AFL
training program
Run out 4 quarters of on-off running, win contested ball, and stay injury-free over a long season.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.
Why this program exists
You get to training twice a week, you play Saturday, and the gym is entirely your problem. Nobody at the club is writing you a program, the one you found online was built for a powerlifter, and by round 12 your hamstrings are held together with tape and hope.
AFL is the most aerobically demanding field sport in the country — roughly 12km a game of on-off running, at speeds that decide contests. It also has the highest hamstring-strain rate of any sport played here. Those two facts set the whole program: build a genuine engine, build repeat-sprint ability on top of it, and load the hamstring eccentrically every single week whether it feels like it needs it or not.
A default AFL week
This is the sport’s own template — the starting point before it is fitted to your days, your equipment and your season. Team nights and game day are protected; everything else moves to the days you are free.
What AFL is won with
These are the qualities the program is built to develop, in priority order. They come from the sport, not from a generic template.
- Repeat-sprint ability
- Aerobic capacity (~12km/game)
- Hamstring durability
- Overhead marking power
| Session | Type | Duration | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed Development | Conditioning | 45–50 min | Build genuine acceleration + top-end speed |
| Upper Power | Gym | 55–65 min | Overhead power + pressing/pulling strength |
| Game Engine | Conditioning | 45–50 min | Run out 4 quarters + back up repeat efforts |
| Game-Day Primer | Gym | 20–25 min | Explosive primer — sharp and short, no running or heavy legs before the game |
| Lower Power | Gym | 60–70 min | Triple-extension power + posterior-chain strength |
The season changes the program
Community footy runs on the same calendar as the AFL itself, so the app periodises to it out of the box. Pre-season is where the engine and the strength base get built; from March the job changes to backing up every Saturday without draining yourself.
- Pre-season
- November – February — set volume ×1.2. Build the engine and the strength base.
- In-season
- March – September — set volume ×0.7, prescribed weights hold. Maintain, don’t drain.
- Off-season
- October — baseline volume. Rebuild general strength and fix the niggles.
- Block structure
- Four-week blocks: three weeks accumulating, one week deload. The block’s character changes across the year rather than repeating.
- Game day
- Protected. The day before gets a 20-minute explosive primer with no running, no heavy legs and no prehab block bolted on.
The AFL testing battery
Five numbers, re-run every eight weeks. Chosen to match what AFL programs actually measure — and the results re-price your training weights and reset your conditioning paces.
| Test | Measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| 2km time trial | The aerobic benchmark your program is built around. | mm:ss |
| Bench press 1RM | Upper-body pressing strength: the fend, the tackle, holding a bigger body off. | kg |
| Max pull-ups | Relative pulling strength — the best upper-body number there is for a field athlete. | reps |
| Trap-bar deadlift 1RM | Whole-body pulling strength — the lift that carries over to acceleration. | kg |
| Running vertical jump | What a marking or rebounding contest actually asks for. | cm |
Staying available
The prehab block is matched to the region of the session it sits in and to the tissue this sport actually punishes — not a generic mobility flow bolted to the front.
Prehab only works if it happens, and the reason it usually does not is that it has nothing to do with the session it is attached to. Rotating a pool by session number puts shoulder work before a squat day and Copenhagen planks before a bench press. Technically covered; nobody does it.
In Train Smart each movement is classified by the region it protects and matched to the session, and the pool rotates across the week so you cover all of it rather than doing the same three moves three times.
More on prehab that people actually do →
AFL training questions
What does the Train Smart AFL program include?
When is AFL pre-season?
Can I follow this program if I only train twice a week?
What tests does the AFL program use?
Do I need a full gym?
Get your AFL program
Pick AFL, answer eight questions, and your week is built — around your team nights, your game and the days you can actually train.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.