Ireland's sickness?

[lincoln blue]

Have teams finally sussed out how to deal with him?
Kryptonite

[john@staustell]

I know we have to tread warily on Ireland threads, but I reckon he has overtrained and probably still is. Running up hills carrying sacks whilst doing martial arts is not something that can be carried on indefinitely, and I hope he stopped it in the summer.

In my youth I played in a county-winning squash side. One of our players was a fitness fanatic, always trolling off to play good players 2 or 3 times a day, training like a madman etc. But his training was never geared, there was no end-point. He would lose important matches he should easily have won because he was knackered, played in the morning etc. The rest of us geared our preparation to the next match.

Maintaining the mental and physical demands of that sort of supertraining can be unhealthy, and the work-life balance is needed to get optimum performance.

I hope the club trainers are managing his enthusiasm.

[Ted Hughes]

I know we have to tread warily on Ireland threads, but I reckon he has overtrained and probably still is. Running up hills carrying sacks whilst doing martial arts is not something that can be carried on indefinitely, and I hope he stopped it in the summer.

In my youth I played in a county-winning squash side. One of our players was a fitness fanatic, always trolling off to play good players 2 or 3 times a day, training like a madman etc. But his training was never geared, there was no end-point. He would lose important matches he should easily have won because he was knackered, played in the morning etc. The rest of us geared our preparation to the next match.

Maintaining the mental and physical demands of that sort of supertraining can be unhealthy, and the work-life balance is needed to get optimum performance.

I hope the club trainers are managing his enthusiasm.

I think 'managing' is the key word. They just need to make sure his extra training is a help rather than a hinderence. I'm sure it's possible to find a balance if he just tones it down a bit.

[ronk]

Maybe he just had a bug.

There are signs of over-training that the coaches will be able to check. Let's not assume that he's over-training.

[marvin]

Correct. Over-training is usually associated with strength athletes, and Ireland, and his coaches will know what they are doing.

[Redna]

Swineflu?

[Dameerto]

I took up running a year or two ago, and overtrained three or four months in - it felt like I'd had the energy drained out of my body, something that should have been a short run felt like I was trying to sprint up Everest and I could barely keep my legs from shaking - I thought I had flu at first. A few days rest and i was back to normal though. It's NOT just associated with strength work, endurance athletes are prone to it too.
Considering all the heartrate monitoring they do in a player's preseason/fitness work I would like to think the squad wouldn't be likely to suffer from it, but if someone is doing some kind of additional work on their own before/after their normal training who knows?

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Maybe he just had a bug.

There are signs of over-training that the coaches will be able to check. Let's not assume that he's over-training.

Agreed. I am sure the sports science guys are and have been looking closely at everything they can to try to diagnose the " problem"
Hopefully it's sorted quickly whatever it is.

[BlueinBosnia]

Maybe he just had a bug.

Let's hope it's not what his gran had.

[ronk]

Maybe he just had a bug.

Let's hope it's not what his gran had.

She got better.

[Slim]

Give the lad a couple of game break, he has obviously overdone it a bit.

[sandman]

Maybe he just had a bug.

Let's hope it's not what his gran had.

She got better.

I think he meant his other gran?

[Hazy]

Ireland is fine, just a notch or two below last season, give him time and he will be flying. Maybe on Monday if selected.