Training 2024 Preseason reports and discussion

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Collins talking up the Wizard in a big way.
I dont blame him. From someone who has seen him on the track i agree. The guy is deadset freakshow. It isnt just his IQ but also his ability to execute. I cant wait to see him at the G
 
I dont blame him. From someone who has seen him on the track i agree. The guy is deadset freakshow. It isnt just his IQ but also his ability to execute. I cant wait to see him at the G
Would he be the first Hawk since the great Luke Lowden to debut with 3x goals?

*Wiz will do it by Half Time.
 


Andy Collins, what a legend.
And a sensational and perceptive appraisal of our draftees.

In case you missed it, he mentioned Will McCabe and Peter Knights in the same sentence!!

And Nick Watson - Collo saying that our senior defenders in match practice underrate him at their peril. Love it!
A couple of days ago I googled 4 minutes of the Wizard‘s highlights. I don’t think you’ll see any footage more impressive, Harley Reid included.

I reckon Sam Mitchell and the recruiters have set us up for an exciting development year - and beyond.
 
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The instruction is to run with the ball not to get caught however as it was a match sim. Confined spaces meant that quite a few did get caught. It serves its purpose.

Confined spaces. Doesn't sound like the MCG. It's a shame we don't get to play on the SCG this year :'(
 
Hey all, I’m not sure whether this will be interesting or not, but since I can’t get down to training and give back that way, I thought I’d put something up thats caught my eye from afar.

There’s been a bit of chatter around the few ankle sprains some players have sustained recently and I thought I’d give my take as a Physio who’s really passionate about figuring out the underlying root cause of things - to hopefully help those here who may deal with them, or just to give us all something to look out for this season.

Ankle sprains are often looked at as bad luck which often stops us from trying to figure out how good someone’s ankle was functioning before they rolled it. The idea being that the better your ankle was before the roll, the better it’ll be at either buffering that experience or not.

To cut a long story short, I find that something as boring as increased ankle stiffness/rustiness or reduced range of motion, is one of the biggest issues that can rob an ankle of the “give” needed to buffer the act of rolling an ankle (which alone shouldn’t cause as much injury as it currently seems to).

So in a way, preventing ankle sprains is - in part - a game of trying to maintain our inherently normal ankle range with exercises, but also accounting for the things that naturally rob us of that ankle range.

And what I’ve come to understand over the last 20 years, is there are three things that have a strong tendency to take a loose, supple ankle and eventually ask it to stiffen up.

The first is the many hours we may spend a day sitting with our feet stuck at the same angle. The second are thongs which change the way we use our ankles because that big toe has to hold on.

And the third are heeled shoes. The idea here is that the size of the heel at the back of someone’s school shoes, joggers, work shoes, work boots etc is the exact amount of ankle range you won’t get access to while you’re in the shoe. And like everything else, if you don’t use that ankle range, we tend to lose it over time.

Soooooo, I’ll just leave this here..


IMG_3343.jpeg IMG_3344.jpeg IMG_3345.jpeg IMG_3346.jpeg

It may mean something, it may not as photos give no context.

But if the players get around in these types of shoes more often than not, I’d be willing to bet their ankle mobility isn’t as optimal as it could be - unless they’re working hard to balance things out.

It may not sound like a big deal, and it may genuinely not be in reality, but if Chad came to me with his Achilles, Day with his foot, Impey/Sicily with their ACLs etc I’d be very interested in their general ankle mobility regardless. And while nothing ever guarantees an injury to occur, hindsight is often really consistently clear - with stiff ankles often popping up in most conversations.

Anyway, this is just one thing that seems to still be such a prominent theme in teams preseasons across the board, not just at the Hawks, and something I can see being a huge advantage to injury prevention if we got the players to eventually feel comfy again in heel-less shoes.

Keep an eye on these types of pics that come out from most clubs as once you see it, it’s hard to unsee!

Either way, I find injury prevention is more than just getting something stronger - which is often our default. Often it requires taking a step back and looking at someone as a whole.
 
Hey all, I’m not sure whether this will be interesting or not, but since I can’t get down to training and give back that way, I thought I’d put something up thats caught my eye from afar.

There’s been a bit of chatter around the few ankle sprains some players have sustained recently and I thought I’d give my take as a Physio who’s really passionate about figuring out the underlying root cause of things - to hopefully help those here who may deal with them, or just to give us all something to look out for this season.

Ankle sprains are often looked at as bad luck which often stops us from trying to figure out how good someone’s ankle was functioning before they rolled it. The idea being that the better your ankle was before the roll, the better it’ll be at either buffering that experience or not.

To cut a long story short, I find that something as boring as increased ankle stiffness/rustiness or reduced range of motion, is one of the biggest issues that can rob an ankle of the “give” needed to buffer the act of rolling an ankle (which alone shouldn’t cause as much injury as it currently seems to).

So in a way, preventing ankle sprains is - in part - a game of trying to maintain our inherently normal ankle range with exercises, but also accounting for the things that naturally rob us of that ankle range.

And what I’ve come to understand over the last 20 years, is there are three things that have a strong tendency to take a loose, supple ankle and eventually ask it to stiffen up.

The first is the many hours we may spend a day sitting with our feet stuck at the same angle. The second are thongs which change the way we use our ankles because that big toe has to hold on.

And the third are heeled shoes. The idea here is that the size of the heel at the back of someone’s school shoes, joggers, work shoes, work boots etc is the exact amount of ankle range you won’t get access to while you’re in the shoe. And like everything else, if you don’t use that ankle range, we tend to lose it over time.

Soooooo, I’ll just leave this here..


View attachment 1891570View attachment 1891571View attachment 1891572View attachment 1891573

It may mean something, it may not as photos give no context.

But if the players get around in these types of shoes more often than not, I’d be willing to bet their ankle mobility isn’t as optimal as it could be - unless they’re working hard to balance things out.

It may not sound like a big deal, and it may genuinely not be in reality, but if Chad came to me with his Achilles, Day with his foot, Impey/Sicily with their ACLs etc I’d be very interested in their general ankle mobility regardless. And while nothing ever guarantees an injury to occur, hindsight is often really consistently clear - with stiff ankles often popping up in most conversations.

Anyway, this is just one thing that seems to still be such a prominent theme in teams preseasons across the board, not just at the Hawks, and something I can see being a huge advantage to injury prevention if we got the players to eventually feel comfy again in heel-less shoes.

Keep an eye on these types of pics that come out from most clubs as once you see it, it’s hard to unsee!

Either way, I find injury prevention is more than just getting something stronger - which is often our default. Often it requires taking a step back and looking at someone as a whole.
Unfortunately, footwear is fashion. I would never advise anyone to weight train in shoes with narrow springy toe boxes or soft elevated heels, but I've learned to ignore it with footy players as it's so commonplace.

Get em barefoot, or at least something flat soled like wrestling shoes.
 
Unfortunately, footwear is fashion. I would never advise anyone to weight train in shoes with narrow springy toe boxes or soft elevated heels, but I've learned to ignore it with footy players as it's so commonplace.

Get em barefoot, or at least something flat soled like wrestling shoes.

I agree mate, I’d love to see every player barefoot in the gym. There’s obviously the OH&S side of things but I think we can do better more often.
 
Unfortunately, footwear is fashion. I would never advise anyone to weight train in shoes with narrow springy toe boxes or soft elevated heels, but I've learned to ignore it with footy players as it's so commonplace.

Get em barefoot, or at least something flat soled like wrestling shoes.

I bought a couple of pairs of these flat puma canvas shoes that were meant to be fashionable about 20 years ago, but they've ended up as my primary leg/back day shoe as they're solid and dead flat.

That said, I have good ankle mobility from 20 years of deep squatting, and it does interest me when they lift in runners - which I am guilty of doing sometimes when I feel like confusing the muscles ;)
 
Hey all, I’m not sure whether this will be interesting or not, but since I can’t get down to training and give back that way, I thought I’d put something up thats caught my eye from afar.

There’s been a bit of chatter around the few ankle sprains some players have sustained recently and I thought I’d give my take as a Physio who’s really passionate about figuring out the underlying root cause of things - to hopefully help those here who may deal with them, or just to give us all something to look out for this season.

Ankle sprains are often looked at as bad luck which often stops us from trying to figure out how good someone’s ankle was functioning before they rolled it. The idea being that the better your ankle was before the roll, the better it’ll be at either buffering that experience or not.

To cut a long story short, I find that something as boring as increased ankle stiffness/rustiness or reduced range of motion, is one of the biggest issues that can rob an ankle of the “give” needed to buffer the act of rolling an ankle (which alone shouldn’t cause as much injury as it currently seems to).

So in a way, preventing ankle sprains is - in part - a game of trying to maintain our inherently normal ankle range with exercises, but also accounting for the things that naturally rob us of that ankle range.

And what I’ve come to understand over the last 20 years, is there are three things that have a strong tendency to take a loose, supple ankle and eventually ask it to stiffen up.

The first is the many hours we may spend a day sitting with our feet stuck at the same angle. The second are thongs which change the way we use our ankles because that big toe has to hold on.

And the third are heeled shoes. The idea here is that the size of the heel at the back of someone’s school shoes, joggers, work shoes, work boots etc is the exact amount of ankle range you won’t get access to while you’re in the shoe. And like everything else, if you don’t use that ankle range, we tend to lose it over time.

Soooooo, I’ll just leave this here..


View attachment 1891570View attachment 1891571View attachment 1891572View attachment 1891573

It may mean something, it may not as photos give no context.

But if the players get around in these types of shoes more often than not, I’d be willing to bet their ankle mobility isn’t as optimal as it could be - unless they’re working hard to balance things out.

It may not sound like a big deal, and it may genuinely not be in reality, but if Chad came to me with his Achilles, Day with his foot, Impey/Sicily with their ACLs etc I’d be very interested in their general ankle mobility regardless. And while nothing ever guarantees an injury to occur, hindsight is often really consistently clear - with stiff ankles often popping up in most conversations.

Anyway, this is just one thing that seems to still be such a prominent theme in teams preseasons across the board, not just at the Hawks, and something I can see being a huge advantage to injury prevention if we got the players to eventually feel comfy again in heel-less shoes.

Keep an eye on these types of pics that come out from most clubs as once you see it, it’s hard to unsee!

Either way, I find injury prevention is more than just getting something stronger - which is often our default. Often it requires taking a step back and looking at someone as a whole.
What a great, insightful post 👍
 

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Hey all, I’m not sure whether this will be interesting or not, but since I can’t get down to training and give back that way, I thought I’d put something up thats caught my eye from afar.

There’s been a bit of chatter around the few ankle sprains some players have sustained recently and I thought I’d give my take as a Physio who’s really passionate about figuring out the underlying root cause of things - to hopefully help those here who may deal with them, or just to give us all something to look out for this season.

Ankle sprains are often looked at as bad luck which often stops us from trying to figure out how good someone’s ankle was functioning before they rolled it. The idea being that the better your ankle was before the roll, the better it’ll be at either buffering that experience or not.

To cut a long story short, I find that something as boring as increased ankle stiffness/rustiness or reduced range of motion, is one of the biggest issues that can rob an ankle of the “give” needed to buffer the act of rolling an ankle (which alone shouldn’t cause as much injury as it currently seems to).

So in a way, preventing ankle sprains is - in part - a game of trying to maintain our inherently normal ankle range with exercises, but also accounting for the things that naturally rob us of that ankle range.

And what I’ve come to understand over the last 20 years, is there are three things that have a strong tendency to take a loose, supple ankle and eventually ask it to stiffen up.

The first is the many hours we may spend a day sitting with our feet stuck at the same angle. The second are thongs which change the way we use our ankles because that big toe has to hold on.

And the third are heeled shoes. The idea here is that the size of the heel at the back of someone’s school shoes, joggers, work shoes, work boots etc is the exact amount of ankle range you won’t get access to while you’re in the shoe. And like everything else, if you don’t use that ankle range, we tend to lose it over time.

Soooooo, I’ll just leave this here..



It may mean something, it may not as photos give no context.

But if the players get around in these types of shoes more often than not, I’d be willing to bet their ankle mobility isn’t as optimal as it could be - unless they’re working hard to balance things out.

It may not sound like a big deal, and it may genuinely not be in reality, but if Chad came to me with his Achilles, Day with his foot, Impey/Sicily with their ACLs etc I’d be very interested in their general ankle mobility regardless. And while nothing ever guarantees an injury to occur, hindsight is often really consistently clear - with stiff ankles often popping up in most conversations.

Anyway, this is just one thing that seems to still be such a prominent theme in teams preseasons across the board, not just at the Hawks, and something I can see being a huge advantage to injury prevention if we got the players to eventually feel comfy again in heel-less shoes.

Keep an eye on these types of pics that come out from most clubs as once you see it, it’s hard to unsee!

Either way, I find injury prevention is more than just getting something stronger - which is often our default. Often it requires taking a step back and looking at someone as a whole.
Hi sven_inc. What is your view on "barefoot" shoes which seem to be gaining momentum? I have some friends who swear by them. They were influenced by the book - Born to run: Hidden Tribe - which I haven't read but apparently challenges the science behind the heavily padded sports shoes which dominate the market.
 
Danny Prins from Hawk insider has cleared up the moraes detals.

“believe he’s currently in the NGA program but not technically confirmed as an NGA linked prospect. AFL have to tick off on it from what I’ve been told, which won’t matter as he’ll be drafted far too high”.


can anyone explain what NGA rally is ????......
 
Confined spaces. Doesn't sound like the MCG. It's a shame we don't get to play on the SCG this year :'(
Team defences and the way the game is played means you are playing in confined spaces. 36 players are in one half of the ground mate
 
Hi sven_inc. What is your view on "barefoot" shoes which seem to be gaining momentum? I have some friends who swear by them. They were influenced by the book - Born to run: Hidden Tribe - which I haven't read but apparently challenges the science behind the heavily padded sports shoes which dominate the market.
Hey. For what its worth I have three friends, 2 Male 1 female, who went down the barefoot shoe path. All three had to stop due to their Achilles flaring up badly. None had previous issues. None over weight, and one of them was a super fit cyclist. The cyclist persevered with them I think, and he still gets around in them but they still give him grief.
 
Hi sven_inc. What is your view on "barefoot" shoes which seem to be gaining momentum? I have some friends who swear by them. They were influenced by the book - Born to run: Hidden Tribe - which I haven't read but apparently challenges the science behind the heavily padded sports shoes which dominate the market.
My mate started doing this trend, ended up picking up turf toe then had some issues with his back after a long hike. He's too stubborn to give it up.

Weight training though, converse shoes are the best.
 
Hey all, I’m not sure whether this will be interesting or not, but since I can’t get down to training and give back that way, I thought I’d put something up thats caught my eye from afar.

There’s been a bit of chatter around the few ankle sprains some players have sustained recently and I thought I’d give my take as a Physio who’s really passionate about figuring out the underlying root cause of things - to hopefully help those here who may deal with them, or just to give us all something to look out for this season.

Ankle sprains are often looked at as bad luck which often stops us from trying to figure out how good someone’s ankle was functioning before they rolled it. The idea being that the better your ankle was before the roll, the better it’ll be at either buffering that experience or not.

To cut a long story short, I find that something as boring as increased ankle stiffness/rustiness or reduced range of motion, is one of the biggest issues that can rob an ankle of the “give” needed to buffer the act of rolling an ankle (which alone shouldn’t cause as much injury as it currently seems to).

So in a way, preventing ankle sprains is - in part - a game of trying to maintain our inherently normal ankle range with exercises, but also accounting for the things that naturally rob us of that ankle range.

And what I’ve come to understand over the last 20 years, is there are three things that have a strong tendency to take a loose, supple ankle and eventually ask it to stiffen up.

The first is the many hours we may spend a day sitting with our feet stuck at the same angle. The second are thongs which change the way we use our ankles because that big toe has to hold on.

And the third are heeled shoes. The idea here is that the size of the heel at the back of someone’s school shoes, joggers, work shoes, work boots etc is the exact amount of ankle range you won’t get access to while you’re in the shoe. And like everything else, if you don’t use that ankle range, we tend to lose it over time.

Soooooo, I’ll just leave this here..


View attachment 1891570View attachment 1891571View attachment 1891572View attachment 1891573

It may mean something, it may not as photos give no context.

But if the players get around in these types of shoes more often than not, I’d be willing to bet their ankle mobility isn’t as optimal as it could be - unless they’re working hard to balance things out.

It may not sound like a big deal, and it may genuinely not be in reality, but if Chad came to me with his Achilles, Day with his foot, Impey/Sicily with their ACLs etc I’d be very interested in their general ankle mobility regardless. And while nothing ever guarantees an injury to occur, hindsight is often really consistently clear - with stiff ankles often popping up in most conversations.

Anyway, this is just one thing that seems to still be such a prominent theme in teams preseasons across the board, not just at the Hawks, and something I can see being a huge advantage to injury prevention if we got the players to eventually feel comfy again in heel-less shoes.

Keep an eye on these types of pics that come out from most clubs as once you see it, it’s hard to unsee!

Either way, I find injury prevention is more than just getting something stronger - which is often our default. Often it requires taking a step back and looking at someone as a whole.
Someone tell Nick Watson to shelve those Cuban Heels!
 
Hey. For what its worth I have three friends, 2 Male 1 female, who went down the barefoot shoe path. All three had to stop due to their Achilles flaring up badly. None had previous issues. None over weight, and one of them was a super fit cyclist. The cyclist persevered with them I think, and he still gets around in them but they still give him grief.
Barefoot shoes will highlight pre-existing issues more than create new ones. As Sven said above, footwear will create limitations in mobility and those limitations become injuries waiting to happen. Conventional running shoes essentially take things that should be done by the feet, ankles and lower leg, support them through spring and cushioning and make it easier but also make your body less capable of doing those things themselves.

It's like having a bad back. If you wear an abdominal belt at all times when you do something physical, you may think that if your back gets sore when you take it off that not wearing that belt is bad for your back. The real problem is that the belt was doing what your abdominals should have been doing, but weren't. The solution isn't to wear the belt all the time but to build the musculature your body should have been using, that way you don't have any underlying weaknesses that can break down under higher workloads.
 
My mate started doing this trend, ended up picking up turf toe then had some issues with his back after a long hike. He's too stubborn to give it up.

Weight training though, converse shoes are the best.
Yep, all the Gym bros I know where Converse All-Stars to the gym so they can do squats with flat feet.
 
Yep, all the Gym bros I know where Converse All-Stars to the gym so they can do squats with flat feet.
I won't even start on all stars. Love the look but the most overrated lifting shoes of all time, way too narrow. Horrible for my wide monkey feet.

But you're right, a fair few of the lifters I know still wear em. Though a lot of the more serious ones either lift in oly shoes for squats or socks/vivobarefoot for deadlifts.
 
Hi sven_inc. What is your view on "barefoot" shoes which seem to be gaining momentum? I have some friends who swear by them. They were influenced by the book - Born to run: Hidden Tribe - which I haven't read but apparently challenges the science behind the heavily padded sports shoes which dominate the market.

Hey mate, without wanting to derail the training thread, being barefoot is obviously normal.

By extension of that idea, barefoot shoes should be considered more “normal” for us in a perfect world compared to traditional, built up shoes.

The challenge with barefoot shoes today is a lot of people go for them without working on reclaiming a lot of the function that gets lost from wearing traditional, built up shoes for decades.

And like running, being barefoot is really good at exposing hidden dysfunction we didn’t realise was there bubbling away under the surface.

In a way feeling comfortable in barefoot shoes should be an ideal everyone strives to achieve at some stage, with the understanding that it might take some longer than others depending on how optimal their leg mechanics still are.

Obviously we need to understand what the current modern day environment asks of us in terms of hygiene, surfaces and social standards as well.

Edit: Kermit has also explained this well above
 
Is this Chat GPT or did Josh Jenkins write this?

Position: 17th

Most excited to see (big improver or acquisition)

Will Day’s emergence… but where… and will he be established in a single role?

54 games in, four seasons in… enters season five at around 85kg and with AFL-level endurance to be a devastating running midfielder who can go where the game needs him.

Too often we saw him on the last line protecting against momentum… keep him on or around the ball all season.

Sure thing (something you can take to the bank)

Ned Reeves and Lloyd Meek continue to mix and match the No. 1 ruck role, with neither really establishing themselves as the one.

Maybe it’s Reeves… maybe.

Hope and worry (one thing to makes you hopeful and one that’ll make you worry)

Hope: We hope someone can settle down beside Mitch Lewis as a genuine No.2 key forward.

Worry: The worry for me is that person is not currently on the Hawks list… we’ve seen Mabior Chol and we know Jack Gunston is at the end of the road.

Need to see much, much more from Denver Grainger-Barras before we give him the nod.

Xs and Os (coaching/game plan adjustment)

Keep Day stationed in a single role. Luke Hodge and Shaun Burgoyne were deployed where needed and Day has that capability but those two did that more often once they were fully established as A-grade players.

 

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Training 2024 Preseason reports and discussion

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