ASCA Podcast #19 - Alex Clarke

Alex is the current Strength and Conditioning Coach for the St George Illawarra Dragons. Prior to this he spent 9 years working in the AFL for Hawthorn and the Brisbane Lions in both strength and conditioning and rehabilitation roles. He has also had experience working with Olympic sports during his time at the Victorian Institute of Sport and most recently with the Chinese Track and Field team in the lead up to the Rio games. Alex has a Masters of High Performance Sport and is an accredited ASCA Professional Coach Accreditation Scheme- Elite and ASCA Level 2 coach. Quotes “At the end of the day we aren’t training 100m sprinters... we’re training rugby league players” “A large proportion of your program needs to address body awareness (especially for taller players)” “Most sports require athletes to jump, roll, tumble, brace, fall and we get limited amounts to perform these movements in training largely due to fear of injury.. and gymnastics provides a really safe in evironment where we can perform a lot of these skills” “The most important thing is everything is a progression” "People can get carried away with collecting data in the gym and forget about coaching” “Its no so much about all the numbers you’re getting with monitoring, it’s about the conversations with the players” “Psychology and way we think have a far greater effect on performance than what we give it credit” Shownotes 1) The differences between working in China & Australia 7:19 2) The cultural & performance differences between NRL & AFL and why AFL may get away with a little less strength 11:56 3) Use of speed testing and Alex's current programming for speed 14:49 4) A typical field session focusing on speed for the Dragons 19:13 5) Rules for dealing with older players to reduce injury 22:21 6) More differences in speed & strength training for NRL & AFL 26:54 7) How to incorporate gymnastics with athletes 28:26 8) Modifications to gymnastics work if you have injured athletes 35:34 9) How Alex structures his weight room sessions 43:36 10) Day to day monitoring usefulness and a practical implementation 47:59 11) Clarkey’s half court basketball exploits 49:31 12) Working with coaches and relating to famous players 54:44 13) The best lesson Alex learned on the job 57:58 People mentioned 1) Dee Jennings @dee_jennings1 2) Simon Webb 3) Brentan Parsons @bpsandc 4) Uwe Hohn @hohnuwe 5) Randy Huntington @hunt895wr 6) Loren Seagrave @lorenseagrave 7) Peter Birch 8) Frans Bosch @fransboschbook 9) John Pyror @fit3k 10) SImon Black @simon_tblack 11) Johnathon Brown @jonathon16brown 12) Bill Knowles @billknowles_HPS 13) Suki Hobson @sukihobson 14) Andrew Russell 15) Buddy Franklin @buddy_franklin23 16) David Joyce @davidgjoyce