Bulldog4life
12-12-2012, 01:30 AM
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/bulldogs-living-high-life-staying-at-home-20121211-2b7th.html
MITCH Wallis has spent the past 2½ weeks going to bed in Colorado, working in Footscray, and popping back to Essendon for a home-cooked meal in between. Jet lag hasn't been a problem - travel time is only a few minutes, and he's become so used to the dizzy ''heights'' he sleeps through most of his time at altitude.
This is the Western Bulldogs' spin on the pre-season's modern fad of training camps in faraway places, where the air is thin enough to boost a footballer's red blood-cell count and leave him able to go faster, further, for longer. St Kilda has been to the real Colorado, Collingwood to Arizona and North Melbourne Utah; the Dogs have stayed home and climbed mountains in their sleep.
''This gives us an opportunity to work on the principal of living high and training low,'' the Bulldogs' new fitness guru Graham Lowe says of Victoria University's ''Altitude Hotel'', where Wallis and 15 of his mostly first-and-second-year teammates are spending five nights a week for a pre-Christmas month. To dismiss it as a poor-man's pre-season is to ignore the march of science; by tweaking the altitude training model, the Dogs hope they will get a jump on their well-travelled competitors.
''The thinking has been 'live high, train high','' says Victoria University professor Michael McKenna. ''But if you're exercising at altitude, because of the thinner oxygen you can't work as hard, so athletes can actually lose fitness.''
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Under this home-not-far-away-from-home model, Lowe says, players can maintain the intensity of their training during the day, then multiply their red blood cells at night while climbing no higher than the top of a bunk. ''With the younger players it gives us a chance to generate load … it's a way of progressing the group, getting some extra work into them without it being total time on their legs.''
The partnership between VU and its local AFL club has deepened since the 2010 opening of Iseal (the Institute of Sport, Exercise Science and Active Living), a flash, $68-million building that trains a mighty microscope on athletes and the games they play. The two parties are emboldened by what both are drawing from their union.
''We bring sports science expertise, they bring their elite athletes, and we get the mutual benefits,'' McKenna says, pointing to VU's Dr Rob Aughey and the Ph.D students who are monitoring the Altitude Hotel's temporary guests to gauge the program's effects.
Wallis is convinced it's doing him good, even if the routine has taken some adjusting to.
''It definitely took a week - [initially] you feel sluggish in the morning, you haven't had a great night's sleep because you're up a lot needing to go to the toilet, your body certainly takes a while to acclimatise,'' the 20-year-old says. ''But over the last three or four training sessions, when our running has entailed longer distances, I can definitely feel it towards the end of the sessions. You just don't blow up as much or as quickly.''
Staying at the Altitude Hotel isn't as disturbing as the Hotel California, but there must be times between the daily 7pm check-in and 8am departure that the young Dogs have felt like they can never leave. They share a common area (dubbed ''Base Camp''), where they can cook, eat and watch TV, before retiring to one of the four bedrooms - ''Arizona'', ''Nepal'', ''Colorado'' and ''Bolivia'' - each equipped with two bunks.
The entire facility is low-oxygen - 15 per cent instead of the usual 21 - and conditioned to assimilate altitude of 2500-3000 metres. The initial adjustment can leave guests feeling dry and breathless; hydration is important, and Wallis says the increased metabolic rate of inhabitants ups the appetite, too. ''I'm having a big meal at home and bringing a snack in here to eat at about nine o'clock.''
He is sharing with Tom Liberatore, Clay Smith and Koby Stevens, but an image of big kids on camp mucking up after dark is as distant as the Himalayas. ''We're all behaving - it's a pretty civilised environment in here, and we're that knackered from training there's no energy to do anything anyway.''
This has proved doubly problematic on Friday and Saturday nights, when they ''escape'' to their own beds. Wallis calls the weekend sleep-in their reward, but admits his girlfriend is yet to warm to life at altitude. ''She wants all my attention, which is a bit tough because you're so tired.''
Lowe, a New Zealander who recently joined the club after years spent with the All Blacks and Scottish rugby teams and a stint training America's Cup sailors, has been impressed with the work ethic of the Bulldogs. He concedes the cosy environs of the Altitude Hotel have presented some ''logistical realities'', but has already identified the Dogs as a group ''who want to spend time together''.
Each bed has its own TV and DVD player, and stepping around discarded Mr Perfect boxer shorts and smelly socks is yet to kill the house mood. ''We're still finding out who everyone is, so it's a really good thing for bonding, which is another positive,'' Wallis says.
Lowe says there is enough ''solid history'' now to support assimilated altitude's gains; he concedes it doesn't work for everyone, but sees it as the ''icing on the cake'' of the primary work of a footballer's pre-season. ''In the end they've still got to run, they've got to get to where they need to get.''
MITCH Wallis has spent the past 2½ weeks going to bed in Colorado, working in Footscray, and popping back to Essendon for a home-cooked meal in between. Jet lag hasn't been a problem - travel time is only a few minutes, and he's become so used to the dizzy ''heights'' he sleeps through most of his time at altitude.
This is the Western Bulldogs' spin on the pre-season's modern fad of training camps in faraway places, where the air is thin enough to boost a footballer's red blood-cell count and leave him able to go faster, further, for longer. St Kilda has been to the real Colorado, Collingwood to Arizona and North Melbourne Utah; the Dogs have stayed home and climbed mountains in their sleep.
''This gives us an opportunity to work on the principal of living high and training low,'' the Bulldogs' new fitness guru Graham Lowe says of Victoria University's ''Altitude Hotel'', where Wallis and 15 of his mostly first-and-second-year teammates are spending five nights a week for a pre-Christmas month. To dismiss it as a poor-man's pre-season is to ignore the march of science; by tweaking the altitude training model, the Dogs hope they will get a jump on their well-travelled competitors.
''The thinking has been 'live high, train high','' says Victoria University professor Michael McKenna. ''But if you're exercising at altitude, because of the thinner oxygen you can't work as hard, so athletes can actually lose fitness.''
Advertisement
Under this home-not-far-away-from-home model, Lowe says, players can maintain the intensity of their training during the day, then multiply their red blood cells at night while climbing no higher than the top of a bunk. ''With the younger players it gives us a chance to generate load … it's a way of progressing the group, getting some extra work into them without it being total time on their legs.''
The partnership between VU and its local AFL club has deepened since the 2010 opening of Iseal (the Institute of Sport, Exercise Science and Active Living), a flash, $68-million building that trains a mighty microscope on athletes and the games they play. The two parties are emboldened by what both are drawing from their union.
''We bring sports science expertise, they bring their elite athletes, and we get the mutual benefits,'' McKenna says, pointing to VU's Dr Rob Aughey and the Ph.D students who are monitoring the Altitude Hotel's temporary guests to gauge the program's effects.
Wallis is convinced it's doing him good, even if the routine has taken some adjusting to.
''It definitely took a week - [initially] you feel sluggish in the morning, you haven't had a great night's sleep because you're up a lot needing to go to the toilet, your body certainly takes a while to acclimatise,'' the 20-year-old says. ''But over the last three or four training sessions, when our running has entailed longer distances, I can definitely feel it towards the end of the sessions. You just don't blow up as much or as quickly.''
Staying at the Altitude Hotel isn't as disturbing as the Hotel California, but there must be times between the daily 7pm check-in and 8am departure that the young Dogs have felt like they can never leave. They share a common area (dubbed ''Base Camp''), where they can cook, eat and watch TV, before retiring to one of the four bedrooms - ''Arizona'', ''Nepal'', ''Colorado'' and ''Bolivia'' - each equipped with two bunks.
The entire facility is low-oxygen - 15 per cent instead of the usual 21 - and conditioned to assimilate altitude of 2500-3000 metres. The initial adjustment can leave guests feeling dry and breathless; hydration is important, and Wallis says the increased metabolic rate of inhabitants ups the appetite, too. ''I'm having a big meal at home and bringing a snack in here to eat at about nine o'clock.''
He is sharing with Tom Liberatore, Clay Smith and Koby Stevens, but an image of big kids on camp mucking up after dark is as distant as the Himalayas. ''We're all behaving - it's a pretty civilised environment in here, and we're that knackered from training there's no energy to do anything anyway.''
This has proved doubly problematic on Friday and Saturday nights, when they ''escape'' to their own beds. Wallis calls the weekend sleep-in their reward, but admits his girlfriend is yet to warm to life at altitude. ''She wants all my attention, which is a bit tough because you're so tired.''
Lowe, a New Zealander who recently joined the club after years spent with the All Blacks and Scottish rugby teams and a stint training America's Cup sailors, has been impressed with the work ethic of the Bulldogs. He concedes the cosy environs of the Altitude Hotel have presented some ''logistical realities'', but has already identified the Dogs as a group ''who want to spend time together''.
Each bed has its own TV and DVD player, and stepping around discarded Mr Perfect boxer shorts and smelly socks is yet to kill the house mood. ''We're still finding out who everyone is, so it's a really good thing for bonding, which is another positive,'' Wallis says.
Lowe says there is enough ''solid history'' now to support assimilated altitude's gains; he concedes it doesn't work for everyone, but sees it as the ''icing on the cake'' of the primary work of a footballer's pre-season. ''In the end they've still got to run, they've got to get to where they need to get.''