THIS week the attention of most football circles has turned to Saturday's 2008 NAB AFL Draft, but for the existing Port Adelaide players it's been business as usual.
The Power are approaching the end of phase one of their pre-season training, which has involved up to 18 sessions a week, including running, weights, pilates and yoga.
New fitness coach Cameron Falloon said this phase would provide the players with a solid base going into 2009.
"We've divided the pre-season into several phases," he said.
"At the moment, the players are really in a base-building phase and, for me being new, it's a time for me to learn as much as I can about the players.
"The players will remain in that pattern for another week and then we’ll make it a bit more football-specific with their running leading into Christmas. We’ll also introduce more speed and repeat speed work.
"We’ll [also] get more into strength training and then, post-Christmas, you’ve only really got six weeks until NAB Cup so we want to have them fully-prepped so that (coach) Mark [Williams] can get them into the football-specific training.
"With the extended pre-season the club has this year, we’ve been able to get a lot more work in pre-Christmas and that will give the coaches a lot more flexibility after Christmas."
Falloon, credited with beefing up the Western Bulldogs list when he was their head of physical performance, has added three extra weights sessions to the training program since joining the club in October.
"We’ve thrown in a few extra weights sessions and that’s not just to do weights for the sake of doing weights. It’s to be a bit more individual with the players," Falloon said.
"I might say, 'I want you to come into this stand-alone session on Saturday morning and we’re going to work on specific qualities you need' and with the running, it’s a similar type of thing.
"It's a really good opportunity to work on players' deficiencies and, if you’ve got everyone in the one bracket doing the same thing, you never really get a chance to develop specific qualities."
Falloon and his fitness team will collect data from each player in every pre-season training session – including kilometres travelled and energy exerted.
It will then be stored on the club’s new database.
"It’s really critical to get all that background information and we’re really taking an individual approach to every player, which is time-consuming, but I think we’ll see the benefits of it in the 2009 season," Falloon said.
"Obviously each player is different and the most difficult thing for any new coach is learning what makes them tick and, for me, what their training background has been.
"You might get a fifth-year player who hasn’t had five continual years of training. He might’ve had interrupted pre-seasons in the past, whether it be with osteitis pubis or an ACL injury, so his training age – even though he’s a fifth-year player – might be the same as a third-year player.
"When we have another eight or nine recruits come in next week, it’s going to be one of if not the youngest list in the AFL, so you just have to be very careful that you're not overloading them or breaking them down.
"We try to manipulate the program so that they’re getting maximum benefit – getting into 95 per cent-plus of their training – but we’re not breaking them down either."
