Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2, Episode 28

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 28

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Ever wondered how to keep your athletes in top shape without pushing them to the brink? Join us as we welcome back Darren on Two Coaches and a Coffee, where we unpack the significance of maintaining an average speed of 80 meters per minute during training sessions. You'll discover the origins of this metric and its practical applications in sports like AFL and soccer, gaining insights into how it helps build aerobic capacity. We also discuss the delicate balance between drill intensity and session goals, and why it's okay if not every session hits that magic number. Get ready for a comprehensive guide on making strategic adjustments to sustain peak fitness levels.

Switching gears, we delve into the rigorous schedules of professional EPL players, especially those juggling international duties. Can you imagine playing around 81 games a year? We'll break down the staggering workload and the complexities of managing fitness and conditioning amidst the chaos of domestic and European competitions. Plus, we compare these challenges to those faced by college and NFL teams in the US, who typically have the luxury of playing once a week. Listen in for an in-depth look at the strategic planning and resilience required to keep elite athletes performing at their best.

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Jason Weber:

G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee, and this week we are two coaches. Welcome back, Darren mate, Good to have you back.

Darren Burgess:

Good to see you, mate. The ratings will plummet now that I'm on board after a couple of no, you know what I think it is.

Jason Weber:

I think people have been itching to hear from you and I publish something and they go oh, there's that bloke again. So they've been bitterly disappointed and the word on the street is Berger is back, so we're going to be off the Richter scale this week.

Darren Burgess:

Let's see how we go.

Jason Weber:

Well, mate, let me open the batting. I did have a message, one of the many thousands that we get every week, but I got a message through social media that one of my individual blurbs I talked about one of the contextual pieces of landmark that I used in AFL, which I think I probably got off you, which was the 80 metres per minute mean so your average speed. If you can hold an average speed of 80 metres per minute, you can retain general fitness.

Darren Burgess:

Oh yeah.

Jason Weber:

From a training session, oh yeah, from a training session. Yeah, yeah. So we're in a football session, be it, AFL, soccer doesn't matter, I think it's only pertinent there. I don't think you could probably say the same of American football, because that's a very, very different thing, but I think your league union I haven't used it in union specifically, but definitely AFL, definitely soccer, and it definitely works. But what's the history of that mate? Where did that come from? I thought it was a research paper somewhere, but I don't recall.

Darren Burgess:

Again, I'm not sure if it's a research paper or not, but I don't think there's anything necessarily physiological about it other than what tends to happen. You break down training sessions with and without breaks. So let's say, in football you stop for a drink, you move from one part of the pitch to the other. In AFL, because you're generally on one oval, you all come over to the side for a drink. You move from one part of the pitch to the other. In AFL, because you're generally on one oval, you all come over to the side for a drink and then you all go back on.

Darren Burgess:

And so, as you know as well as I do, if you're training session and you want it to be an aerobic capacity building session but you don't want to do much sort of straight line, pointless running, then those breaks can really take away subtract from the heart rate, you know cardiovascular benefit that you need from those sessions. So one way to look at that is looking at metres per minute and quite simply, if you're over that, 80, 85 metres per minute. Because if you have a look at a AFL game, when you take in rotations and time spent on the bench as well as even quarter time breaks, it ends up being around about that 80 metres per minute total and, believe it or not, it's the same in international football. So when you take into account the breaks, so in fact it's probably a little bit higher in football, because you're obviously not coming off on the ground it seems a bit more continuous, yeah, if you take into account half-time breaks.

Darren Burgess:

It probably comes just below that, but I'm account half-time breaks. It probably comes just below that, but I'm removing half-time breaks from both codes. So that's essentially where it comes from and it's a really good guide to making sure that if the aim is, if it's a coaching you know it's a coaching session and the coach really wants to ram home structure and tactics, then all bets are off.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, of course, mate. I think it's a very, very good general indicator and I must say that I used to use AFL for a long time. I would use that, set that speed versus our actual session speed, like our drill speed, yeah, and look at the difference between them and keep coaches, you know, keep them acclimatised to understand both, that some drills are going to need to be at game speed, some will need to not be, some will need to be at a higher level of contested effort. But in all of that that, you're still going to maintain that 80 with breaks and as soon as that stretches out, yeah, your 80 goes through the floor yeah, it's not a disaster.

Darren Burgess:

It just means that if you are aiming to maintain fitness and or even improve some aerobic capacity and all the physiological changes that go along the oxidative pathway with that, then you might have to top up with some running or you might have to have a word to coaches or whoever players or whoever it is. That's slowing that down a little bit.

Jason Weber:

But you make it oh sorry, john.

Darren Burgess:

No, I just don't want people to think, oh, you must have 18.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, yeah yeah, that's your aim, but you make a great point. You just sort of clutched, not clutched, you just sort of just mentioned it. It doesn't have to always be that, no, but it means that if you were doing, let's say, you're doing, a structure session and it's nice and slow and whatever, then the next session you come out and you go right, coaches, we're going to do it, it's a full, it's 100% football session, but we need it at this rate in order to get X, y, Z physiology changes you mentioned there. You need to be able to maintain this 80, yet they don't, and so that's okay. Then there's cause for intervention you need to discuss.

Jason Weber:

But you can end up in a spot where that happens for two or three weeks and all of a sudden you're two or three weeks behind the eight ball. And this is this idea of creeping changes one way or the other, like if you let it creep and you let it stay down. And I've had, I've done reviews previously and I think you and I've been on one many, many years ago, darren, where we saw rates of work go down and the explanation from the conditioning staff was that, oh, I thought it was really important that the coaches had time to do skill work. Man, if you let them just go down that path, they will never do anything that represents gain. You know you've got to keep some momentum in your development.

Darren Burgess:

There's no question. So I look at the and this is completely unscripted and we do have a few other things to talk about, but you can, in the AFL now you can have a look at running capacities of each team with some global metrics. You can't break it down too much, but with some global metrics and suffice to say I don't want to necessarily name teams because I've got some really good mates and they might, for some bizarre reason, take it personally, but there is no relationship whatsoever between the top four teams and the high-speed sprint running running capacity. Just, it couldn't be less of a relationship. So when I showed that to my coaches in a coach's review this week, their immediate reaction was okay.

Darren Burgess:

So it means that when you're hurrying us up in between drills and when you're um, you know, looking at the meters per minute figure and and those types of things, we should be able to take our time because the running doesn't matter, and so that's the simplistic view and to a point, there is some. There is some um. I get it. I get that that line of thinking, but I think there is probably a minimum capacity that you need to have To go over. That might help you if your coach's game style is that way inclined. So you know St Kilda game style. I think, from looking at it and hearing my coaches is everybody is sprinting back to defend and you were a bit exposed to Ross. Maybe it's changed, maybe it hasn't, I don't know.

Jason Weber:

Ross is a really hard-running coach, no question.

Darren Burgess:

Obviously outstanding at what he does, but their numbers reflect a team that has awesome high speed and sprint capacity. So then, you need to go over and above, but I think, by and large, the competition shows you, and it has shown you for years, that the running capacity needs to be at a minimum standard, but anything beyond that is probably not as necessary as what we in our industry perhaps think it is.

Jason Weber:

It was interesting, mate. I had a close look at some of the data that was available to me as an observer on the outside, because I know the data you have access to is from internal. But when you looked at, let's say, a really tight game qualifying weekend, not this past weekend, weekend before St Kilda, carlton, all right, I would concur 100%. There was no difference between run average speed, sprint, anything like nothing, and I did it quarter by quarter. Frio Port Adelaide, which was also Port Adelaide, got away from a bit.

Jason Weber:

Frio got away, port Adelaide, which was also Port Adelaide, got away from a bit of Frio got Port Adelaide got away from them. But again, very, very, very little difference. But on the previous earlier in that week there were a couple of dead rubber games were games where teams weren't in. Your old club, melbourne got Was it Melbourne-Collingwood that week before Yep? And Melbourne absolutely got spanked and the difference was massive.

Darren Burgess:

Absolutely massive. I think if there is a huge discrepancy, then clearly it's going to make a difference. But I guess, to summarise, you know, I think there's a minimum standard, like with strength and power, and ultimately it's those talented players. What we need to do is it's those talented players what. What we need to do is make sure those talented players have enough um capacity to execute their skills from the first to the fourth quarter and resilience to come and do it another between 24 to 32 times in the year yeah, and not necessarily beyond that.

Darren Burgess:

Let's not get too excited beyond that in the year.

Jason Weber:

Yeah and not necessarily beyond that.

Darren Burgess:

Let's not get too excited beyond that In the AFL anyway, In the AFL yeah.

Jason Weber:

What's the total number of games you would expect from, let's say, an EPL player that played international? What would they play a year game-wise?

Darren Burgess:

Oh, excellent question. I'm on a thief pro call straight after this. Oh, excellent question, I'm on a thief pro call straight after this. And so at the moment, we've got players playing 81 games a year, which is staggering, but on average it's around about 50 to 60. No, that's a lie.

Jason Weber:

On average at the top teams it's around about 50.

Darren Burgess:

And they're playing that to 90 minutes, versus the AFL going to 98 minutes.

Jason Weber:

Well, about the same With rotations. It's about the same, yeah for sure yeah. I agree. I agree, but 81 games is extraordinary, so let's look at that. We've got international break at the moment in the EPL, so talk us through that, mate. What's going on there for those, for the three people in the US who don't know what's going on?

Darren Burgess:

By the way, that is podcast craft. The way you just transitioned there from Did you like that, it was outstanding. You can tell that you've improved in the two weeks that I've left you online.

Jason Weber:

Well, I was left by myself. Once I submitted my, I had to write an application last week for the facility where I was, so 5,000 lines of code. So there you go strength and conditioning coaches who can't code 5,000 lines of code, which is not a lot if you're actually that's your profession, but for a knucklehead like me, a gorilla coder, that was a lot.

Darren Burgess:

So yeah, I thought, about some other stuff. You've ruined my transition so let's talk about the Premier League. At the top level of the Premier League, you've played one game a week up till now, right, which is really easy to program. Which is what, three it's about three weeks, four weeks something.

Jason Weber:

three games which is really easy to program. Which is what? Three it's about. Three weeks, four weeks, three games in Three, yeah.

Darren Burgess:

Really easy to program for. It's a nice and clean year. They're playing Saturday or Sunday, six seven-day break fantastic. Plenty of tactical work, plenty of fitness work. The problem is now at the bigger clubs, where all their players have gone off to play international not just the bigger clubs, the majority of Premier League clubs. And then you come back by and large for the European clubs and remember there's three European leagues now. There's a Conference, europa and Champions League, and so in the Italian league, for instance, nine teams are playing.

Darren Burgess:

Europe which is basically half the league. So you then are going into three games a week, so you haven't seen the players for two weeks. And then you're going into three games a week and most coaches will say they're about four games away from getting the sack. So you can imagine we'll get.

Jason Weber:

Great career choice shortly.

Darren Burgess:

So it's what the ideal world and this is where I think a lot of teams get it wrong is. They don't prepare the players for that. Three games a week. So I think I mentioned it on this podcast before.

Darren Burgess:

So the week before you play. You might, on the Wednesday, do a little bit more, on the Thursday, do a little bit more in order to condition those players. Problem is they're away for two weeks. So you really are at the mercy of the international clubs to condition those players, and most international clubs will send you their data now. So you'd want to be looking at their loads pretty carefully to see who can come in, because, as I think you have a 30% threshold of change from one week to the other, you're guaranteed to change that threshold 30% this week or go above that threshold, 30% this week.

Darren Burgess:

So you really have to make sure that you have a good relationship with the manager and you pick those players who are resilient to that. I hope I've explained that reasonably well.

Jason Weber:

It's definitely a challenging program and when you look at some of the like, the variety of people that listen to this, and because of our extensive reach into the US, you get the college and NFL guys up there who are going once a week.

Jason Weber:

But I had some extensive conversations the opposite way, in that not only do you have to plan for something three days a week, but what about planning for massive games? So I've got a team this week, university of South Florida big shout out to Coach Terence Kennel down there, but they're going to a massive game this week. So University of South Florida are a sort of mid-tier team. They're going up against Alabama this week and so they've changed their training to get all their big work done last week in the build-up to a lesser game where they had, you know, they won by 40 points, but just to back off a little bit this week. So they're fresh to go in Now. The opposite is true of your guys, as you're saying, the EPL. They need to be prepped to come in and handle three games a week, which is massive.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah and I don't know. Let's say I don't know who's playing when they come back, but let's say, for example, that it's Liverpool-Manchester City on the first Saturday back from international break. Those players come in on Thursday.

Darren Burgess:

Small game Some Friday, and then you've got to prep them for you know, for one day you figure out, okay who's loads of what Someone's flying in from South America. So it's more than just picking your best team. It might be picking your best team looking at the analytics who goes well away from home versus we looked at all of those things before games.

Darren Burgess:

Certainly at Arsenal. We knew which players were better away from home versus. We looked at all of those things before games. Certainly at Arsenal. We knew which players were better away from home, which players were better from home, which players were better off international breaks, which players weren't, who travelled the most, who travelled the least.

Jason Weber:

Here's a rookie question mate how many players are you carrying in an EPL squad?

Darren Burgess:

Normally around about 26, 27, of which three are keepers, so let's say 24. Between 20 and 24, most.

Jason Weber:

So you've got two teams plus a little bit.

Darren Burgess:

Essentially two teams.

Jason Weber:

Well, yeah, two teams.

Darren Burgess:

Two teams, but that can vary, but let's say for argument's sake, that's what it is.

Jason Weber:

But it really comes down to your depth how many guys can play like for like. How many times can we swap out that key striker for another striker and retain that quality?

Darren Burgess:

What competition are you in? So when I was at Arsenal, we were in the Europa League. They've obviously done really well the last couple of years and they're in Champions League, but in the Europa League you could afford to play some of the kids in those leagues in the early rounds, give them minutes. It was a really good launch pad for a lot of the young players that are now doing really well for either Arsenal or other clubs. They played a full season of Europa League. That might not be the case if you're in Champions League, of course, because every game is really important.

Jason Weber:

Right? Well, let's look at what's it like in his shoes. So you're an EPL, you've come off three weeks first and you've just gone into first international break and you're 0-3. So we've got our buddies down at Everton. Unfortunately, jack Naylor.

Darren Burgess:

Friends of the program we'd like to say yeah, yeah, friends of the program.

Jason Weber:

I spent some time with Jack over in Everton recently. Awesome man, very smart cat. So we're not commenting on that program. But the situation is Everton are 0-3. So you just said coaches are only four games away from getting fired, so there's got to be some pressure there. That's got to be a tough spot. Zero on three.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, so Calvin, from previously Port Adelaide, has gone over to join Everton as well, and his first experience is losing three and in fact, I was speaking to him today, to be honest, and he said that they're up 2-0 against Bournemouth with three minutes to go in normal time and lost 3-2, which is the only time it's happened in Premier League history that three goals have been scored to win the game in the last eight minutes of normal plus stoppage time. So it's finished anyway.

Darren Burgess:

um, so what's it like at it at everton and liverpool and real sort of football towns like a lot of those northeast and northwestern clubs newcastle, sunderland you know it because you're driving into grounds, into both the match day as well as training, and there are fans lined up out the front to abuse you. You know about it. In the rest of the continent of Western Europe, the Spanish coaches that came into Arsenal when we lost a few games in a row or didn't win, you know, drew a few games in a row they would drive into training expecting to be abused. And Arsenal fans aren't typically like that and the training ground is away from the city. But that's what the pressure is like. You know it.

Darren Burgess:

Every time you turn on the TV they're talking about it, players feel it and so as a staff you really have to make sure that you're not letting on that. You know that everyone's under pressure. The corridor conversation is really important to keep that to a minimum, giving players outs for different things, because you know, for some players it just gets a bit too much and suddenly the back gets a bit sore or the knee gets a bit sore. So yeah, it can be pretty tough. Because it's people's livelihoods. You go into those situations knowing right yeah, of course it could end, but it's pressure unlike what we experience over here. The only thing that happens over there, differently to what happens here, is guys like you and me, and we don't feel the heat like we do over here if things go wrong, like the way the media reacted to, say, andrew Russell and the Carlton injuries this year was like he was single-handedly the scapegoat, vilified, yeah, which would never happen in the UK, even if it was the fault of the high-performance fitness performance director.

Darren Burgess:

In the UK and Europe most of the time you're anonymous, so you don't know that, but out here in the AFL you get named and shamed and, as we know, soft tissue injuries, injuries, poor performances are multifaceted, yeah.

Jason Weber:

It's interesting. You say you know, know, it's people's livelihoods and sometimes I get the feeling that we get left out of that a little bit, that it's our livelihoods too yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's our livelihoods mate, and I'll go you one step further.

Jason Weber:

I get that coaches have played sport for many years. They might have played sport for many years, they might have played sport for 15 years, and then they come to become coaches and they move on. But for most of us, you know certainly for you and I we've studied this from day dot outside of university, like we've trained to do nothing else but this. I didn't, you know, I didn't spend 20 years running around on a football field yeah so, like you know, sometimes I feel like it gets lost.

Jason Weber:

That discussion. It's our livelihood too and unfortunately, at times you get spoken to by some coaches like we don't give a fuck. It's like like, are you serious? Like this is everything. This is everything. When I said livelihoods, I meant our livelihoods. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kelvin's gone over there.

Darren Burgess:

He's done a pre-season, left his job at Port Adelaide mid-season, done a pre-season, three games in. He's starting to look over his shoulder thinking I've just moved over.

Darren Burgess:

His partner is about to move over and yeah it's kind of left our Amber Rowe, a fantastic sport scientist, left our team to go over and be with Calvin, and yeah, who knows where that's going to end. I think they'll be fine, because it's generally the coach and the coach's person, but still you're, like I said, four games away from moving back to Australia trying to put your hand out for a job.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, and she's hard to come by.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jason Weber:

They're not plentiful. The big jobs are they. That's for sure? Anyway, mate, listen, I think we've about done our dash for the afternoon and you have an enormous amount to continue with this evening, which I'm sure you'll have fun with.

Darren Burgess:

It's something that I reckon we'll. Feef Pro just released their physical work report and I reckon I might send it to you and we'll have a chat about it for next week, because it's got some fascinating numbers Good.

Jason Weber:

Look forward to it, mate. Look forward to it. You enjoy the week and we will speak real soon. Look forward to it, mate.