ball, circuits in evening
Friday: Club training
Saturday: Rest, small bit of stretching
Sunday: Half hour swimming (nothing too major) and stretching

My diet is usually something along the lines of this:
Morning: cornflakes with skimmed milk, banana, boiled egg and soda bread
Lunch: soup and cornflour wrap with chicken, salad and salsa sauce
Evening: pasta or stir fry dish
Supper: cornflakes and skimmed milk
One or two black coffees with 1/2 sachet of sugar during the day

Basically, I feel like I'm putting in a fairly decent effort...cutting out all the junk food, drinking water etc etc, but I dont want to feel like I'm wasting my time so any advice would be welcome. When should I be having my meals in regard to training? Should I be incorporating weights training somewhere or including an extra rest day? What targets should I be setting for each session, in the pool, etc? Should I keep some sort of a training log? What exercises should I be doing on the ball? How best to improve my core? How could my diet be improved?

What I want to achieve in the short term is a high level of cardio so that I can burst myself at club training in all the drills and reduce my body fat so I look a good bit leaner. In the long term, I want to develop greater muscle so that I can put a bit of extra force into tackles and don't get knocked off the ball (explosive power I suppose, for the Summer when championship games come round and league picks up).

I think a lot of lads (and lassies!) would find themselves in the same situation as myself at this early stage of the year, and so any criticism, pointers, advice and motivation would be hugely welcome. It's a long time till September so need to get the ball rolling now!!

Thanks in advance!!

RHunce

ok i'll tell you what we've been doing in our county set up for the last few weeks in regards to building core strength etc

if you want to build muscle id suggest you use weights, the most important muscles to hit are your lower back which can be done using the deadlift, we use a 10kg medicine ball for his but if your in a gym then obviously use the proper weights

quads and glutes are important muscles in football (im presuming youre talking about football being from mayo), these can be hit be squatting with a medicine ball or again if youre in a gym use the proper equipment

decline push ups and regular push ups to hit your chest

sit ups with a medicine ball or russian twists with a medicine ball to hit your core muscles

lunges, lunges and more lunges

cliff walk, on the floor in the push up position and shuffle across 5 steps to the right and 5 back to the left with a push in between each one

i realise these are only workouts for minors but its a great stepping stone for getting into shape

corkcomp

hi op - i have to say your diet is not great tbh, cornflakes are a disaster, empy nutrition .. eggs and porridge are fine as is soda bread in small portions ..
You need to take in more protein, a bedtime snack of chicken, tuna or natural yoghurt would be better. you need carbs too to fuel that level of activity so think fruit, veg, porridge and some whole grains.

Finnos Left Peg

Thanks a million lads for the advice...that's exactly the sort of stuff I'm looking to hear! What's your preferred technique for the lunges? And thanks for the heads up on the cornflakes...the Flahavan's oats were purchased this morning! What do you lads follow RE: hydration during the week, days before matches, day of match, etc? How important is it really??

RHunce

http://img2.timeinc.net/health/images/slides/pump-lunge-400x400.jpg

i think this is a good lunge, calf 90 degrees to the thigh and back leg stretched back far with the knee not touching the ground

before matches i might have half a bottle of water, and just rehydrate with a drop before the match, dont swallow too much water at half time this will slow you down and after the game i always drink a litre of water to regain the fluids lost, never mind any of that lucozade crap. on training days hydrate after every exercise

Roper

I reccomend posting on Will Heffernan's blog here www.informedperformance.com/will and as specific questions. Will has and does work with county level teams and would be considered a go-to guy for a lot of managers.

Finnos Left Peg

Lads, again..thanks a million.

RHunce: thanks for that...I always found eating and hydration to be two things that I rarely got right before games.

Roper: great idea, thanks for that..I'll be sure to post there and see what I get.

FastFullBack

I'll just throw in my 2 cent worths as I'm a fellow GAA Head. Guys are spot on about the porridge. Best start to the day. Maybe add some eggs to get some protein. I have porridge first thing and eggs when I get to work. Drink lots of water.2-3 litres this time of year and 3-4 litres when it comes to warmer times and championship season.

Your short term goals probably right, to aim for mainly cardio fitness with the new season about to start. Building muscle and strength is probably best done in the off season although I personally think once session of weights every 7/10 days is still essential to maintain strength.

Based on your schedule above you seem to be only club training twice a week so far. If I were you I'd cut out the Monday night soccer and replace it by a gym session.

Once in the gym concentrate on deadlifts, squats, lunges, powercleans, snatches, bench press, shoulder press and pull/chin ups.

Here are some great video's from Rugby World. They demonstrate most of the exercises above although you should probably be shown them by a qualified weights instructor:

http://www.youtube.com/user/rugbyworld08

There are plenty of guys in here who know alot more than me but I hope this helps.

Finnos Left Peg

thanks for that fastfullback, the more info i can get here the better...hopefully help any average gaa player like myself. Its a small junior club so we find it hard to get numbers out for training as most lads are away in dublin, galway and uk so we probably won't be able to step it up past two sessions a week. Thats why there's a lot of responsibility on each individual player to improve fitness in their own time...its not ideal but i suppose a lot of other small rural club are in the same situation. I'm goin to keep up the soccer but fit in a weights session on a sunday morning when i'm at the pool.

RHunce

if youre doing weight sessions i think the best possible things to work on are olympic lifts such as the deadlift, the squat and the clean. these work the muscles used in gaa

dave80

RHunce wrote: »

if youre doing weight sessions i think the best possible things to work on are olympic lifts such as the deadlift, the squat and the clean. these work the muscles used in gaa

the olympic lifts are the snatch and the clean & jerk, which could be useful but are hard to clean witout a coach, the powerlifts (squat, bench, deads) are a good place to start