Conditioning & weights in the GAA in the old days

micke · 19-07-2023 7:50pm #1

I am curious to how GAA teams trained back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s in terms of strength and conditioning and when did the emphasis on both come into vogue in the sport. Was training very primitive until relatively recently in the 90s or did some players in leading counties like Dublin and Kerry engage in more sophisticated training than simply doing laps around the field. The likes of Paidi O Shea, Pat Spillane and the Dublin team of the 70s look very fit and toned in old photos and videos.

orangerhyme · 19-07-2023 9:18pm

Micko Dwyer was famous for "wire to wires", which I guess is approximately 180m to 190m sprint. They would do loads of these.

They did loads of press ups too.

Paidi O'Se did his own training outside of this like a long run up the hills - 13.5 miles maybe I think.

He also did hurdles on the beach.

Pat Spillane would sprint up a mountain.

He also would go running through fields and jump up to tip a leaf or branch high up on a tree.

This sounds made up but we grew up with these stories in Kerry.

They didn't have any sport science back then but learned by experience what worked.

Paudie O'Se used to have a nap in the afternoon and also practice visualization before games. These are both staples of modern sports science.

Visualization creates the same pathways in the brain as the act of doing.

Str8outtaWuhan · 19-07-2023 9:21pm

A hard day's work footing turf.

micke · 19-07-2023 9:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120872773#Comment_120872773

I guess a lot of fellas build up strength doing hard physical labour back then

dxhound2005 · 19-07-2023 9:39pm

Nowadays counties decamp to Spain and Portugal for traning camps. Back in the day it was to less exotic places like Ballyconnell. But it was at a professional level, far removed from the idea of hardy farmers. Also professional in that the players were paid the wages they missed from not being at work. Until training camps were banned.

https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/donegals-camp-stay-takes-unity-to-another-level/30575136.html

Treble double · 19-07-2023 10:39pm

I think Dublin and Kerry raised the bar in relation to collective training from the mid 70s on. I think the majority of counties wouldn't have had any collective training throughout the leauge and would only get together a couple of weeks prior to the championship up to the early eighties. You have to remember that half the counties in the country would be gone after the first game and Kerry could win an All Ireland by winning 4 games, sometimes 3, I think there was occasions they were given a bye to the Munster Final. Galway could win a hurling All Ireland by winning 2 games.

Asdfgh2020 · 20-07-2023 4:59am

plenty of smoking went on during training sessions also and sometimes even at half time during big games …😀

Insect Overlord · 20-07-2023 6:31am

Tony Griffin's memoir is interesting for touching on bits of this. Some of the details of the Clare hurlers' pre-season in the early 2000s are fascinating.

breezy1985 · 29-08-2023 11:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120872755#Comment_120872755

"They didn't have any sport science back then"

Pure myth that gets thrown around a lot. Just because sports science like practically all science has improved it doesn't mean they were not at the forefront.

Pat Spillane went to Thomond College which was a sports college and Mickey Ned O'Sullivan studied sports science in Dublin.

orangerhyme · 29-08-2023 3:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121041944#Comment_121041944

Sport science was in the dark ages back then.

breezy1985 · 29-08-2023 4:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043103#Comment_121043103

Just less advanced. But I bet players were keeping up with what was available at the time and not just getting a bit muscly from "bailin hay" as the rosey old stories like to tell ya.

orangerhyme · 29-08-2023 4:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043319#Comment_121043319

Even in the 00s lots of Kerry players weren't doing weights.

Pat Flanagan came with JOC and weights were recommended but optional.

Nutrition was very basic also. I'm not sure if they had a dietitian.

It was a different sport in the 70s and 80s also. You stayed in your position mostly.

bucketybuck · 29-08-2023 4:18pm

Most of the players were very fit back then, you can't work manual labour to that extent and not be.

The big difference between now and then would be the nutrition. Can't outrun a bad diet, so the pints and smoking would have limited just how fit any of them could be.

Sports science did evolve in the 2000's but I think many people go too far by assuming that everything before that was beer belly full forwards and running laps. It wasn't, a lot of the drills I used to run in training sessions would still be very common today.

breezy1985 · 29-08-2023 4:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043339#Comment_121043339

I wouldn't dispute any of that.

But they were still at the forefront for an amateur player of their time and were not just fit by accident. I would know a few rugby players and runners from that time and they were in no way ignorant to sports science (the version available at the time)

evolvingtipperary101 · 29-08-2023 9:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120872755#Comment_120872755

The more things change, the more they stay the same. One thing that's completely different to back then, is toxic positivity and dressing everything up as the next big thing. But maybe that's the same as back then too. They even had cruciate injuries back then. What they didn't have was the microscopic camera phone, detailing every detail of everyone's movements and journey.

On Spillane:

"For example, having suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in the 1980s, which should have ended his career, he stubbornly had an operation in England and did “lunatic stuff” like running 30 laps of the pitch with 9kg weights strapped to his ankle, for many years, to build it back up.

He went on to win three more All-Ireland medals.

“I’ve been told by the medics the inside of my knee now is the equivalent of a bomb going off on it. It’s in bits.

"And in dampness and in cold, oh jaysus. I’m in savage pain because it’s riddled with arthritis.”

PeggyShippen · 29-08-2023 9:54pm

The Americans were doing benchpress ,squats , deadlifts in school since the 1920s. Same as the Germans. Thats how far behind we were. I know that alot of the rugby crowd in Limerick did weights since the 60s and definitely nearly everyone since 1980s. I ll always maintain that the culture of lifting weights in Limerick gave many of this current team a great advantage. They are still ahead physically.

BaywatchHQ · 02-09-2023 9:43pm

It is often their genetics, some men never touch a weight in their lives and look shredded. Someone like Anthony Tohill for example, look at his big monster thighs when he was barely out of minors.

Rows Grower · 02-09-2023 10:01pm

I remember seeing Larry Tomkins in Jury's gym on Western Road in Cork in the late 80's and he would have been a serious contender in a bodybuilding competition in the shape he was in.

Strumms · 02-09-2023 10:48pm

A lot of medical people have been and are still involved in GAA clubs and county set ups. My understanding is that certainly helped.

So people such as the doctors Noel McCaffrey and Pat O’Neill with Dublin in the ‘80’s & ‘90’s, raised the bar in terms of physical fitness, training, overall health / wellbeing with their county players…recovery techniques etc… they even have a performance nutritionist now

Dublin were one of the first teams to embed their teams into first class gyms and fitness facilities… that’s now repeated all over the country…with countless counties using state of the art 3rd level facilities…

some counties like Kerry, Galway, Tyrone and others have and are spending multiples of millions building their own dedicated centre’s of excellence..with gyms, physio rooms, recovery suites, alter-G tech, performance monitoring etc…data collection etc…and lecture rooms with all the latest presentation tech….

I think everyone realised that it can be a sport played by amateur people, but if a professional first class setups and support structure is backing them… great… no harm….

micke · 03-09-2023 6:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121061746#Comment_121061746

That's true I know a couple of guys who don't play any sport but are well-built and stronger than most fellows even those that play sport. There one lad I know who is very broad and I commented about how strong he was to his father once and asked did he ever go to the gym and his dad replied no and that he was a man when he was 14.

Motivator · 03-09-2023 11:11pm

Proper fitness programs and diets came to Waterford in 1998 when Gerald McCarthy took over. Was it the nutron diet that was the in thing at that time? I think that’s what they were on. Fitness training kicked up a notch as well, not in any related to the levels it is now but Waterford and Clare were probably the fittest teams in the country in 1998.

Proper weight training didn’t hit Waterford, and many other counties I would think, until around 2002 and to show how little knowledge was there at the time, Mullane was on the same program as the likes of Flynn and Andy Moloney. Tailored programs didn’t come in until Gerry Fitzpatrick took over the S&C in 2004. Mullane packed on too much muscle on his legs either in the off season in 2002 or 2003 and basically had to stop training his legs as it had a negative effect and was slowing him down. Gerry got Waterford into some condition from 2004 to 2007 but I think was dropped in 2008 and this was one of the nails in Justin McCarthy’s coffin.

Ive seen first hand what the nutrition and gym plans for inter county teams consist of now and they’d scramble your brain. Sleep and hydration are monitored now by all teams S&C/performance coaches. It’s the extra 1% that can make all the difference at that elite level.

Cake Man · 04-09-2023 5:09am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121066046#Comment_121066046

Came here to post this - I recall that Nutron Diet. Remember reading books down the years where past players spoke of doing it - Sean Cullinane who was full back on that Waterford 1998 team spoke of how he had to give up bread for the season and said it killed him! To be fair to Gerald McCarthy he introduced a lot of that kind of sport science as up to then, training primarily consisted of running up and down the sandhills in Tramore (not much different to what other counties were doing at the time, I also recall the Clare lads doing gruelling sprints up hills in Crusheen).

The Cork lads lifted the standards of professionalism around the early 00's which I'm sure furthered the use of S&C, nutrition and hydration. Subsequent years have seen teams obsess over these as well as sleep/recovery and nowadays sports psychologists.

Fascinated to hear about what a typical week looks like now for an intercounty GAA player - I'm sure it certainly would scramble your brain. Between monitoring every morsel of food and drop of water intake, minute of rest logged etc and that's before training two nights a week and probably expected to be in the gym on nights in between. The bulk of the weights and conditioning has to be started late the year before, no use only getting stuck into that in Jan or Feb so I'm sure that would mean taking it handy over Christmas while family and friends enjoy themselves - I don't envy all they go through and sacrifice!

Motivator · 04-09-2023 12:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121066228#Comment_121066228

Under Derek McGrath Waterford trained on Christmas Day. Absolutely no reason for it only for optics. Word spread around quite quickly about how serious Waterford were taking things by training Christmas Day, total nonsense stuff. I think S&C only really got serious when coaches studied abroad. Gerry Fitz had a background in Basketball and I think he lectured (maybe still does) in WIT so he had the knowledge. I imagine the 1990s S&C coaches were your run of the mill fitness instructor who felt the more running of laps you did the fitter you were. Yes that is probably correct, but we all know the science behind it now.

Yes an inter county players run of the mill week is pretty scary to be honest. Not for the faint hearted at all but remember anyone on an inter county panel will have the fitness work done, it’s the extra couple of percentage needed that’s what they’re trying to extract nowadays. A school friend of mine signed for a premier league club from the LOI a few years ago and you’d want to see the difference there. Absolutely not comparable at all. The club he signed for were able to tell him on his trial that he would need 3 months training to get to the standard they needed him to be at. He was starting LOI games and signed over to England in the summer so had plenty of work done already but he got a shock when he was told how much work needed to be done for him to even get to the level he needed for them just to be happy.

Treble double · 04-09-2023 2:37pm

With the introduction of trained professionals to strength and conditioning in the Gaa the landscape has totally changed. Teams train smarter now and there is a reason for everything they do and sometimes less is more. I think Gaa players overestimate how hard they train, for all the media acclaim they get their workload of physical training is fairly light compared to other sports, club standard athletes train way harder than Gaa players and get no media attention. I remember Jerry Kiernan calling out Gaa players 10 or 15 years ago saying alot of them weren't properly fit and were always going on about the sacrifices they make. He said they didn't know what sacrifice was, compared to what athletes were doing. He was castigated but he was right. Donal og Cusack was going on about how committed he was even going for a cycle on Christmas day to keep himself right, that guff must have left alot of club athletes laughing.

Conditioning & weights in the GAA in the old days

Comments