How to Be Game Day Ready

The general consensus amongst most sub-elite athletes is to take it easy the day before or day of competition, and whilst this holds some truth therein lies an opportunity to prepare more effectively than just rest.

An effective tool to bridge the gap between your weekly strength and conditioning training to game day is a ‘game day primer’, a session that specifically prepares you, ‘primes’, for the movements of competition.

At the physiological level a priming session generates neurological stimulation and potentiates neural pathways involved in strength and power for your given sport. Simply resting with no activity prior to competition results in this neurological potentiation process occurring at the beginning of competition which can leave you flat and a step behind your competitors.

So, What’s A Good Session

A priming session should consist of a few, velocity and power-based exercises containing little to no eccentric loading.

The timing of the session can fall anywhere from 6-36 hours out from competition and can become slightly more neurologically demanding the further away from competition it falls.

It is not designed to be fatiguing and aims to achieve as maximal motor unit (contractile cells of a muscle) recruitment as possible in a short amount of time. An example of a priming session for a field sport athlete might look like:

A1 Block Power Clean (3×3)

A2 Band Assisted Jump (3×4)

B1 Medicine Ball Chest Pass (2×5)

B2 Single Leg Box Jump (2×4 each side)

B3 Pallof Press w/ perturbation (3×4 each side)

This example is rather general and can be improved even further when aligned with your own previous training age and phase for best results when leading into competition, something we do with all our athletes here at Precision Athletica.

Want To Know More

This is an introduction to the concept of being primed and ready on game day.

If you would like to know more or work on specific session ideas for yourself, please contact our Strength Coaches including Dylan Bennett, who wrote this article.

How Do I Book An Appointment with Precision Athletica for Help?

We’re taking the health of our clients, members and staff very seriously and our preference would be for you to call to book an appointment so that we can make sure to explain our approach to keeping you safe. You can call our bookings team to schedule a session:

• Customer Support Centre: 02 9764 5787
• OR email us at: olympicpark@precisionathletica.com.au

Online Consultations

Evolving with the current environment, we are also now offering online appointments, meaning that we can support anyone who is unable to leave their home. Sessions are done via our state of the art Telehealth system and as long as you have a laptop or tablet with an inbuilt camera, or a phone with camera, we can help!

To learn more about online consultations, please call us on any of the numbers listed above.