Final week of the first phase of pre-season is now done. The majority of the players have now got a week off scheduled training, only those in rehab and the EPDG guys are involved in organised activity throughout the next week.
Monday we had a squad trip to the GSK Human Performance Lab in Brentford. As Harlequins are now sponsored by Maxi Nutrition, who are owned by GSK, we were able to use their fantastic facilities to do some physical testing.
This place was one of the most hi-tech labs I've seen personally, and it had a lot of different equipment available to use to find out the capabilities of the players.
The players underwent a BodPod which analyses body fat etc, Cognitive Assessment, depth perception, isometric strength testing for several body parts, dynamic strength testing, and lactate testing.
I was involved in the lactate testing. I was working in a tandem with Gaz helping him set up the Lactate Pro in between each use, timing the work periods etc. It was really interesting for me as I haven't done any of this type of stuff since University, so it was a nice refresher and a way for me to re-cap things I hadn't used in a long time.
It was a long old day on Monday, I think from start to finish I was out of the house for 12 hours. But it was definitely worth it as I got to experience this awesome lab. Oh I also got shown in an official Harlequins tweet photo haha. Trouble is I was eating when they took it, but hey ho. Good publicity right?
Tuesday we were back to normal at SSP. But the day started off a little different with a swimming session. This was the first one of this pre-season, and it was interesting to see who was good at swimming and who wasn't. It was mostly just a way to help loosen off their bodies whilst getting a bit of a workout in.
It's good to change up the stimulus, especially for professional sports people as the same training day in and day out can get very monotonous. Cliff and Bots smashed the underwater swim challenge to finish, doing a length underwater, turning still submerged, then returning half way back for Cliff and about three quarters for Bots. Pretty impressive.
The rest of the day was fairly standard with some weights and yoga to finish the day.
The rest of the week again continued fairly standard with a mix of therapy, weights, running, off feet conditioning, speed, skills and yoga.
On Thursday, Dunny (David Dunne - @Dunne_Nutrition) did a presentation on Nutrition for the players. This covered simple things like the amount of calories they should be taking in, and through what Macro-nutrient sources. I think this was important for the players as they each have their own ideals that they are looking to hit and it's good to individualize things.
On Friday they finished the week with another conditioning challenge. It was that damn prowler again! This thing is beginning to break people, and not just me! This week the coaches changed it, they worked in teams of 3 rather than teams of 4. And they also got more specific with the amount of weight being used on the prowler for players of different weights. I.e. the big guys like Lambo and Fridge had heavier than the small guys like Linds.
The groups being down to 3 made it more interesting as the players had less rest between reps, and some of them struggled a lot on the final few reps. But it was good to see the whole squad getting behind each other and pushing each other through a tough session.
I got a bit more air-time from this as I walked alongside Chuckles during his final push as he was struggling and Linds and Colls caught it on video and chucked it on Instagram. So I can be seen strutting next to a struggling Giraffe on ice.
If you want to see some photos of the trip to GSK-HPL then check out my Instagram.
It also has some photos from the prowler session.
And most importantly - Stay up to date with "#DickWatch" on instagram and twitter. Basically one of the other interns is called Richie Steele - so he is now Dick Steele. Obviously. So I decided to sneakily take some snaps of him unknowingly, and chuck them online. So I want to get #DickWatch trending.
Instagram: @baby_rhino
Twitter: @nitman89
Next week I'm going to be in and out of SSP a little, as there is no major training for the squad, but the other interns and I will be going in to assist Bish with rehab players, and also help Slim and Ed with their EPDG Mini-Camp. Should be a good chance to coach some younger players and see what Slim is looking for from them physically. All part of the learning experience.
Thank you for reading.
Rob.
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