Less bulk, more skills - Sport-specific training in the GAA

With the dust firmly settled on this year's All-Ireland football championship, inter-county teams are already turning their attention to 2024.

Even though teams will not be back training collectively until their official start dates, players will be furnished with individual conditioning programs.

Over the last four or five years, some inter-county teams have embraced a phenomenon known as 'sport-specific training’. Sport-specific training is training in a manner that mimics the sport, incorporating the skills required.

For Gaelic football, it is quite often drills that use the ball. Other times it’s practicing the skills with rubber bands on, wearing a weighted vest, or attaching the participant up to a bungee cord or weighted devices such as an athletic sled.

Taking sport specific training to a new level has now seen some teams incorporate these drills into their strength programs.

Strength training is a major part of the conditioning process for footballers. In fact, nothing improves sport performance more than the development of strength and power.

While there's some consensus about the best ways to improve athletes' strength and power, discussions are now taking place about the specificity of training for football.

One particularly contentious discussion is over the very idea that there are specifics for training footballers in individual positions.

I firmly believe a goalkeeper needs a different type of field training as their role is unique on the team with shot stopping and kick-outs. I'm not sure a goalkeeper's gym program needs to be that different to a middle eight player other than more single leg exercise like squats, Romanian Deadlifts (RDL’s) and step-ups to enhance the kicking action they repeatedly do in a