I had the tremendous honour in 2008, 2010 and 2011 of training the International Rules teams.
One of my objectives with the team was to make them incredibly aerobically fit. To achieve this, I designed my own aerobic fitness test called the M+M test. The test was a combination of hard running that consisted of accelerations, decelerations and turning.
The test was run over 240 metres in the shape of a massive 'M'. The idea was to mimic what the footballers would have to do in the match. I was also training some Premier League football players at the time, so this was also useful in testing their heart and lungs fitness.
After completing numerous tests on the Irish Gaelic football amateurs and the highly paid soccer professionals, one player kept standing out with his amazing aerobic output.
The player in question was a full-time plumber who played Gaelic football at the highest level. He trained four to five nights a week as well as working 40-50 hours.
The twist to this story was the player also had the highest body fat in all the players tested. His body fat percentage using the Harpenden Calliper method was 17.4%. Normally I like my professional football players to operate in and around the 6-8% body fat range and my amateur Gaelic footballers slightly higher preferably 7-9.5%.
So amazingly when I drilled down a bit more with this aerobically impressive Gaelic footballer, I established his nutrition needed a lot of tweaking.
He would eat bacon and sausage sandwiches whilst working out on site, numerous cups of tea with biscuits during the day, a fully cooked dinner followed by one and sometimes two bowls of Coco Pops for supper.
The adage of 'you can't outtrain a bad diet’ was never so true as in this case. I nicknamed the player the fittest overweight player in Ireland.
Thankfully I was able to initiate some interventions with this athlete’s diet and he is now operating very successfully at 9% body fat. While not only feeling so much better, this player has also reduced his risk of cardiovascular heart disease from eating too much fried food and sugar-laden cereals.
The moral to this story is not everything is exactly what it appears to be on first inspection. You may feel you are incredibly fit training 5-6 times a week. With this regime you may feel it gives you the license to indulge. But you should always have a way of measuring.
The measurements may take the form of a body fat test, for example, circumference measuring around your waist, hips, and buttocks. A Vo2 max test is a great way to test your cardiovascular fitness especially if you tend to focus only on resistance training, because the heart and lungs also respond very well to physical training.
Thankfully Gaelic footballers have grown out of the trend of thinking being big is a positive influence on their GAA careers. We often associate being big with being strong and this is not always the case.
Relative strength is the keyword here. Try to be as strong as possible but at the same time maintain your ability to move (mobility) and keep your bodyweight a sensible weight range for your height. In the last four or five seasons most inter-county footballers have adopted this approach.
When discussing the merits of being big from hypertrophy training new research has found that – at a cellular level – the large, defined muscles seen on bodybuilders don’t fare well against those of power athletes (such as weightlifters or sprinters, whose sport requires high forces produced quickly) or even men who don’t train at all.
A very recent study discovered that by measuring the size of the muscle cell, it is possible to calculate what is known as the specific force. This is the force produced for a defined area or unit of muscle.
The higher the specific force, the better quality the muscle.
The study authors found again that although the bodybuilders' muscles were considerably larger, they also had a lower specific force.
Power athletes, who lifted lighter weights more quickly, were able to produce the force more quickly, meaning their muscles were more powerful.
The former strength coach of the Chicago Bears and all-around great Olympic lifter, Clyde Emrich once said: "I feel that there is too much bodybuilding in strength training. Bodybuilding is fine for bodybuilding. But if you are going to train to get strong you had better train in a manner that complements this."
This is not to knock bodybuilding, but do you want to know a magic secret? Progression, or the adding of weight over time, is the fuel that drives muscle strength.
You could use any workout system in the world - and if you're adding weight to the bar, you will get stronger. How do you progress? Simple. Push yourself during every workout for more loading on the bar.
My friend and mentor Ashley Jones uses a great quote: "If you want to get strong lift big rocks". What Ashley was alluding to is that if you want to get any part of your body stronger you must lift weights in a progressive manner.
He worked with the All Blacks as their strength coach for many years and his philosophy about making people stronger has never failed him.
One of the mistakes the big but weak gym goers make is they never train their legs heavy. Squats and deadlifts are two of the biggest strength lifts anyone can do. Both exercises are raw, primal, strength exercises.
This is why your multi-joint movements and explosive lifts are the best exercises for building raw strength. If you want bigger arms deadlift off the ground for eight weeks with progressive loads and the gains will be far bigger than any amount of arm curls.
Training for strength involves extremely heavy weights and a smaller repetition range - usually five reps or less. This form of training is good for maintaining existing muscle but does little to build new muscle except in beginners, so you don’t have to worry about gaining size.
Don’t let appearance fool you. If you see a footballer who has big muscles don’t assume they are necessarily strong. Equally don’t pick on the skinniest person on the pitch as he or she could well surprise you with his/her strength.
When assessing physical fitness, anyone displaying signs of excess body fat needs to consider the detriment to their general health. It is not a good indicator of health if someone feels they are very fit yet are overweight for their height.
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