Port Adelaide Power and UniSA launch in-season high-performance training course

THE likes of international soccer superclubs Manchester City and Real Madrid will be sending their staff to Alberton Oval to learn the secrets of the Port Adelaide Football Club’s fitness revolution.

Port Adelaide Power offering the full "inner sanctum" club experience to up to 30 students in a new short course on high performance training. Part of partnership with UniSA. Course launching Friday. Pics with PAFC fitness guru Darren Burgess putting Billy Frampton through his paces on the equipment in the training centre at Alberton Oval. Picture Campbell Brodie.

THE likes of international soccer superclubs Manchester City and Real Madrid will be sending their staff to Alberton Oval to learn the secrets of the Port Adelaide Football Club’s fitness revolution.

The Power will on Wednesday launch an intensive course in in-season high-performance training as the first step in its new sports science partnership with UniSA.

Spearheaded by Port’s fitness chief Dr Darren Burgess and UniSA’s Professor Kevin Norton, the nine-day course in June promises the complete inner-sanctum experience at the Power.

Up to 30 participants, ranging from locals to international sporting club staff, will have access to all aspects of the AFL club’s planning, conditioning, recovery and rehabilitation regimes.

They will also be allowed in the dressing rooms for the Power’s clashes with Geelong at Adelaide Oval on June 12, and Carlton at the MCG a week later.

At $6000, the nine-day experience does not come cheap, but Burgess says students will get their money’s worth in invaluable industry experience.

“I don’t know of any (courses) globally that offer this level of insight into what goes on behind the scenes,” he said.

“We want to provide graduates with the opportunity to sink their teeth into an applied environment.

“Every training session we have they will be right by the pitch, every gym session they will be in there observing, and then the staff will lecture them on the reasoning behind what we do.”

Burgess said there had already been significant international interest from some of the world’s most famed sporting clubs.

Power president David Koch revealed his ambition for Adelaide to become an international sports science hub when last year announcing the university partnership, which is likely to see the creation of a new masters qualification from next year.

Prof Norton said that in addition to several courses run with the Power, the masters would give students opportunities to travel abroad for similarly intensive experiences with a top-flight Brazilian soccer team, an Indian Premier League cricket franchise and high-altitude cyclist training in Europe.

Prof Norton said other universities ran courses with field trips to professional sports clubs, but nothing as immersive as the Power was offering.

“They don’t get to go behind closed doors and really embed themselves,” he said.

“So from that point of view this is somewhat experimental.”

Applicants for the in-season training course must have a human movement or sports/exercise science degree, or at least four years’ experience in a high-performance setting.

Originally published as Port Adelaide Power and UniSA launch in-season high-performance training course