About Me

Being a born and bred Victorian, I am in love with Aussie Rules Football. Apart from NBA Basketball, no other sports come close to it.

It's fast, it's action packed and it's the most demanding team game on the earth.

I first got into playing when I was 8yrs old. My eldest brother played for Dennington Under 14's (Jordan Lewis played juniors there) and I just went along to pass the time. The coach at the time asked me if I wanted to join in which I did. I can't remember how I went but I used to have the "slam the footy onto the boot" kicking style like a lot of youngsters, and I'm not sure if I was still doing that at that age though.

My first game was against Port Fairy (ex Hawthorn and Collingwood player Scott Crow was playing with them at the time) later on that year as an 8yr old in an under 14's competition. I have 3 older brothers so I was always comfortable playing against bigger boys. Unfortunately I didn't last too long as one of Port Fiary's man childs (they were full of them) stepped on my foot and I went off crying. Not a great start really.

For the next 3yrs or so I would sit on the bench for the first 3 quarters then play the last quarter in the forward pocket. Not a lot of game time but I loved it. I was (and still am) rather tiny so I think the coaches were probably protecting me more than anything.

Once I got towards the top end of the age group I was starting and playing every game. My first goal was a balltearer. I took 6 bounces down the wing of the Bushfield Oval (then Northern Districts, now North Warrnambool) and slotted through a wobbly torpedo attempt. I had a sore hand from all the high 5's I gave out on the way back to my wing position.

I worked my way up the grades at Dennington and at 17 I played my first senior game, all 164cms and 50kgs of me. We played against Nirranda who were the roughest team going around at that time (huge farmers) and we lost by a point. I played about 5mins before the half time and that was it.

I played senior and reserves football at Dennington until 2000 where I then took a season off as I lost the love for a while. In 2001 I moved to Old Collegians in the same league (comedian Dave Hughes' old footy team). Again I played a mix of senior and reserves football with my last game being a reserves grand final loss to Allansford in 2004.

Around this time I attained my Cert III and IV in Fitness and in 2005 I moved to Melbourne with aspirations to becoming a personal trainer. It was also at this time I stumbeled across a little site called t-nation.

I wasn't playing any sport in Melbourne and initially didn't have a job so it gave me a lot of time to read up and perfect my craft. I read everything I could on that t-nation site and I still do today. It is the single best source for training information on the internet. And it's free!

After 5yrs out of the game and at 30yrs of age with a wedding and kids on the horizon, I decided to give footy one last crack while I could. Without having ran more then 200m in a single continuous bout, I emailed the coach of the Melbourne High School Old Boys (MHSOB) on Thursday, he called me on the Friday and I played an intraclub game on the Saturday. The love was back.

I also took up work as a personal trainer at Full Circle Fitness (formerly SYT Personal Training) in Septemeber of 2008, taking my t-nation inspired training to the masses. Now I own that studio. I ran around in the RecLink comp in 2010 after MHSOB went up to division 2 and had plenty of players and from 2011 til now, I have played for South Yarra in the Southern Football League.

My training is heavily influenced by a variety of world renown strength and conditioning coaches such as Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Alwyn Cosgrove, Christian Thibaudeau, Bill Hartman, Mike Boyle, Nick Tumminello, Chad Waterbury, Joe Defranco, Charles Poliquin, Robb Rogers, Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, John Berardi, Tony Gentilcore and numerous others (yes I read a lot!)

I lot of my training principles I learned from these guys so the style may be similar if you've also read from these coaches.

Googling for information on training for Aussie Rules Football gives very limited results so I thoiught I would use what I know to provide a little something for the many Australians, and as I've learnt recently, many overseas players, a place to go and get some help in improving their on field performance and my Aussie Rules Training blogspot was born.

I hope you enjoy and can use the information posted here and please become a follower and leave a comment whenever you like to.

Thanks.