One of the biggest issues I see facing club GAA players, the well-seasoned ones especially, is poor movement patterns. 

Tight hips and hamstrings impinging on the ability to squat well, hinge without their low back taking the brunt of the load and lunge without their chin falling toward the floor.

Strength is pretty easy to quantify. You can look at the numbers and see if you’re lifting higher volume or bigger weights and see what the progress is as clear as day.

Aerobic fitness is handy to keep an eye on too. 100m, 200m, 400m. All the runs you do at training can be timed and held up against the previous times you’ve ran and you can see if you’re in a better or worse place after every run.

Mobility on the other hand is trickier to pin down.

For me it’s only when you stop doing the work that you really notice the benefits it was bringing to your game. 

With time being freed up due to football commitments decreasing, make the choice to use that newly acquired time wisely and get yourself to a yoga or Pilates class. 

One hour per week will help, but as with everything else the more you apply it the better the results, so take what you’re learning from those classes and spend some time every day working on whatever area you feel you’re falling short in. 

Poor hip mobility? Ten measly minutes a day working the hip joint. Poor hamstring mobility? Give them ten minutes a day. If you’ve time to watch the new series of Peaky Blinders then you’ve time to do some stretching and a little foam rolling.

It could be the difference between playing the game of your life and pulling up with an injury the in the first minute of the contest.

Use the next few months to create training habits that will stand to you forever more. You want to be driving to work on Monday morning thinking about the great game you played over the weekend, not trying to distract yourself from the pain of your sore hip and praying your hamstring doesn’t spasm and send you hurtling toward oncoming traffic. 

Improving mobility and movement patterns like squatting and lunging is something that’ll have a hugely positive effect on your performance, and I think it’s starting to be generally more accepted by the masses that it needs to be done. The next thing which needs to be accepted in the same vein is improving running technique.

You don’t stop trying to improve your kicking skills after you learn to kick it for the first time, so why don’t we spend more time practicing how to run better?

Become more efficient with our energy expenditure, improve our technique to run faster and more powerfully, learn the correct techniques on turning and stopping to help prevent injury. 

Mobility is starting to be embraced, running mechanics is next on the list of the 1%’s that could bring your game to the next level! 

Train smart. Win big.

For more training and nutritional advice you can catch me on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook by simply searching PGthePT.

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