Dee fright: Christian Petracca helped from pool after pushing himself too hard
A ‘alarming’ training mishap left Melbourne young gun Christian Petracca in distress as professional supervisors were forced to help the Demon after he pushed himself physically during a drill.
Melbourne
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An ‘alarming’ pool training mishap left Melbourne young gun Christian Petracca in mild strife this week but the Demon is fit to take on Hawthorn today.
Petracca, 23, was taking part in a hypoxic training session on Tuesday when he got into strife and needed assistance.
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Hypoxic training aims to improve performance by adapting the body to a reduced oxygen level, with Demons players understood to have been holding medicine balls underwater when Petracca had to be helped by professional supervisors after pushing himself physically in the drill.
“He was up and about 10 minutes after it all went down,” Demons coach Simon Goodwin said on 3AW.
“Hypoxic training is something a lot of AFL clubs do, a lot of athletes around the world. It’s a really supervised program.
“Christian really loves that type of training and he is quite competitive in it but we need him to actually come up and take a breath when he needs to.
“It was alarming, but at the same time it’s supervised, it’s well controlled and it’s a form of training a lot of players do in the AFL.”
The staff jumped into the water to assist a distressed Petracca who didn’t require any further medical treatment.
He trained on Wednesday and Friday and suffered no ill effects.
Petracca, who is believed to regularly engage in such training, had struggled to resurface during the drill but recovered quickly.
He has played every game this season, averaging 16 touches a game in what has been a quieter start to the season but he has built in recent weeks.
The Demons — who made a preliminary final last year — will on Saturday attempt to resurrect their season after slumping to a 1-5 record.
Originally published as Dee fright: Christian Petracca helped from pool after pushing himself too hard
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