Holland’s Preseason Diary Part 3

With almost five weeks of a gruelling preseason under their belt, Jonny discusses how the squad facilitated preseason recovery with a reduced workload this week, and he looks back at their active-recovery expeditions in the sea at Lahinch and in the yoga studio.

Week 5 is coming to an end. It is a shorter week because we came back to preseason earlier than usual and the coaches are giving us those few days back to break up the heavy load. A lot of lads have booked trips to sunnier climates, Portugal being the most popular spot probably because it is the shortest flight to get some sun. I’ve decided against going away but I will get some down time and make the most of a few days off with my girlfriend Chloe. Hopefully this weather will stick around, although I’m not holding my breath! Garretstown is my home away from home and is very hard to beat when the sun is shining. 

Recovery is a very important part of being a rugby player so it is good to get a chance to freshen up. The recovery that we do in season is completely up to the individual once we are doing something proactive to avoid injury as much as possible. Most people will jump in the pool after a session in UL or go over to the Maryborough Hotel in Cork. This became a big part of my recovery from my hamstring injury and I’ve pretty much stuck to that routine. Massages are compulsory for everyone and we do a mobility and movement session at the start of most training days. Sometimes our recovery habits are just to tick a box, but in a good way. I’m not always sure that what I’m doing is working but if I pick up a niggle I’ll know I’ve done as much as I could to avoid it and it won’t weigh me down as much mentally.  

During preseason the strength and conditioning coaches try to use various methods to keep us fresh, mentally as well as physically. Last Wednesday we visited Paulette at The Loft Yoga Studio in Clonlara. This is different to anything we have done as a group, since I’ve been here anyway, and it went down very well. I think most lads gave positive feedback, besides John Andress who snored his way through it and Sweets (Darren Sweetnam) because he claimed he needed to cough for the hour and was too distracted to know if he enjoyed it or not. But the rest of us found it beneficial and a few guys are keen to give it another go. 

The week before a few of us went to Lahinch beach for a bit of active recovery. The weather wasn’t great but that didn't stop myself, Daz (Darren O’Shea) and Jacko (Jack O’Donoghue) taking Bulb (our academy comedian Conor Oliver) out for a day trip to watch Copey (Robin Copeland) doing his best David Hasselhoff impressions while Aled Walters (Head of Fitness) was throwing digs at Mark Chisholm for wearing his budgie smugglers. He might be about 43 but he's still in good enough shape to get away with it!

Training this week has been a little bit less intense in terms of our load. Our weights in the gym have been slightly lower and one or two sets less. It is hard to make players pull back like that but Aidan, our longest serving strength and conditioning coach, tries to market it to us as a slingshot effect. This means that they are pulling us back to fire us forward which is a good way of putting it. The pitch sessions have been building nicely though and we are definitely improving the more we get to train together. 

Next week sees the reintroduction of our international players which will drive standards through the roof and it is good for the squad to have them back. I don't envy them having to go through their testing on what is Week 1 for them, but they are internationals for a reason and generally hit the ground running having played at such a high intensity before their break. I’m sure they will be looking forward to catching up with the coaches and learning about the improvements we have been making. 

That’s it for now, we will be back again after our mini break to step up the intensity.

Chat to you then,
Jonny