Utilising Pre-Game Primer Sessions for Athletic Performance
My athletes who already have a program with me will be accustomed to performing a pre-game day priming session around 24-48 hours before the match commences. These are an effective way to activate the athlete’s nervous system and fire up motor connections specific to game situation movements, This will have the athlete feeling primed up and ready to get an athletic edge over their opposition.
The sessions are short but high intensity. These can be aerobic, strength or explosive focussed workouts, I like to implement velocity/power based exercises such as sprints, wall switches and change of direction drills as this is generally the underdone quality for a lot of athletes in country WA. For my junior athletes we can get away with a little more volume if their fast twitch motor recruitment is not as developed. The athlete should not feel any fatigue after these sessions.
To a lot of athletes It seems counterintuitive to perform a workout the day before a game however studies showed use of a short and sharp priming session with controlled volume actually improved power output the next day by 5% (via a countermovement jump height test).
Simply by being up and about and moving the day before a game, priming sessions also have a positive psychological effect. When completely resting the day before a game to conserve energy it can have the compounding effect of feeling heavy and lethargic before the game, requiring more effort to ‘get going’ when the game begins.
If you want to perform on game day the key points to being primed and ready are to make sure you do activity (high intensity low volume is best) and make sure it is enough to have you feeling primed up and ready but not so much that it causes fatigue. If you would like some examples of priming session ideas feel free to contact me.
Thanks, Marcus.
