The big tweak Geelong has made to pre-season training to “bulletproof” list ahead of 2024 season
Geelong captain Patrick Dangerfield has provided some insight into his club’s pre-season training and one key shift they have made this summer.
After falling from premiers in 2022 to missing the eight a year later, the Cats have taken a different approach – with a focus on high-speed running.
The 33-year-old said they have pulled back from three main sessions to two to accommodate quadrupling the amount of high-speed running.
Dangerfield says the aim is to “bulletproof” the team heading into the season when it comes to soft tissue injuries.
“I’m getting the absolute shellacking shoved out of me at the moment at training, less fishing, it’s been very much head down, bum up phase of the pre-season for the Geelong Cats, and no doubt every other AFL team,” the 2016 Brownlow Medallist told the Reel Adventures podcast.
“At the moment, we’ve actually changed our pre-season from three main sessions a week to two main sessions for this 2024 pre-season and the reason for that is we’ve actually really increased our high speed.
“High speed, which is about 24km/h … we’ve changed that so that means you do need a bit more recovery time because you are getting more high speed.
“The reason behind it is to try and bulletproof hamstrings so by the time you hit games, it should feel like games are almost a de-load. Gone from 450 metres a week to 1500-2000 metres and beyond, that’s where we’re at now.
“Three-four times as much. Huge. And we’re now a couple of weeks away from our first pre-season game … we’re in that really heavy loading phase, and all teams will do this, so even in that pre-season game, the guys will still be training their ass off and then you’ll de-load three weeks out from the season.
“What it’s meant is … much less time for fishing than over the Christmas break.”
Geelong will take on Carlton at Princes Park in a match simulation on February 22nd before facing Essendon at GMHBA Stadium on March 1st.
