Chiefs Share Secrets With Wintec Sports Students
Posted On: Friday, 21 May 2010
The Chiefs' season may be over for 2010 but the squad is still busy gearing up for the ITM Cup provincial competition and potential All Black selection for a number of hopeful players. One of those hopefuls - Chiefs' hooker Aled de Malmanche – and strength and conditioning trainer Phil Healey, took time out from their usual duties recently to speak to Wintec sport and exercise students about training and playing for the Chiefs. Their visit was organised by Vodafone as part of Vodafone's sponsorship of the Chiefs and business relationship with Wintec.
The informal question and answer session held at Wintec's Rotokauri campus was an opportunity for students - many of whom are studying to become trainers and coaches - to hear firsthand how a training programme for a professional rugby team is developed, maintained and followed, from both the trainer's and player's perspective.
Phil spoke about his role as the Chiefs' head trainer and his goal being to 'make physically better rugby players'. He admits that it’s easier to motivate players when the team’s winning, so you could summise that it's been a tough year.
As well as running the Chiefs' strength and conditioning unit, Phil trains the players, develops them as athletes and supervises their load management - a crucial piece of the training programme. Load management includes recovery techniques following games, getting players to fill in daily wellness reports, using GPS technology to monitor training statistics, and producing contact summaries of game time data such as the number of tackles each player makes.
Phil takes all of this information into consideration for each player's individual performance plan. "Player feedback is also important, as is developing a good relationship with the team," he says.
Chiefs hooker Aled de Malmanche says that losing makes him train harder. Reputedly the strongest man in New Zealand rugby, Aled - who regularly bench presses 200 kilograms - is hoping to be named in the All Blacks squad this year.
Phil and Aled both studied at Wintec. Aled says: "I enjoyed studying at Wintec and managed to fit my study around training, which was great. When my professional rugby careers finishes, I'd like to work in the civil engineering field."
Phil studied sport and exercise science at Wintec, where he was taught by current All Blacks trainer Nic Gill, also his predecessor at the Chiefs.
His advice to students keen to work in the sporting industry is to 'develop contacts and keep talking to people in the industry'.