Episode 61: David Grey

What is the crack? Even welcome back to the episode of the podcast. I have a very, very good guest on today. David Gray rehab. David is a rehab and biomechanics specialist. And if you've gone to your physio, there's a high chance the rehab plan you've been got on. Has had something, David has had some input into that because a lot of physios use his stuff. I've used lots of his stuff myself. So I'm really, really delighted to have you on there. Thanks so much for coming on. Hello Gary, thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to the chat and it looks like you're doing some great work. So I appreciate you having me on. And let's get into it. And hopefully we can give a little bit of value to the people listening. Thanks so much again. I appreciate the nice words. And as before, we'll get into it. I'd always like asking coaches or physiotherapists and nutritionists coming on. What are your own personal goals at the moment? Do you have anything you're working towards fitness, personal or business wise? Good question. I suppose the start, it's a new year, isn't it? So we're all thinking like kind of gold-wise. For me, I'm not-- I'm trying to be not too goal-oriented this year. I'm trying to just kind of take-- I'm trying to do things that I enjoy. And I'm trying to, for example, I'm trying to just do the right things at the right times of the day. And I know that will take me towards my goals. So like for example, there I have a calendar on my wall, just with January on it. And I know for me, I do a lot of online work. And online-- and whether people like it or not, social media is a big part of my job. And I try and make sure I do a post every single day. So I just have a calendar on my wall. And instead of saying like, OK, I want to have 200 tails and followers on something like Instagram, I think like, OK, I just want to do a post every day. That's my goal. And I know that will take me to wherever I need to be then. So I just take off. I just have a calendar. And I just take off the day every single day. So that's kind of my business type of social media goal. Obviously, we have revenue goals and different things for the year. But I prefer to just think about it, break it down into little chunks and take it day by day. Then personally, my own body, I got out of shape over COVID. And I wasn't really enjoying training so much. And I got a little bit just too heavy into work for a while and just lost my way a little bit. Which was fine. We did well on the work side things, but I lost my way personally, which I think happens to a lot of coaches. And now I'm just really enjoying getting back and being active again, doing a little bit of jujitsu, I'm doing a little bit of running. I think I'm going to start playing a little bit of tennis actually because I hope by the beach that I go to, there's a really nice tennis court there. And it just looks like a nice way to start your day. So just enjoying my body and enjoying moving again and not making it into a chore is really important for me, especially when I'm working with people all day long with their own bodies. I need to make sure I'm trying to have fun with things. And then the other one is just work wise. I suppose we're doing a little bit of traveling and teaching this year. So we're going to Australia in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to that. So that's kind of my main things at the moment, guys. That's brilliant. Great to see your traveling and, again, teaching as many people as possible. And it's really important when you're sitting there about the training that you need to be enjoying the training that you're doing because if it comes to chore, you're less likely to stick to a plan long term. And kind of just to jump back to the first thing you said, but having the calendar on the wall, do you find that having that visualization or jujitsu? Is that a new thing you've put in or would you've always kind of had, I know people love their whiteboards and have notes on their room instead of, is that a new thing you put in or have you always had something like that, you're like, right, this is my goal for this month or this year and you kind of see it every day or have a note on your phone or anything. A bit of both. So I've always leaned in that direction, even back in the day when I was training very, very hard and saying, OK, I need to get to the gym, X amount of times, and get to training and stuff like that. Now that wasn't particularly hard for me because I would train twice a day every day at the time if I could. So I didn't need to, but I still like to be able to look at my calendar and like cross it off every day but I always keep it diary and stuff like that. But then, but then there's definitely times when I don't have that. But when I came up with that kind of goal at the start of January, just to make sure, OK, in 31 days of January, I'm going to do a post every single day. And I know that like some days would be, it would be a good post. Some days would be not so good post, but I know I just have to sit down and do it. And like before, so when I made that goal, before I did the first post and the first of January, I drove down to the shop and bought the calendar and just hung it up. So then I did the post and I crossed off the first day. So that was just that little visualization is helpful for me and what you'll see with that, with the mindset of people. And I get people sometimes to do that with the rehab and stuff like that as well. And they're training not to be like, not as the end of the world if you miss a day, far from it. But you kind of start to go on these little streaks where you don't really want to miss a day. You know, if you're doing your nutrition, like you might do my fitness pad or something like that where I'm going to fill in my calories or my macros or whatever it is every day for the month. And when you've done seven days in a row, you kind of don't want to miss the eighth day. You don't want to reset it. So and certainly I like to say to people, if you miss a day, like make sure you don't miss two days in a row, there shouldn't be two days that you have missed if obviously the goal is to do every day. Yeah, that's really good. Like when you get into that habit, like if not the feel guilty and go off and press this fact important and go off actually, I'll get like to go back onto tomorrow. And it's really just great to see your post put up and I think it's a common to see more on TikTok when people post videos like, they wake up David Gray is after posting today. So I've been looking forward to the post and you see him every day because everything, or I find it very informative and the information you're putting up there is fantastic. And I suppose it kind of get into the, if anyone isn't following David, like for G.A. players, it's unbelievable stuff. Because again, we're getting the newest information that's out there and again, that world is constantly evolving and science is constantly changing. We want to be as up to date as possible. Which G.A. athletes in particular, I know you work with a lot of the intercounty players and I know a lot of club players as well. But it's probably again, that's a very broad question. And I know it's either way of this. What are the kind of the most common mistakes you're seeing with training or what, that's leading to injuries? A very, very good question. I think as someone who was injured a lot, all of my career and like it was a massive frustration for me and it drove me to get into this world in the first place. I think a lot of people want to pin injuries down to one thing and it's easy to do that and just hang your hat on that. And I try to avoid that if I can. And I think injuries can be, injuries and not just injuries, there's a whole bracket of athletes, which I fell into for a lot of my career, which is like this kind of injured, but not really kind of person kind of athlete, where you, you're, it's not that like anyone will ever be playing really if you're training at a high level. It's not that you'll ever be 100% pain free, 100% perfect if you're pushing your body. And that goes across the board. I've been looking off the work with like top level professional elite level athletes and impuens from around the world in a lot of sports. And that opened my eyes to actually like no one feels amazing all the time, far from it. Like very, very far from it. Everyone is trying to patch themselves up in some way, but there is kind of, there is levels to that. And you don't want to be the person who is always feeling like you're always fighting against your body. And that a lot of that can come from, I suppose the volume of the training you're doing. And in terms of, but, but even when you say volume and you say intensity and things like this, like if you look at your team, they beside you like, why are they fine? And I'm not even doing what Dolor doing the same amount of training. So I think a big part of the comms back to and people don't like to hear this, but it is like years and years of preparation and good preparation over maybe your whole childhood. Did you play a lot of different sports? Did you develop your tendons, strengthen up your muscles, your joints, your coordination, your plyometric ability, all of these things. Is your recovery good? Is your nutrition good? Is your, a little bit of strength training good? Are you overdoing the strength training? Are you, it could even be something, like like visual stuff. You know, someone's, someone's ability to actually perceive the opponent and front of them are perceived the ball and put their body in the right position at the right time versus someone else who's like, maybe always has a slightly delayed reaction and it tends to be reaching and maybe their body position isn't quite as good. So I think injuries are very, very individual, but those are some of the things that will come to my mind when I start to think about that. And I really do think it takes, it takes a long, not a long time, like people can get there quickly in off-bottles. A full career of athletic development is important, you know? All true, you're youth, all the way up. And I think the best athletes you see, if you usually talk to them, like they will have done a lot of different things over the years and they'll be competent. They could pick up a golf club, they'll be really good, basketball, they'll be really good, they will learn these things quickly. And I think that's a massively underrated skill. Yeah, that's so interesting as well, especially if you're saying, but the stuff you do as a child and pain as many sports as possible. And I just, obviously, I'm thinking myself, what I do as a child and I'm a short-hair, so I'm only five or eight, but I would have a decent enough jump, probably jump and vertically jump. And I was, I was non-stop on my trampoline now as younger. I used to have a waterproof gear in the beginning of non-stop. And I think I was just, I wonder how did that happen in the long term, that can't stay jump and that would be the second nature to make as I'm constantly in the trampoline every day, that when it comes to playing GAA, the jump was probably, you know, it was OK for a young lad. It's really interesting that you're looking at, it's not just knowing you start playing at 18, you're watching it with a child, how many sports you're playing. And I suppose people probably only look at the last, what do we say, got injured yesterday? So what did I do last week that led to this as opposed to how many years before that? It's funny as well when you're mentioned, like I'm doing the same volume of training as my team is, is the intensity that you're training at as well? Would that have a massive impact if a lad is kind of, you know, always a six out of 10, he never gets injured. And someone who's pushing themselves, the more susceptible he could give or take. Yeah, 100%. And the easiest way to look at that is you very, rarely see a very slow person pulling a hamstring. Do you? So, and this is why we do need to be careful sometimes with, with certain strength and conditioning coaches who will always think that the answer is just more strength, like getting the gym and just get stronger and don't get me wrong. That's really, really, really important. But like you will also see sometimes strength and conditioning coaches talking about like, okay, look how high, look how much I can back squat, look how high I can jump in a big counter movement jump. Wouldn't you love to be able to do those things like me? That would make you so much of a better athlete, but maybe the way they are training is allowing them to do some of those things. But if you ask them to show me like, how do you change direction? How do you sprint? How do you, how do you pivot? How do you shuffle all of those things? They might really struggle with that. So we have to understand that like we can, we can develop things in the weight room in the gym, but everything, there is certain transfer to the game. And then there is a possibility of a negative transfer if our training isn't as good. And ultimately like if we are never pushing ourselves, then we're probably never going to get injured. But also we're probably going to be the person that's on the bench a lot of the time as well. That's an unfortunate, that is the case. And you hear that a lot. I was like, oh, I'm training every week. I'm training as much as Mick is training, but I'm not getting the games. I was like, well, look at the quality of your training. You're a really good post up there during the week. It was about, you know, been on the pitch before you come back to training. Don't just elaborate on that, but like you're saying that it's a change of direction. And obviously you can't practice change directions by doing a back squat. Like that you have to mimic what happens during the game. I think it's a really interesting post. And I'm always having none of us. So if you're good to hear from someone more qualified than me, it has the importance of getting on the pitch. So that was just a couple of videos from an ACL client that I had a Harlar from Kikeni. And it's just we're doing a pitch session and we happen to get some videos of some of the work that we were doing. And usually I think a lot, a lot of people's, if you just want to think about it as rehab, but like rehab and training to me look very, very similar. Right? You just meet someone who they are trying to try to nudge them forward. You could also think about it as like, okay, this is a person who's just getting back onto the pitch after taking the last couple of months off. So after their off season. So they're thinking about getting back on the pitch again. And usually if I'll just take it from kind of the rehab aspect, but people can think about it that way. Like let's say you have an ankle injury or hamstring injury. You do some work in the gym. And you just go back on the pitch. And traditionally we would have just kind of said, okay, off you go do a few laps there on your own. Which might be fine. But like in the gym, if you're doing good gym work, you're maybe doing some strength work. You're doing some plyometric work. You're talking about being nice and reactive. So you're talking about being bouncy off the floor. You're talking about not just necessarily like box jumps, but like hops and bounds and things all in different directions. So we're developing these qualities and learning to be really, really springy, which I think those two things far. So I think it helps our performance obviously because we all know, we all see an athlete who is really springy and we can see that. But it also I think helps us to maybe be more prepared and prevent some injuries because the springy athletes have actually, it is a skill. There is some physical qualities associated, but it's also a skill in terms of like how well they actually activate their muscles before their footage to floor so that they're not like really slow when their footage to floor because that would be too late. So they have a lot of, they have high levels of activation in their muscles. And that's not a conscious thing. It's not like squeezing your muscle. It kind of just, they kind of just do that. They're, it's a reflexive thing. So we do this work in the gym. Hopefully we do. Most people skip that to be honest, right? So, but hopefully we do that work in the gym. And then we get back onto the pitch and we just completely negate all that. I just forget about that work thinking about being springy and we just do plotting laps, plotting conditioning work. And I know there is a time and place certainly like in in in gale football and hurling like there is there is a need for slower longer running. There is times in games where you will you will just need to like keep on the move. You're not going at all your intensity or anything like that. But I would argue that that isn't actually that hard to develop. So I think it's really important to think about a few skills that are are needed for your training and your games actual skills. Things that you couldn't just say to your to your 10 year old sister or your eight year old sister like, okay, let's go like we can both do laps together. It's just that I can do more laps than you. But where the separation can be is, okay, let's think about an acceleration. And that can be from all different types of positions. Soydon, on the floor, standing blah blah blah, half kneeling all these positions. So an acceleration. How do I get out of the blocks for them first? Kind of three to five steps, let's say my body position. How I push, how I um how my foot actually comes back towards the floor, all of these things. So that's one really important thing. I think top end speed is really important. Even if you're not hitting that all of the time, I think it's really really important. To train your your top ends your top end speed, particularly like coming back from rehab. But so like how many how many injured athletes do we know that come back from a hamstring injury. And you watch them doing their work before they're able to join back in with the team. You watch them doing their rehab. Like none of it is ever sprinting. And then they get back in. They say, yeah, well, I'll play in that training game and they go and sprint. And that's the first time they've done it. So acceleration your top end sprinting. Carved running I think is a really important one. So if you take like the D for example on the pitch, you start on the you start at one corner. The D you run the D you're running in that curve and you finish at the other side. You could do all different types of curves, sharper curves, longer curves, curves where there's like two curves, different things like that. And a huge part of air sports are are um a curved running. I think about like I think about like Shane Wilde, sure someone like that was coming down along the wing and he's running on the curve. He's kind of leaning into his player and he's going to like hit the brakes very quickly. I think about like maybe from the water point of view, you see some of Austin Gleason's goals and points that he scores where he's like, he's kind of going across the pitch and he starts to run in a curve and takes his man on like the Hurley and the ball is like really far away from the from the players. So we see loads of that in our sport, but we don't tend to train it that much. And then the other one obviously will be will be changing direction and a lot of our changing directions drills, particularly like I think about some of my training in years gone by will be like, okay, run out to the cone, kind of soft, shuffle sideways, shuffle back. And again, like my two-year-old nephew can kind of do that. It looks quite similar to how I do it. But where you really separate like and you should be able to do that. You should be able to shuffle, but like where you really separate the best athletes from average athletes is you go out to the cone, you need to plan your foot and you need to accelerate in another direction. Like that is a big, big difference. So the change in direction, we actually have to learn to plant and pivot and get the right angles, the curve running, the sprinting and then the acceleration. Those are for really, really important things. I think that regardless of if it's rehab or if you're back into or if you're just trying to be a better athlete, those are things that I think should be trained with intention and not just presume that my training or like me just training with the lads will improve this for me. It does, it does. But then you do see that like the guy who is always crap at that drill, always stays crap at that drill. Because I think you need to put the ball down for a little while and spend some time intentionally learning the skill of changing direction in that way. And then I think obviously the ball needs to be involved again, but at some stage, but you actually need to break it down and spend some time learning that skill and not presuming that just training, your regular training will always improve these qualities. That does so much good information on that as well. And like that, especially with club training, like it's, it's about one size that's all and like if you're not good at something, like that you're saying that you're not going to get better and there's nothing you can do in the gym that's going to mimic doing curve runs, doing accelerations, like just because you're doing plyometrics that involves sprint mechanics, that's not going to help your your speed on the patient. I think that's it's just any take away. The best thing to take away from that is you need to get out onto the patient and do this with it with intent as well. It's not like I'll do two runs in the D and then I'm going to get my football and I'm going to lorry that against the net for the next half an hour and take free kicks and penalties and then go home and say after my speed session, it's massively important to what you're saying there. And again, someone who is more qualified and knows more, a lot more than me is saying this against and this is someone who's worked in County Atty said this is something that we all kind of need to do and needs to do more of it myself. And just in terms of that, I know that there are a lot of strangeness and coaches have kind of strength numbers that you know, targets to aim for. Would you have any kind of targets that you'd recommend for players, not but not like their bench squad deadlift, but like need to be able to maybe cover a certain distance in a broad jump or a single leg high jump, depends on kind of like that or reactive time from a death jump is there anything that you'd kind of aim towards? Good question. I don't I don't I like to a lot of the athletes that I work with have some of their scores already. So let's say they're injured now, but they have their top speed that they covered in a game the previous year and they have some of the different scores there are. So I hear different things like that. So that's great because they can go and kind of measure that as we go along and we know like, okay, you still have an hit your top speed from last year or know you have and you're still like not even at the end of the rehab process. So that's a good sign. So I think it's very individual, Gary, to be honest, and I think it's I think I really, really do think it's very individual. And I think like, for example, like some people in their in their drop jumps, like I coach things a little bit differently. I might want someone to land slightly differently on a different path to their foot. I might I might sacrifice contact times for someone and make it into more of a death jump. I might get them to use their arms. I might get them to not use their arms depending on on like just what I think they they need in their body. So and also I think if there's enough people talking about numbers out there, not that they're not that they're bad by any means like I think it is really important, but I do think it is very individual. But I really I really look at I really like looking at like rhythm and coordination and kind of I know that's hard to define because like it's hard to define like if you ask someone like what is coordination? I don't know it's hard for me to put it into words, but I know what when I see it and we all know it when we see it your your your granny can look at a sport like they never play you never they never saw tennis match before but they can look at a world-class tennis player and say like oh look how like grace for that person looks it looks you know so that's that's how I look at it. I really like to see like how someone manages these collisions with the ground how they organize their body in these movements and I think that is not not more important. I think it probably is more important than it definitely is more important than the numbers, but I think I go down that direction and then if people have their own numbers or if I need to send them up to Sanctuary for some testing or something like that I will definitely yield at I think that's important, but trying to change the conversation a little bit more towards let's look at what's happening rather than looking at the sheet after the fact. Yeah 100% and I had kind of fallen into that trap of need to be this and bench need to be this and dead lift need to be this and squat and you know maybe the power element I'm a chain had you know gone back a little bit because I focus so much on strength work and maybe the speed is falling slightly off and I'm like right okay what's more important here it hit an x number on a squat or you know getting faster by you know a couple of microseconds I'm a sprint and I think I fall into trap years ago that wanted to be a bodybuilder that I wanted to be a power lifter I was like right no you need to do whatever that all means like a guy pointing in the mirror and he's telling him to have something that's like you're a G.A. pair you need to that you're not a bodybuilder you're not a power lifter main goal from his health is G.A. performance and sometimes I fall away from that in the offseason and okay especially young lad with the mountain countenets out there that you know there's so many especially nowadays with the people that are blown up on TikTok and Instagram and they're all given different information which is fantastic but they all have different goals like it's a Zika athlete a bodybuilder crossfit and like if you're 14 15 16 you're like I want to pay G.A. but I also want to do this and I want to do that it can be very confusing for them what they want to do and chop and change and stuff so again it's just kind of and there's massively there's massively different body types as well hugely different body types and I think like traditionally not just in the G.A. in SNC all across the world and all sports it pretty much came from a powerlifting scene to be honest and everyone was treated the same and now we look at now we understand things a little bit better if you just even look at like the shape of someone's rib cage or the shape of like one fella has like a dischef that's up and pushed out and they're like they're like a bull like they can probably lift weights like a pair of lifter all day every day and their body will respond pretty well to it the other guy is like long and lean they look more like a high jumper they have these long tendons they look we're not necessarily long tendons I won't even say that but like they just look like a completely different athletes we can't we just can't presume that like if they were in another country they would not be doing the same sport they would have been exposed to all different sports probably and like one would be playing football and one would be playing basketball you know our American football won't be playing basketball like so we we're it's great in the G.A. that we have all these different positions that require so much difference from from the athletes now it's going more in the direction of kind of everyone needs to be able to do a bit of everything like if you look at that Tyrone team for example that won the all our last year our two years ago now like they if you looked at the way they played you they so many of the players look very very similar they could all almost play like cornerback corner forward midfield they didn't necessarily have a six foot six midfield or they had maybe the only really one that stood out to me was like Darren McCurry who looked he looked like a pure corner forward because like paracampsia could have been playing full forward center forward anywhere and even the goalkeeper so like I'm starting to look more similar but there's massively different body types and I can assure you I've walked with a good few athletes not just in G.A. but like in different sports over the years our over the last couple years who have who have been like categorically said to me that they 100% believed that the way they've done their SNC over the last oil has had a had negative impact under under sport and like not to say it always did and not to say that it wasn't helpful but it got to the point where they were just pushing too much in one direction and maybe they put on too much muscle or whatever it was they just they just responded in a way and you only really kind you only really know that when you know what let's say where you just actually look back and you're like I'm moving completely differently than I was two years ago for a lot of people they move a lot better but some people do do move a lot worse when they go heavily into the especially into the parallel thing side of things so I don't think if there's a good or bad they just think people should understand that everyone is different yeah 100% and like that you're saying with the lean like the way the G.A. players are quite similar to all these lean machines are they're strong they're big they're fast and I don't think there's many players that are below minimum five ten it's just the way they gave them like the day of the small little nippy corner four corner back unless I'm not sure what their feet in these young lads nowadays you don't see any sure young lads about the base you wouldn't town around like that they're all six well unless I'm just exceptionally sure and everyone's told the me but but like that I think there's a kind of a broader approach to the S&C that you could end up paying anywhere and like that especially with club level as well like if you're full back it gets injured the first round of championship you know you might have to go there or the opposite you might have got to center back if you never paid there before and it's very best to have an approach that you could go into any any position and just on the different body types I have more I have a certain body type more susceptible to a certain injury or is that kind of a misconception at all just because Johnny is six foot six he's going to have bad knees and ankles or is there some truth behind you people thinking that? I don't know I don't I don't know if there's any any research behind it necessarily so I'll be hesitant to to comment on that because it might lead people to think like you know like I'm six foot six and I keep getting ankle injuries but like there's another guy on that team that has six foot six and isn't getting ankle injuries so no I think again it comes back to individuals and sometimes you can just be on lucky things could something can just happen and the biggest predictor for injuries previous injuries so like if you hurt your ankle before you're more likely to hurt it again it doesn't mean you will but like you know that that area it has been injury leaves a legacy on a body part and it is maybe more susceptible to injuries so that's why it's even more important to be aware of that not to be afraid of it but to be aware of it and make sure you're taking steps to look after that area even even more than maybe you do for other areas. 100% I suppose to kind of slightly come away from the injuries I have things and talk about maybe a little bit of pre-hab before games and I had a great post I think it was during the summer about many bands and I've used and stolen and I know no shame and say I'm stolen your spit stance hip-hinge to include my warm-ups and I do the warm-ups around club and when you hear everyone going oh Jesus oh you know something is working well is the day is it the mini bands you think they had they had their purpose or where they always kind of I wouldn't say gimmick because they do obviously have a purpose but is there better things that you could be focusing on for a warm-up now we know more now that Dr. Dune's side truffles of the mini-man isn't probably going to be the best thing to do. I'll try to be diplomatic with this because everything everything has its place right I think like I trash on mini bands a little bit the odd time not as much as I could or should maybe but like so where did they have their place right so let's say you're coming out of an operation okay you have your ACL done or whatever it doesn't matter it doesn't matter and you can't really wait there okay so you can't you can't load that leg like am I going to get you to try and get some muscular contractions yes absolutely so I'll probably get you lying on your side and doing some mini-band stuff and just loading or just getting some muscles to contract and relax wherever I can even like you could just lie on your back and squeeze your quad and then let it go like so there's some kind of contraction there but like after that I just I just don't see the purpose in it it just really doesn't teach you anything people associate the burn of the muscle which something good but it's it's it's not it's really not like that hard to get a muscle to burn it's it doesn't mean anything it really doesn't mean anything when you just get a muscle to burn like that so all the mini band is teaching someone to do is take a muscle from kind of a mid-range into a very short range and what people need to really be able to do is be able to go from a long range to a short range or to keep their muscle in a mid-range like an asymmetric contraction something like when you're focusing the floor you want your quads and hamstrings to be able to asymmetric you can track and coordinate together personally I just I just think the mini bands it's not that they're bad in in in a warm-up I just think that they're a waste of time there's so much more that we can be doing and I I just think that about most warm-ups in general where like I just think they're often too long there's lots of unnecessary kind of rolling around on the floor and stuff like that and sometimes you'd be better off just getting just getting moving having a dynamic and it's getting better it certainly is getting better just dynamic movement give people a minute or so to if they have one specific thing they want to work on for themselves but to be honest they should probably be there a few minutes early doing that themselves and I would just get get people into our sessions like if we are if we as GA player club players have two we might only have two training sessions in a week you might have to choose they're in a Friday let's say and then you might have a game on a Sunday it's a very limited time to actually make improvements on the pitch with your team very like incredibly limited this is why this is why you see people like you see the guy who like solos really poorly continuing to solo in that way for years and it should be such a basic skill but never seems to improve it and it's because he hasn't taken the time to go on his own and improve it and also and the same with shooting and same with all these things catching hand passing like the many people that can't hand pass well on their weekend or something like that like these are these should be really basic skills and like I only look back now at myself as a player and I think about like how many of these weaknesses I actually had in my game that really if I actually just wrote down 20 skills and really like looked at it really wouldn't take much time to improve but you don't get that much time with the team and then you just think about like on the field and then you think about like how many times okay how many times does that person who is weak at that skill actually get the chance to do that skill in their training session very few like very very few so that's why free takers like they have to or anyone who wants to be good at shooting like you have to be going to your shooting practice so I think we need to maximize our time with our team on the pitch doing things that are going to help us win a game and like mini band stuff is just not preparing us for our training session and also not not it's also robbing us from the from the time that we have so I think it's it's poor it's a poor option and then if I think about pre-hab like people doing mobility sessions during the week or trying to get their glutes activated if anything with GA players I see that like there's a lot a lot of us have poor hip movement and often very limited internal rotation our hips very very tight and actually the more like shortening of the glutes you're trying to squeeze your glutes all the time that's robbing people up their movement it's closing off the back of the hip it's keeping the glute max short all of the time it's stopping the pelvis from rotating and shifting laterally so I would be quite strongly against that work and I think there's a lot of other better things that we could be doing 100% and just say for warmups now what kind of max time would you put on? I know I know everyone's going to be different but what kind of is it anything specifically you say like you need to include this like some form of plyometrics or sippages or is there a couple of movements you'd say it's very beneficial to have them in and what kind of timeframe would you look at for that you could get a fantastic warm up in it doesn't have to be you know 15 20 minutes and like that that's a I'm tired of the session is gone and when I even get pushed up all yet I think look I think probably max 10 minutes you know it could be I really don't think like it could be shorter but I think it definitely should be probably not definitely but I think probably max 10 minutes is is loads it really is so what definite what what what could be in it honestly like you could honestly not do not do any of this stuff I genuinely I genuinely believe that you could honestly not do any of it like I think back to a couple of warmups that we had remember we had a new management team come in and we had the same like kind of boring warm up for years and it went on and actually each kind of year it tended to get a bit longer because people are trying to add in more things on not you know on top I remember one day we just went out and it was yeah one of the lads he just he just true he just true in like five balls and he had a he had a he had a small relatively small square and he was just like okay off you go hand passing around a little bit of tackling just kind of 50% just off you go and it was a small square like so no one was going fast he just took those cones away it was a bigger square and then it was a bigger square and then it was a bigger square and like within within five minutes everyone had been on the move constantly for five minutes every every 30 seconds or so he just say okay like okay do a little five meter sprint in that direction or a shuffle or whatever and like I think back and like that's a warm up the sand down in my mind which was I actually really enjoyed it and suddenly we were blowing hard and like we were actually ready to go far the first trail of the training session then let's say so like that's really good no so I would I would try and mix it up I would try and like nah and I'm guilty of this I've done I've done I've worked with a team in the past and I probably was under confident and I had a I had a warm up and I just went to the same one all every time and it was like day but the end of the year like the lads almost knew like okay the next movement is going to be this the next movement is going to be this and I think that's not good either so I'm trying very it as much as I can but I think especially if lads aren't necessarily getting into the gym and doing their ployles during the week which a lot of people either can't because like they won't they won't do the one at the time are are else their body can handle a nod or impact session the day after a training session then I think like a variety of hops, skips, bounds, sprints 180 turns I did a I did a podcast with my podcast with Leetath to his a big kind of basketball tennis speed and agility coach in America one of the one of the goats I would say and like he he had he talked about his 180 series like where okay I I'm running out I do a 180 turn and then I keep running forward again I'm running out I'm running backwards I do 180 turn and I keep going backwards I'm running out I do a 180 turn but I try and like find a target I try and find get my eyes to the goalposts as quick as I can like low there was like 50 different variations and with varying levels of perception involved with body movement and stuff like that so skips hops, bounds, sprints a little bit of contact and then some movement challenges like that and then like one minute far in between for someone to do okay if you have like one stretch you need to do nose your chance and then we're straight into the first drill and I think the most important thing is if you were a coach I think the most important thing is to stay to the lads at the start of the year and maybe at the start of every session depending on is like we're doing a warm up in 10 minutes the first drill that we move into after the warm up is no longer a warmup it is we are going we are going for the most intensity possible for the rest of the session after that so like if if you're not ready at the end of this warmup it's your fault yeah okay and I think that's really important that because often you see like there's a warmup then there's a like a slow drill which is an extension of the warmup then there's another one the another one and then maybe for five minutes into it we're ready to ramp it up so in that case why not just take out the warmup and just do the slow drill first then yeah then that's so important as well like that when you do the same warmup every session every for two or three years ago I don't know what's next I'm going to do this and you know 45% and the tankley air club last year air manager is just switch up the warmups a lot which again they kept you on your toes and like because we we join managers of one of them take a one week and next week then it's a different one I like that to one of the circle I find it quite good you have the ball your fist and then your toe and open the air it's on the ground and then then you might drop the ball for a couple of seconds you do a couple of high knees after the cone I'm back and like that you like right I don't really realize after doing a full warmup here because there's a ball involved and like like you're saying are the skills work is that's obviously with the mobility, plyometric strength training everything all the running is to help us with the skills the skills are the main main portion of training and like that if you're as you're saying there your training session is 45 minutes of prep and there's no football involved or hurling involved it's like right but I'm here to play a sport you need to maybe it might maybe coach could listen to what you're saying there and just a quickly with the with the mobility sessions you're saying that the people probably probably don't need to do those if they were doing a 20 minute mobility workout at home would you say could they change that for 20 minutes plyometric session and again it's not going too much impact but would that be more beneficial for couple of hubs and couple of jumps at home as opposed to you know stretching and rolling out their hips and stuff. Look it depends I think the mobility stuff can be very helpful for the right person I just have a different way of looking at it than than I think a lot of people and that doesn't mean I'm right or whatever it's just it's just I have a different lens to look at it with I think a lot of mobility sessions will be about like okay I'm going to try and release a tight muscle and spend and stretch a tight muscle and I look at much more like can I get the bones and joints moving as much as I can and I know that's going to take the muscle through range of motion then it's going to release a lot of tension so I genuinely believe and like I'm a I'm a fairly big mobility guy like I try and I try and promote that to my audience a little bit but are the people that I work with like that a little bit of that is is helpful but I genuinely believe that a lot of people will be better off just going for a long walk than a lot of the mobility type of work that they're doing I really really do so in terms of like instead of getting into like a pigeon stretch and trying to hold that for two minutes and just like holding your breath and feeling disgusting there like I think I think like even just doing some rock and rolls on the ground some kind of like you could just get into different launch positions like think of ten different launch a lateral launch a curtsy launch a forward launch it doesn't have to be a strengthening but I'm just thinking about bringing my joints and my bones and exploring my body into different directions so I think it's so much more beneficial to be honest in terms of the plyometrics if if it was more mobility that you're looking for then I like to use gravity to to help with that and I wouldn't be doing so true a true and I don't want to get complicated but now but a like a true plyometric is being really really bouncy and stiff and quick off the floor and I don't mean don't want to get complicated for you but just for everyone that's that's listening is like so and and then more of a jump or like you think of like a jumping launch or something like that where you're going through deeper ranges it wouldn't be technically be a plyometric but you're still leaving the ground and coming back to the ground that can be really beneficial for a for mobility because you're using your staying super relaxed and you're using you're going through full range of motion but you're using gravity and a little bit of speed involved to kind of stretch your tissues a little bit faster you could get a ball in your hand and you're jumping lunges with a with a switch in the air so it's like right foot forward left foot forward right foot forward left foot forward and each time when you're right foot is forward like you're you're turning the ball over your right hip turn the ball over your left hip as your left hip is coming forward or your left foot is not coming forward like that will stretch out your hips and get your glutes firing a million times more than a mini band to line up the floor are just march and sideways and and you'll also get your ankle mobility your knee mobility your hip mobility you've got your rib cage move and your spine moving just with a movement like that rather than trying to isolate every single part of the body yeah 100% and I used to zoom sessions over over over cover our team and that was one exercise now it was more 10 10 seconds on 20 seconds off but like that that's something that you could include in your warm like instead of a mini band and like that if there's any kind of takeaway from players I know there's a couple of players who love their mini bands and as well as not as you're saying not to bash mini bands if you find that they're working for you and you find that gets you going and it's not taking away from your warm up and you can do it in the dressing room or at home before you go obviously obviously keep it as obviously going to not take away from you but it could be a case and try to see how you react to that and I suppose look at this stage the year majority of teams are are back now back on the pitch and let's have to in preseason offseason sometimes haven't done anything at all what kind of tips would you have now for us with a blanket statement's hired to give it's going to be a case by case base support if there was only one thing you could say to team our players going back now just say they're back now to on Saturday morning out in the picture Sunday morning what kind of things would you kind of advice could you give someone for the start of the year now and what kind of focus on for the upcoming season? Good question if they weren't let's say they weren't going back this week they were going back like in a month's time and they were listening to the podcast today are in two months time like I would say I would have said then to pick five or six plyometric type of movements and do that two or three days a week I think that would be the most like the most important for a GA player to get that in but if you haven't been doing that in your offseason then adding that in while you're back in your preseason at the same time can be very hard on people's bodies it really can so you might have gone from like no running sessions where you just did a little bit of game or maybe you just did nothing either way it's fine and now you're going back into like two sessions a week or three sessions a week and you're going to try and add that in as well on top it's very tough so I would say that if you haven't done in the offseason that might not be an option but even if you had in our two or three weeks before you were starting like getting getting that in will be important I think really really important for your tendons and your joints and your muscles apart from that I just think pace yourself is probably like the Rome Rome wasn't built in a day there was definitely some seasons where I felt like I was flowing in preseason and then you'd see some lads and like some of the some of the older lads maybe are not even older lads but some of the killer lads like they knew how to time their run coming into the season and maybe then I was I was like sore I had niggles and come championship like and they were ready to rock you know and then there was other seasons where it was maybe the opposite where like I wasn't I timed it better and I was making sure I was right for when I needed to be right so the only thing in preseason I would say just work hard obviously but just time or run you can't and you see this in like even in the NFL you'd see like when they go back after the COVID lockdown let's say they went back into their pre-season and there was a lot of Achilles ruptures in that first couple of weeks because lads hadn't been doing anything and they went straight back in and kind of presumed I'm still where I was before so like and that's the that is the coaches fault for the most part and we will have a lot of players around Ireland that are getting injured and stuff and their season could be ruined within with an injury and again it's not to scare someone I don't mean that at all like but you know you just don't want to be picking up on necessary injuries so I would say pace yourself and unfortunately like that a lot of coaches will try and kill their athletes in the first two or three weeks and really like if you if you try and push them that hard in the first three weeks versus ease and off the pedal like a 10 out of 10 versus an 8 out of 10 session at the end of the three weeks you're not going to see much different in the athletes you're really not going to make that much ground in three weeks so like so I would say ease into it and try and try and realize that it's going to be a long long season and there's lots of time to catch up if you feel like you're a little bit behind 100% and like that such an Irish team right before going running the ball excellently on the first week in January and so why aren't you fit for championship why are you tired for how are you tired we run in all week every every week since January obviously it just seems to be a thing but I think coaches are getting better and with the likes of yourself given fantastic information out there you know it really has helped me self as a coach and as a player taking both sides of those things as well like what to I think sometimes the player mind kicks in more so I was like I have to go hired or not go more but like then you know I might think right now actually from a coaching perspective I know that Max never every week isn't going to be ideal and you know there's so many good coachs out there now giving so much good information and again David I really appreciate your time coming on for the chat and really at the hour mark now I've given you the download on the two questions so we've talked all about work and injuries and pre-hab rehab and so much good information in there and put the two questions that I've given you the download already at the first one David what is the funniest thing you've seen or heard during a G game this is what this is one of them questions where like later on today I'll think I'll think I'll think of 50 things the one the one which is necessarily like the one that kind of springs to mind which almost like almost every second day I just kind of gig a last right and it's not even like obviously hilarious or anything like that but I just think of it all of the time which is like our our manager so we had like what for football obviously is struggling right but like even a few years back club football was very very strong and what for at least in the West it accounting there was there was three at least like very good teams we we won a lot of county titles we felt like we could go anywhere in monster or anywhere in Ireland and like they feel like we could beat a lot of the best teams we we we we we we we we struggle in monster sometimes sometimes because we didn't sometimes we didn't get a chance to play in monster which was an issue with the with the county board and and the fixtures but like we we kind of always ended up running to like Nimo Rangers are and you know it was just and sometimes I genuinely felt like we we could have we could have beaten him but like it was a confidence team or something like coming up against the court team or something like that but so we we had a very serious team we were senior football and senior senior hurlin for for most of my 20s I would say and my manager who's unfortunately passed away now boss he's like a hero in the club but I can always remember him like on the sideline and if someone if any if every day it already made a skillful player he and and it's kind of a it's kind of a farmer you could type of village and and if there's ever a skillful player like he would always be like anxious when that person got the ball and he would always show on on his shoe every time and it was kind of like on his shoe on his shoe and I can just every day nearly almost every day I can just almost hear him shouting on his shoe not on his not on his boot or get close right he just on his shoe and I was just he just couldn't like he just got anxious when he gets with the player at the ball so I think for me that's the funniest because it just makes me it makes me remember him in one way I make you go in another way I was yeah okay I could picture that like yeah when there's a good player is coming up and they go fuck fuck fuck fuck yeah I'm gonna show I was going to have a last question now that time thinking this one and it weird turn prevents a G.A. have brought in entrance songs and entrances like school Jack pyro fireworks everything and you have now your leading watered out in the all out and final and a strange turn of events what song are you picking a lead watered out into girl park in all out and final oh fuck I don't know firstly I will be I will be I will be not leading watered out I think we've had I've had some good leaders that we played with Michael the brick is Michael watches from Moe Club and he was a better probably he definitely was a better footballer than Harlar so like he's he's the best leader I've ever played with our trained with our the best player boy fire and if you asked him that question he would say none I know for facts there will be no music we would just get ready and go and that would be it he would need music so I don't know the thing that I probably the best like the most iconic like walkout music would have to be stone cold Steve Austin's I think where they glass shatters you know that one so excellent excellent I think I think that I think that is the only right answer yet absolutely yeah you actually the second person who had said that I did in his guru one and he had added a little bit to it edge know the Chicago bulls entrance the serious song dude dude dude dude dude dude dude dude it's like they had an entrance song before they came out onto the core and he said that and he played that for a minute and then when the crowd are staring to get sick of that that's when the glass shatters then and he comes out then all wearing the best like I'm a rest I'm a rest I'm a old school rest in the fan myself as well so I really appreciate that I toy between stone cold triple H and Chris Jericho brick walls down I think my team I kind of I psyched between those three yeah stone cold is I think you're correct it is the only acceptable and right answer just you know to be a get a match on or something like stone cold is not in the match and then you just hear the glass shatter like and he's coming into interrupted and I was just like you've just get goosebumps watching that every time I was funny we like a couple seasons ago we did others long story short was impealing the game we were supposed to play the team there was an appeal then the other two teams are playing and this is going on for about two weeks but there was a tweet from a journalist and it was priceless it was the other two teams or lying out on the pitch and he put it to the end like what's this what's happening as like invertecams glass shattered stone cold music hits or St. Rowlands are now coming on to the page now it was just kind of it's summed up the whole thing dude thank you so much for coming on if anyone wants to get in touch with yourself you have the upper body basics pan or body basics pan core bit you've so many plans or get in touch with coaching or even just check out your page if loads of information loads of tips on your website where is the best place to find you or get in touch too I think I think a good place to go is just Instagram David Gray rehab g reoy because people can just have a look there and they might like what they see or they might not so it's a good place to better in the website website is always like how do I you know do I look this person or do I not or what's going on so Instagram gives you a bit of a feel for what I do and what I talk about and it will be for some and it won't be for others so I think Instagram is good 100% I'll put that in the show north side as well David thank you so much effort come on and get and give him your time I really appreciate so much good information and that I look the best the best look for the year ahead as well if you're goal set and best look with the talks in Australia and everything and we're looking forward to see what they go for you thank you Gary really appreciate it keep up to go to rock man thank you very much