By Adam Santarossa

Greater Western Sydney GIANTS Sports Science Manager, John Quinn has arguably one of the toughest roles in the AFL.

It is his job to ensure the young players that enter the field every week to battle for four competition points are not only fighting fit, but have an ability to give 100% at all times.

To ensure this, player recovery is more important than ever, however the challenging part for Quinn is that there is no textbook to draw upon for finding the answers he seeks.

To have the best recovery possible it is key to know your players intently and manage every aspect of their recovery process. Many feel that once the sirens sounds the game is over, but for Quinn and his team it signals that the game is just beginning.

“Recovery is really important and is it not only the end of the game, but we are also preparing them for the next one. The sooner they recover the quicker we get them back into training and every day, particularly with our young side not used to all our travel and the big knocks they receive every week, counts,” said Quinn

“As soon as they come off the field we stretch them and hydrate them, hydration is very important for this team. We also have a supplement plan that ensures that they have the correct balance for every individual for what they need for protein and carbohydrates.

“For example at the end of the game if they have had a bit of muscle damage they need that bit of protein to help rebuild the muscle, but also carbohydrates to help the muscle recovery process.”

“Food is also important and the most important part of recovery is sleep. Quite often mentally and physically aroused and they cant sleep, so to calm them down we use cold tubs after the game, I am not a massive fan of Hot & Cold tubs after the game, because if they cop a knock during the game, the hot tub could make it bleed more.

“The Cold Tubs wakes them up a bit more, so we use heavy foods such as meat, after a game so it brings on a feeling of sleep after a game.

“Supplements play a big part in our recovery and we have a great array of supplements at our disposal thanks to Musashi. We give them different mixes of protein and are quite big on multi-vitamin and pro-biotics and herbal mixes to help them with their whole recovery and sleep process.”

Quinn is one of the most experienced men in football having spent a number of years with the Essendon Bombers. However, his role with the newest AFL franchise brings its own unique challenges.

“The biggest change is that Essendon is an established team with older bodies. If you look at the average age of the lists, you see only a couple of year’s difference, but if you actually look at the team on the field, we have a very very young side. The fact that most of our boys are 18, is a huge difference, as the playing age at the Bombers is about 23-24 years of age,” said Quinn

“Including the NAB Cup we will travel sixteen times out of twenty six games and Essendon at most will travel six times. So throughout the year we will have ten extra plane trips just to get to games of footy. Another unique factor is due to the nature of the draft it’s selected in the end of November, so players do not arrive until December. Which leaves us about twelve weeks to prepare them to play football.”

“So we are the youngest side in the competition, with the most travel, has had the least physical preparation in the competition, so its something we really need to manage and navigate strong, closely and thoughtfully and this is a challenge I never had at Essendon.

“We have four days between flights a couple of times this year. They are the factors we are dealing with on a weekly basis. We need to ensure we maintain training loads, maintain fitness, maintain wellness, and maintain optimism, so there are several balls in the air at one time.

“So keeping all of those things up and keep your team performing, I never had those challenges at Essendon, but so far I think the team is training really well,” Quinn said.

Quinn states the biggest challenge he faces in the recovery process is something most of us simply take for granted.

“The fact that they are away from home and not sleeping in their own bed. I think Sleep is the most important recovery factor that there is, so you can be in a beautiful hotel, have your own room and even take your own pillow, but its not your bed.

“It’s not your surroundings, you cannot really do what you want to do, you are in the confines of your room, then you have structure around you that you don’t normally have at home, so there is a meal on, or meeting or an activation session. All of that is different, I think this team is going to get very good at that, because they are going to have to.”

“The long term effects of that, well time is going to tell, if you look at teams like West Coast, it reduces the longevity of those players because they have to get up week after week with the travel factor. Now, we don’t travel as much as West Coast in terms of mileage, but the essence of travel is going to be the same, so we are trying to manage it as best we can,” said Quinn.

One way the club tries to manage issues such as flying and different sleeping environments, is the clubs relationship with Skins, with the players wearing the compression garments on all flights and in their sleep to aid recovery.

But Quinn is not alone in his search for the best recovery practice for his players, given the experience of many others at the club.

“I think teams have an idea of recovery, you hope that your process and protocols are different, but we have brought in the best of Brisbane with Graeme Allan and Luke Power and Craig Lambert, who have had to travel a lot and they have managed to be successful with travel. We also have Port Adelaide here with Mark Williams, Dean Brogan and Chad Cornes here so we use their knowledge as well.”

“We talk to different bodies about what they do with travel such as the AIS and put in everything we have learnt over the journey. I think other clubs would be doing travel as good as us in terms of recovery, but I don’t think any clubs will be doing it better than us, and what we are aspiring to do in twelve months to have the golden ticket in that regard,” said Quinn.

Quinn is basically creating the textbook in relation to the recovery of young players, given no AFL club has had so many young players playing so many games at one time, and only time will tell if Quinn and his team are using the correct techniques.

“We are trying to run a development program in an elite competition. I am not aware of any sport in the world that has ever done that before, so we are in completely unchartered territory here. You really wont have the answer until you look back retrospectively and say we get more games into them young, or manage them better at a young age,” said Quinn.

“We think we can do it the way we are doing things, provided we have the best recovery and nutrition plans in place, and we will not only do this, but do it well and set the benchmark to prepare a team for elite competition. “