Off Season Training- Una Pearson

Off season training is arguably the most crucial time for an athlete to focus
on maintaining training and preparing the body for the next season..... Goals of the off season include providing a base level of conditioning, preparing the body for more intense training, and combating muscle imbalances to reduce the risk of injuries. Gaelic footballers and football players are renowned for having muscle imbalances due to the fact that in season the body experiences very repetitive movements and some muscles are worked more than others due to the nature of the sports we engage in. During the off season we can emphasize increasing strength and mobility in the other muscles and planes of movement that don’t always get enough attention and can lead to injuries. At Louth we are currently emphasising these areas to work on our weaknesses, and to prevent injury as last season a lot of players suffered from musculoskeletal injuries many of which were a result of weak areas or a lack of flexibility and strength in that area. Currently we are one week into our off season plan, we started off with some fitness tests which comprised of testing our technique and our strength over three reps of barbell squats, bench press etc. We also did some speed and endurance running tests. The results of which determine our own individual plans for the off season and pre season. It's great to get these tailored plans so we can all work on our weaknesses instead of continuing to build on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses. This is something we have done before, however this year it is more personally tailored to each individual on the team as everyone's needs are different, no doubt we will see the benefits of it when the national league begins in February and for all of the 2016 season.