Training at the Essendon Football Club has ramped up a notch before the end of the year.
After a gruelling week of training, the boys were not treated to a sleep in on Saturday morning.
Instead they were down at the beach for an early morning wrestling session aimed at reintroducing some more physical conditioning into their training routine.
Ranked 12th in the competition for tackles following the 2015 season, the Bombers are looking to ramp up their physicality in games in order to put greater pressure on the opposition throughout the ground.
“The wrestling was a good solid session that we did last Saturday as well,” said midfielder David Zaharakis
“It’s just getting the boys used to the body contact again and just working on our tackling technique.
“Technique is a big part of it. You’ve got some bigger bodies out there but if some smaller guys can get some good technique, and use their core to move some big guys, then we can have some wins.”
Zaharakis has welcomed the change in training techniques brought in by the new look coaching panel, believing that it will leave the entire team in a good position come the start of the 2016 season.
The midfielder has been impressed by positive energy brought to the Club by both John Worsfold and Guy McKenna so far this pre-season.
Both with a wealth of experience, the coaches have gone about implementing their own unique pre-season programs for the players in order to prepare them for the upcoming season.
A larger focus on ‘high intensity’ fitness has been obvious early on this pre-season as the coaches seek to prepare the team as well as they can before the Christmas break.
“Early on there’s certainly been more intensity high contact at training,” said Zaharakis
“We normally do long distance stuff at this time of the year, but just with the group being a little bit older - and having done that long distance stuff over previous years, this year we started with more high intensity stuff early.
“We’ve had real combative sessions which we normally don’t do this early, so it’s been good.”
“It’s the lactic type of training. What most people struggle with early in the year is the lactic/high intensity training.
“The earlier you can do it in pre-season, the better you will become by January and February.”
