Training Load

The above tweet is based on my experience.  It often happens that the players experience a level of fatigue that is not related to the intensity or load of practice, but related to the length of the practice.  For example, it is my experience that a two hour practice is more fatiguing than a one hour 45 minute practice regardless of the content of that practice.

I received one comment that interpreted my statement as being an argument against longer practices.  Whilst I personally tend to favour shorter practices, that was not the point I was trying to make.  My point was simply that in calculating the load in a particular training period, one should consider not just the number of jumps (for example) as a measure of load and the number of jumps per minute as a measure of intensity, but also include the time spent in the gym.  The time spent in the gym, just like the time spent in meetings, or travelling extracts a cost in and of itself.

I will argue for shorter practices, but another time…