Coaches take time out to talk burn out
O'Grady said Brian Corcoran, who retired at 28 before making a remarkable comeback this year, had been committed to 14 teams at an early stage in his career.
Player burn out was the main topic discussed at the conference, apart from a thought-provoking presentation by a cardiologist on sudden death syndrome.
Padraic Duffy, Chairman of the Association's National Coaching and Games Development Committee, agrees burn out a major problem.
"It's so hard to get a handle on it because so many competing interests pulling in different directions, the club, the county and so on," he said.
"Somebody somewhere is going to have to cry halt. We are concerned about over-training and scientific expertise and research underpin that. Simply, there is a lot of misguided work going into the training of teams and far more physical work of the wrong kind is being done than needs to be done.
"The ultimate concern is that too many of our players are being burned out. One of the most telling points made at the conference was that a player between 27 and 30 should be quicker than a player aged 18. He will be if he hasn't been burned out and has been doing the correct training. I wonder can this be said about many of our young players that they ARE doing the right type of training. We can't because they are being burned out."
Mr Duffy expressed delight with the big attendance of coaches, from club up to inter-county level, at the conference. The idea was to encourage them to debate if the training they were doing was 'the right training'. The bottom line is the amount of training done is being challenged and its value seriously questioned based on the best professional and medical advice.
"We had 620 people present and that's bound to have an impact when they get back to their clubs and realise that a lot of what is being done is wasted effort really."
Former Olympic coach Jim Kilty, who has been involved with a number of inter-county teams (including Tipperary, when they won their last All-Ireland), was the speaker who made the specific comment that an 18-year-old should not be faster than someone in the 27/30 age bracket.
Later, he made it clear that he believed GAA players have suffered in the past from the wrong type of training such as lapping fields or running up and down hills.
"A lot of stamina training slows people down, it slows the nervous system and it slows the reaction. There is a contribution from injuries, but when you look at athletes, these people are getting faster into their 30s, while some of our players are getting slower," he said.
"Sonia O'Sullivan is getting slower because she is a stamina athlete but someone like Gary Ryan is running faster at 30 than he was at 20. That's because his training programme is aimed to make him faster, while a lot of our club training programmes are so based on stamina that we run slower.
"At 30, players should have greater muscle mass, greater anticipation, so their ability to run over five, 10, 15 yards for a ball is better."
What encourages him is the belief that the message is slowly starting to filter through, that stamina endurance is not a necessity for Gaelic games that the ability to accelerate is more important than having a top speed.
"Yes, I think it's slowly but surely coming along that stamina training interferes with skill. If you do a lot of stamina training, it's very easy to have a replay five minutes after the game and you'll probably win. But most replays are a week later.
"This idea of having players who can run all day is okay but the game only lasts 70 minutes. And, the ball is in play for probably 14-15 minutes at a time. In actual fact, we are now seeing that speed served by power rather than strength is what matters.
"Both of us could move a rock, but if I can move it faster, I am more powerful. That's the player we need. So, speed and power should now be the basis and the ability to repeat all that is the stamina we require for Gaelic games.
"At the end of the day, you have to be able to catch and kick, retreat, tackle, hit a fellow, get up off the ground and be able to do all of that for the duration of 70 minutes. That's the fitness you want!"
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