AFL clubs and players have officially given up on altitude training
Mick Malthouse credits it with helping Collingwood win a premiership. But less than a decade after the Magpies’ success, not one club still engages in altitude training. What happened?
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AFL clubs and players have officially given up on expensive altitude training camps less than a decade after they swept the league.
North Melbourne was the last club to have a link to altitude training when a group of six players – including Cameron Zurhaar and Paul Ahern and Melbourne’s Braydon Preuss – last year paid their own way to train in the mountainous terrain in Utah.
But the chord has been cut entirely this pre-season with the Kangaroos’ full squad set to stay at home as the club starts an exciting new chapter under Rhyce Shaw.
Former Collingwood fitness chief and Hockey Australia high performance boss Bill Davoren said altitude training could work well for certain athletes, such as swimmers and cyclists, who were training for targeted short-term events.
But he said a single altitude camp delivered minimal benefit for a large group of footballers across the course of a six-month season.
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“In footy, it had its lifespan, but as time went by it was an expensive exercise which delivered short-term results,” Davoren said.
“Did it have an effect in July, August and September beyond blokes saying ‘We trained really hard’?
“You can run them up Anderson St (Botanical Gardens) and train really hard and get as much out of that.
“I just don’t think it (costly altitude camps) is a footy piece.”
The Roos’ players’ move means footy’s altitude experiment is finally dead only six years after eight clubs went on overseas trips in search of a fitness edge.
Collingwood was the pioneer of the altitude missions, with former coach Michael Malthouse and ex-fitness boss David Buttifant adamant the physiological and team bonding benefits played a part in their dominant reign in 2010-11.
Malthouse has repeatedly defended the type of training, saying “It is very, very good for you. It is proven,” Malthouse said.
Essendon, St Kilda and Western Bulldogs (Colorado), Carlton and Gold Coast (Arizona) and North Melbourne (Utah) all followed suit. Some camps cost upwards of $500,000 for the whole squad to spend a fortnight away.
The Magpies even invested in an altitude room at their Olympic Park headquarters, but that has gone by the wayside.
The introduction of a soft cap on football department spending has contributed significantly towards killing off altitude training in the AFL.
It means clubs are investing the hundreds of thousands of dollars those camps cost into other areas, such as its facilities, staff and domestic training camps.
Melbourne is heading to Maroochydore under new fitness chief Darren Burgess this pre-season, while Western Bulldogs are travelling to Cape Schank in mid-December and Mooloolaba in late January.
Collingwood won’t return to Southport where it has been in recent years for a week-long training and leadership camp.
Davoren said the benefits of a single altitude training camp were not long-lasting.
“Physiologically, yes, they get a bump,” Davoren said.
“But if you go in November – December, the bump would come in January.
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“And the adaptations – the physiological changes – they’re only sustainable for a couple of weeks.
“So, they will lift their fitness in the short term and there are benefits with that – but there are also a lot of challenges also taking a large group to altitude.
“There is an opportunity to over train at altitude and get it wrong and not everyone responds the same way.
“Some people adapt really well to it, some people get no benefit and some people, it actually regresses them.
“So, when I was in triathlon, we were very targeted with it. Only some kids would go.”