Development of physical and skill training drill prescription systems for elite Australian Rules football

Abstract

Elite team sport athletes can undertake a limited amount of training each week. Consequently, designing training drills that improve both skilled and physical performance concurrently and efficiently is of high importance. This study developed three training drill classification systems using physical and skill-related data obtained from Australian Rules football training. Forty professional male athletes from a single elite Australian Rules football club were recruited for this study. All wore a 10 Hz Global Positioning System unit for six matches and 17 training sessions, which included a total of 35 different drills. High intensity running per minute, metres per minute and high intensity running as a percentage of total distance were obtained to provide a representation of each drill's physical requirements. Velocity at kick (moving or stationary), time in possession (greater or less than 2 seconds) and the presence of pressure was manually coded upon each kick to provide a representation of the constraints relating to each training drill. For the first prescription system, two k-means clustering algorithms were run on physical and skill data separately to identify similarities between training drills. For the second system, z-scores were calculated for each physical and skill characteristic in each training drill to compare directly with match conditions. For the third system, a 'Specificity Index' was calculated using the absolute average of the pooled z-scores for physical and skilled characteristics respectively. The three systems developed in this study can be used to aid training prescription in elite Australian Rules football.

Applications of a working framework for the measurement of representative learning design in Australian football

“…Further, this aligns with the principles of periodisation for skill acquisition [ 19 ], emphasising the importance of being able to measure the influence of constraint interaction within training tasks [ 10 ]. A training task classification systems may be able to aid practitioners in this process to ensure the appropriate tasks are conducted together based on its characteristics and intent [ 29 ]. However, the ideal balance of representative versus non-representative practice to gain the greatest performance benefit in competition, is currently unknown.…”

Differences between Elite and Semi-Elite Australian Football Conceptualised through the Lens of Ecological Dynamics

“…It is logical to suggest that training within this elite environment should represent these types of spatial and pressured constraints [18]. Practitioners within the AFL could therefore use these results as a basis for developing representative training activities, with players learning to attune to relevant disposal affordances under representative conditions [11]. Further, our data suggests that talent development within AF should appreciate the increased spatial and temporal constraints within the AFL relative to a semi-elite competition and attempt to account for this within training design when developing prospective AFL players.…”

“…Lastly, the individual constraint was defined via the movement dynamics of the player at the point of ball disposal; dichotomised into stationary and dynamic categories (Table 1). These constraints, their descriptions and sub-categories were heuristically chosen based on skill acquisition specialist consultation and recommendations from prior work [11].…”

“…Constraints-based analysis of training specificity has recently been applied to Australian football (AF) [11]. By sampling individual (movement characteristics at point of ball disposal), environmental (opposition density around ball carrier) and task (possession time) constraints in both training and game contexts, Corbett et al [11] generated a training prescriptive system that determined the similarity of training drills, as well as their specificity to match play. Such an approach is likely to assist a coach with the design or manipulation of a training activity to increase its representativeness relative to the constraint’s (or informational sources) players experience during match play.…”

Future Directions and Considerations for Talent Identification in Australian Football

“…To increase the likelihood of the assessment session to be representative of the competitive environment, researchers have suggested the use of a “representative learning design” as a theoretical framework. This framework suggests testing and practice sessions should be reflective of match play conditions including the technical and tactical execution of skills (Corbett et al, 2018 ) and the environmental conditions, actions, and perceptual stimuli present during the competitive environment (Davids et al, 2005 , 2013a ; Araujo et al, 2006 , 2007 ; Pinder et al, 2011 ; Vilar et al, 2012 ).…”