Optimizing Training & Recovery in the AFL: Expert Insights with Sydney Swans

Rob Inness, Daniel Cosenza and Will Sheehan show how the Sydney Swans added heart rate monitoring to GPS in their first season with it, from morning recovery checks to rehab, altitude and breathing sessions, for performance staff in AFL and other field sports.

About this webinar

At the time of recording, Rob Inness had just moved from the Sydney Swans to Carlton, Daniel Cosenza was moving into a new strength role at the Swans, and Will Sheehan had moved from the Swans’ sports science role to full-time academia at UTS. The Swans brought in heart rate monitoring at the end of 2023 to close the gap left by GPS and RPE. The three show AFL game demands from GPS, a quick recovery test (QRT, a short heart rate variability check) built into the team meeting, a rehab session report, two midfielders’ responses to the same session, and live heart rate in altitude and breathing sessions. The session runs 39 minutes and was recorded on 9 October 2024.

What you will learn

• What an AFL game demands: around 12.5–13 km on average, from 10–11 km up to 16–17 k
• Why the Swans track distance above 80% of each player’s top speed, not just above 25 km/h
• How to fit a quick recovery test into the first 3–5 minutes of a team meeting
• Why a 19-year-old midfielder found the same skill drills much harder than a 23-year-old in the same position
• How altitude, not heart rate, was progressed from about 2,200 m to about 3,500 m in recovery sessions

Practical examples from the recording

1. Sprint distance relative to each player. The Swans count sprint distance above 25 km/h, or 7 m/s, but also how far each player runs above 80% of his own top speed. For a fast player, 25 km/h isn’t much: one player covered 288 m of sprint distance but only 92 m above 80%. Inness reads that as less hamstring load for a player that quick. The staff also track change of direction, because combative midfielders collect more of it than players out wide.

2. A recovery check without extra work. To avoid adding another routine in the first season, the staff ran the quick recovery test during the team meeting. The meeting was held at the same time each day and opened with the coach reviewing the game or previous session for 3–5 minutes while players sat still. Results were compared with each player’s own norm and deviation, so a reading only counted if the change was bigger than his usual variation.

3. Same session, different cost. Cosenza compared two midfielders of similar height and weight in the same preseason session: a 23-year-old in his fifth or sixth AFL preseason and a 19-year-old in his second. The younger player had higher training effect and much more time above 90% of maximum heart rate across the skill drills, while their responses to 50-second runs of about 300 m were similar. Maximum heart rate came from the average of each player’s top 2–3 values in preseason, excluding outliers.

4. Altitude as a recovery session. Once a week, on a Saturday after a hard running day and before a hard Monday, players did an off-legs session at altitude in heart rate zone 2. Live heart rate on TV screens let staff tell each player to speed up or slow down. Rather than raising the heart rate target, the staff progressed altitude from about 2,200 m to about 3,500 m by the end of preseason. Working to each player’s own percentage of maximum kept the session aerobic without anyone overworking.

Questions answered in the Q&A

What do you do when a player’s HRV flags?
Talk to him, and usually push recovery rather than cut training. The morning report combines wellness, groin squeezes, isometric holds and the quick recovery test. A flag on one or two markers warrants a conversation and recovery strategies.

How do you deal with noisy recovery tests in team meetings?
Know the context. If a coach took a player for extra kicking or tackling before the meeting, his reading would be off. Because conditions weren’t perfect, the staff needed a bigger change than usual before acting.

Do heart rate straps stay on in contact drills?
Yes. A few sensors came off early on, but after a sleeve was added over the top there were no problems in contact or small-sided games.

Do you top up sessions to hit a training effect target?
In rehab, yes. The target for off-legs work is a training effect above 3; if an upper-body session ends at 2.8, the player may have another 20 minutes. On field, combining targets such as 400 m sprint and 1,500 m high-speed running with a training effect is the next step after one year of data.

Which sleep measure should you track?
Sleep hours. The Swans’ own internal analysis found hours alone the best indicator, and asking fewer questions kept player buy-in. Sleep well below a player’s norm raises a flag and a conversation.

Who this webinar is for

Heads of performance, sports scientists and strength and conditioning coaches in AFL and other field sports, plus return-to-play staff who want to add heart rate data to GPS and RPE without overloading players in the first season.