Building an International Lacrosse Team from Adelaide - Part 2

Last week we got an insight into how Sean was able to create a sense of training cohesion amongst a group of geographically diverse players, that while all elite, all also had varying skills, experience and training requirements.

This week we will delve a bit deeper into the methodology Sean utilised to address some of the challenges outlined in Part 1: Building an International Lacrosse Team from Adelaide.

Let’s Recap

Here is a quick run down of the tools Sean introduced to the Lacrosse training program, in order to enhance the cohesiveness of athletes that are spread across the globe:

• TeamBuildr: Lacrosse Australia were extremely supportive in investing in the TeamBuildr App, which gave Sean the ability to provide programming, exercise videos, progress tracking, wellness monitoring and the ability to make quick adjustments for those who require individual needs.

• SPT GPS Units: Lacrosse Australia was greatly responsive in assisting the squad members to acquire GPS units. These GPS units allowed Sean to provide positional ‘Total Distance’ and ‘Zone 6 Distance’ targets for the players from week-to-week. This helped ensure that we had a clear idea of the load that each of the Athletes should be completing relative to their position, regardless of their location in the world.

• Connection: Sean set up regular Zoom and Facebook live sessions as a way of connecting with the players and to provide the Athletes with an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the training methodology, expectations and intended outcomes.

Building a Remote Strength Program

With TeamBuildr in hand, it was now possible to deliver and manipulate gym programming to each players requirements.

Without any face to face sessions with the majority of athletes, Sean decided to split the gym programming into 4 sub-groups, based on his idea of what needed to be prescribed, assisted by the Lacrosse Head Coach’s experience of working with this group.

These Subgroups Included:

1. Main Strength/Power Group: This group was asked to complete 3 lifting sessions in the off-season and pre-season and 2 lifting sessions per week in-season. This is essentially a ‘best case scenario’ group that athletes fall into, if everything is tracking normally and they want to enhance their athleticism.

2. Injury Prevention Group: Similar schedule and ‘main exercise’ selection as the group above, however the vast majority of the plyometric work was substituted with isometric strength. Athletes were allocated into this group if they have a history of muscle, tendon, ligament and/or joint issues.

3. Development Group: This group was designed for some of the younger Athletes who potentially had never had the opportunity to undertake structured gym programming, prior to Sean being involved. The schedule was the same as the groups above, however exercise selection was much simpler and rep ranges began with a very basic 3 x 10 protocol, in order to develop neural adaptation and focus on movement competency.

4. Hypertrophy Group: Being a reasonably physical game, these athletes need to find a balance between the capacity to run, while also carrying some ‘body armour’ in the form of muscle to be able to absorb force. This group lifted weights 4x per week during the off-season and pre-season and were transitioned back into the Main Strength Power Group in-season. The 4x lifts per week were divided into 2x Lower Body sessions and 2x upper body sessions.

Aside from the players differences, the foundations of these 4 programs were built around what Sean believes to be the ‘BIG 10 FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT PATTERNS’. Regardless of the type of athlete that each player was, Sean wanted the whole team to be able to competently perform the following 10 movement patterns:

• Squat

• Hinge

• Thrust

• Lunge

• Vertically Push

• Horizontally Push

• Vertically Pull

• Horizontally Pull

• Rotate

• Brace

These 10 movement patterns form 80% of each program, while the other 20% are accessories that either compliment the big 10 (eg, Abduction, Knee dominant Hamstring exercises etc..) or address a specific need for that Athlete/sub-group.

Once each athlete had been assigned a sub-group and began to undertake their program, they would then have the opportunity to discuss with Sean if any adjustments needed to be made on an individual level.

Within TeamBuildr, Sean was also able to send out weekly wellness questionnaires, provide opportunities for Heart Rate tracking and even give the athletes an opportunity to undertake performance breath work exercises.

Building a Remote Conditioning Program

Looking at some of the big sessions prescribed as part of the athletes strength training, you almost think that is a big enough load but then you remember these girls are elite, at the top of their game and wanting to compete on an international stage - therefore conditioning training is of equal importance.

When considering the volume and intensity of conditioning that Sean prescribes any athlete, he will always start by attempting to paint a clear picture of the ‘Game’ and/or ‘Weekly In-Season’ demands that they will have to competently undertake.

To begin with, Sean collated all of the GPS data that he had available to him:

• Australian National and State level data: only a small amount available

• National level data from other Countries: a medium amount readily available online

• US Collegiate data: a substantial amount readily available online

Upon consideration of these resources, Sean determined that in a normal in-season week of competitive Lacrosse (consisting of 2x on-field training sessions and 1x game)…

• A midfielder would cover an average Total Distance of 18km and an average Zone 6 Distance (21km/p+) of 1100m.

• Both Attackers and Defenders would cover an average Total Distance of 20km and an average Zone 6 Distance (21km/p+) of 1000m.

• A goalie would cover an average Total Distance of 9km and an average Zone 6 Distance (21km/p+) of 300m.

Using this as a starting point, Sean set about developing weekly, monthly and yearly training plans. In this particular circumstance, the first thing Sean did was look at the date of the squad’s competition target and worked backwards to a ‘peak week’.

The peek week consisted of a positional load, that is 150% of the load they would usually have to undertake in a normal in-season week eg. The Attackers and Defenders completed 30km TD and 1500 Z6 in peak weak’. The progression up to and regression down from this peak week, was completed in small but purposeful 10% increments, in order to minimise the variance in loads, build a strong foundation of chronic load and to mitigate soft tissue injury risk.

Sean prescribed this training to the squad using a set of distance targets that were plugged into their TeamBuildr accounts each week. Athletes would complete their compulsory field training sessions (run differently in each State) and then would have to use the information that Sean provided, in order to complete the appropriate ‘top up running’ to inevitably hit their positional goals for the week.

Distances and notes for each session were logged in an online excel spreadsheet that all players and coaching staff had access to, as well as GPS data from each unit being uploaded to a cloud. 

This provided us with a reasonable amount of confidence that positionally, all of our Athletes were completing the same amount of load each week, regardless of where they were in the world.

Where to from here?

Now that Sean’s Strength and Conditioning philosophies have been clearly outlined and the women’s team have their plan, our next instalment will cover some of the training challenges that arose and the adjustments that made to these methods to handle things like injury and the big one - COVID restrictions once they hit.

We will also take a look at Sean’s transition to the Men’s program and the ways in which he manipulated and tailored his programming and philosophies to suit a new group of athletes.