FITNESS manager Joel Hocking says the Demons are already showing benefits from having their first pre-season at AAMI Park.
Previously, Melbourne was regularly shifted from Junction Oval (its former training base) due to cricket in the pre-season, which meant travelling to various venues.
The Demons made the move to AAMI Park mid-year, and already Hocking can the improvements in having a centralised facility to conduct pre-season.
“We’ve got everything we need at our disposal. We’ve got a pool and we’ve got a really well equipped gym. The recovery facilities are fantastic, and having the oval outside is fantastic,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“We can condense our program, and can actually fit a lot more detail into our program than we previously could at Junction Oval.
“At the moment, everything is running really smoothly and really well.”
Personally, it has been a full-on time for Hocking, but one that he is relishing.
“It’s one of the busy times for us. We spend 40 or 50 hours a week [at the club] and we’re with the players the majority of that time,” he said.
“There are things that come up all of the time, so it keeps us on our toes. It’s going really well so far.”
Now in his third pre-season with Melbourne, Hocking said the list had definitely advanced since his arrival.
“After you’ve been here for a couple of years, the players start to understand me as a person a little bit and the way I go about what I do,” he said.
“They get used to the processes we’ve put in place. Now that the players are a little bit more used to it, it’s something that they can just click into gear.
“The young players who are coming into the team now - they’ll catch up. But the players that have been here for a couple of years now are definitely leading the way.”
Hocking said the club had also taken its pre-season to another level with the progression of its sports science facilities.
“We’re looking at a few different things with our GPS and we’re using ‘Athletic Logic’ as a database this year - we’ve done a little bit of work on it last year,” he said.
“That’s (Athletic Logic) basically a database where we can put every single piece of data that we collect - from a wellness point of view through to an athlete monitoring point of view.
“That’s basically on hand all of the time, so that’s one thing that is making life a bit easier.”
With the Christmas break looming, Hocking said training would be carefully managed over this period.
“We’ll gradually build up until Christmas, with some pretty solid running and skill loads into the players,” he said.
“Then over Christmas when they don’t do as much skill work, we’ll just continue the running load, but drop that overall intensity down a fraction and build it back up again in January.”
Previously, Melbourne was regularly shifted from Junction Oval (its former training base) due to cricket in the pre-season, which meant travelling to various venues.
The Demons made the move to AAMI Park mid-year, and already Hocking can the improvements in having a centralised facility to conduct pre-season.
“We’ve got everything we need at our disposal. We’ve got a pool and we’ve got a really well equipped gym. The recovery facilities are fantastic, and having the oval outside is fantastic,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“We can condense our program, and can actually fit a lot more detail into our program than we previously could at Junction Oval.
“At the moment, everything is running really smoothly and really well.”
Personally, it has been a full-on time for Hocking, but one that he is relishing.
“It’s one of the busy times for us. We spend 40 or 50 hours a week [at the club] and we’re with the players the majority of that time,” he said.
“There are things that come up all of the time, so it keeps us on our toes. It’s going really well so far.”
Now in his third pre-season with Melbourne, Hocking said the list had definitely advanced since his arrival.
“After you’ve been here for a couple of years, the players start to understand me as a person a little bit and the way I go about what I do,” he said.
“They get used to the processes we’ve put in place. Now that the players are a little bit more used to it, it’s something that they can just click into gear.
“The young players who are coming into the team now - they’ll catch up. But the players that have been here for a couple of years now are definitely leading the way.”
Hocking said the club had also taken its pre-season to another level with the progression of its sports science facilities.
“We’re looking at a few different things with our GPS and we’re using ‘Athletic Logic’ as a database this year - we’ve done a little bit of work on it last year,” he said.
“That’s (Athletic Logic) basically a database where we can put every single piece of data that we collect - from a wellness point of view through to an athlete monitoring point of view.
“That’s basically on hand all of the time, so that’s one thing that is making life a bit easier.”
With the Christmas break looming, Hocking said training would be carefully managed over this period.
“We’ll gradually build up until Christmas, with some pretty solid running and skill loads into the players,” he said.
“Then over Christmas when they don’t do as much skill work, we’ll just continue the running load, but drop that overall intensity down a fraction and build it back up again in January.”
