Strength, Fingal and the F.A.I Cup
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Last week I touched on the subject of strength and conditioning within the League of Ireland. This week I am going to continue that discussion and go into more detail. I am also going to talk about the F.A.I Cup and give my inside perspective on Sporting Fingal’s ambition to retain the F.A.I Cup this season.
When I was 18 years of age, I was a trainee at Leicester City in England. I had been introduced to a weights programme there when I first joined, but it was my 2nd pre-season as a young pro when a huge emphasis was placed on the physical aspect of my football education.
During pre-season, the first team, reserves and young pros trained together so I was on the exact same fitness training regime as the top players there. We were all given nutritional guidelines to follow for pre-season and got our fat percentage tested. At the time, mine was at 7%. I think they wanted to get everyone under 10% with goalkeepers allowed that extra bit of weight as they were required to be under the 12% threshold.
For strength, the physio’s put us all on maximuscle creatine tablets along with a tough weights programme. For the first two weeks, we had to take 25 tablets a day. After that initial two week stage of 25 tablets a day, it was reduced to 5 tablets daily. I found that taking the creatine mixed with a strict weight and physical programme led to a big increase in strength and fitness. I felt fitter and stronger than ever.
As I said last week, at Drogheda United, under Paul Doolin, things were done just as professional as in England. Paul had the importance of physical strength and emphasised and factored into our full-time programme.
At Sporting Fingal, the club are relatively new to full-time football. However, strength, nutrition and conditioning are deemed a vitally important factor, especially with Europe around the corner. Liam has us all on strict diet programmes with regular body fat tests taken. Physical conditioning is factored into our training schedule.
Our physio at Fingal, Shay Caffrey, also has us all on individual weight programmes. We also have access to the newly opened state of the art ISI Training and Physiotherapy Centre were Shay also does his physiotherapy. There is a lot more equipment there for both strength and physio purposes so we use that at times.
Last weekend saw the 3rd round of the F.A.I Cup and the introduction of the Airtricity League of Ireland clubs into this year’s competition. After winning the cup last year, I thought it would be interesting to give you, the reader, a detailed account of our run this year as we aim to defend our trophy we won last year and chase back to back cup victories.
Last Friday night, we played host to Mervue at home in the Morton Stadium. Although Mervue are in the first division and were 16 places behind us going into Friday night’s game if you combine the tables, they really put it up to us last Friday Night.
We started off very well and I was on hand to open the scoring. However, Mervue clawed their way back into the game and drew level mid-way through the first half. Thereafter we had our centre back sent off and played the whole second half with just 10 men. In the end, we held out to a decent Mervue team and we are lucky not to be knocked of the cup already.
To win the cup, you need a bit of luck along the way as we found out last year. Fortunately for us, we got that bit of luck last Friday night and we were still in the 4th round cup draw last Monday Night on MNS. The winners of our 3RD round game against Mervue will face a home draw against Limerick in the next round.
I have to say, we are very pleased that if, and that’s a huge IF, we manage to beat Mervue down in Galway in the replay, a home draw is very pleasing. Limerick are doing quite well in the first division but we are relatively pleased with the 4th round draw, especially with the home effect.
For now, the Airtricity League season takes a mid season break. There is load’s to reflect on so far but the biggest feature of the league this year so far is just how close the race for the title is. Next week I will be giving my thoughts on the season so far, on a club by club basis and also how the league title race is shaping up.
When I was 18 years of age, I was a trainee at Leicester City in England. I had been introduced to a weights programme there when I first joined, but it was my 2nd pre-season as a young pro when a huge emphasis was placed on the physical aspect of my football education.
During pre-season, the first team, reserves and young pros trained together so I was on the exact same fitness training regime as the top players there. We were all given nutritional guidelines to follow for pre-season and got our fat percentage tested. At the time, mine was at 7%. I think they wanted to get everyone under 10% with goalkeepers allowed that extra bit of weight as they were required to be under the 12% threshold.
For strength, the physio’s put us all on maximuscle creatine tablets along with a tough weights programme. For the first two weeks, we had to take 25 tablets a day. After that initial two week stage of 25 tablets a day, it was reduced to 5 tablets daily. I found that taking the creatine mixed with a strict weight and physical programme led to a big increase in strength and fitness. I felt fitter and stronger than ever.
As I said last week, at Drogheda United, under Paul Doolin, things were done just as professional as in England. Paul had the importance of physical strength and emphasised and factored into our full-time programme.
At Sporting Fingal, the club are relatively new to full-time football. However, strength, nutrition and conditioning are deemed a vitally important factor, especially with Europe around the corner. Liam has us all on strict diet programmes with regular body fat tests taken. Physical conditioning is factored into our training schedule.
Our physio at Fingal, Shay Caffrey, also has us all on individual weight programmes. We also have access to the newly opened state of the art ISI Training and Physiotherapy Centre were Shay also does his physiotherapy. There is a lot more equipment there for both strength and physio purposes so we use that at times.
Last weekend saw the 3rd round of the F.A.I Cup and the introduction of the Airtricity League of Ireland clubs into this year’s competition. After winning the cup last year, I thought it would be interesting to give you, the reader, a detailed account of our run this year as we aim to defend our trophy we won last year and chase back to back cup victories.
Last Friday night, we played host to Mervue at home in the Morton Stadium. Although Mervue are in the first division and were 16 places behind us going into Friday night’s game if you combine the tables, they really put it up to us last Friday Night.
We started off very well and I was on hand to open the scoring. However, Mervue clawed their way back into the game and drew level mid-way through the first half. Thereafter we had our centre back sent off and played the whole second half with just 10 men. In the end, we held out to a decent Mervue team and we are lucky not to be knocked of the cup already.
To win the cup, you need a bit of luck along the way as we found out last year. Fortunately for us, we got that bit of luck last Friday night and we were still in the 4th round cup draw last Monday Night on MNS. The winners of our 3RD round game against Mervue will face a home draw against Limerick in the next round.
I have to say, we are very pleased that if, and that’s a huge IF, we manage to beat Mervue down in Galway in the replay, a home draw is very pleasing. Limerick are doing quite well in the first division but we are relatively pleased with the 4th round draw, especially with the home effect.
For now, the Airtricity League season takes a mid season break. There is load’s to reflect on so far but the biggest feature of the league this year so far is just how close the race for the title is. Next week I will be giving my thoughts on the season so far, on a club by club basis and also how the league title race is shaping up.
