AFL Leads the Fitness Race

By Imago Group
Friday 20 October, 2006

The Australian Socceroos’ strength and conditioning coach, Anthony Crea, is among a group of leading practitioners and sports scientists who will present a new Sport Knowledge Australia (SKA) course - Optimising Physical Performance - at Sydney Olympic Park, 15-16 November.

SYDNEY – Asked which football code leads the way in optimising physical performance in Australia, current strength and conditioning coach of the Socceroos and Sydney FC, Anthony Crea, is impartial and unequivocal in nominating AFL.

“At the minute, it is definitely the AFL,” he says. “Purely because they have the budgets, they have the knowledge, they have access to research from around the world, and that plays a big part in sports science.”

Crea, who has experienced the high-budget arena of England’s Premier League with Crystal Palace, before moving to Parma in Italy, has fine tuned many of football’s multi-million dollar athletes and was instrumental in preparing the likes of Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer for the 2006 World Cup.

Through Sports Knowledge Australia’s newest cutting edge course, “Optimising Physical Performance,” all sports have the opportunity of accessing the latest insights from around the globe. Crea will be joined by a group of revered sports scientists from around Australia who have worked with elite athletes in presenting up-to-the-minute information and research findings.

What those presenting and attending the course are in search of, says Crea, is the edge that could make the difference between gold or silver, a win or a loss, “You’re working on really small percentages,” he says. “You know as a professional that the general fitness is there, what you’re looking for is that bit extra for crucial moments. In the 90 minutes of football those crucial moments would be the first 10-15 minutes to dominate and the last 10 when everyone starts to tire and you’re working on those small percentages to get through fatigue or lactic acid build-up.”

The two-day intensive live-in course which takes place in Sydney on 15 and 16 November explores current trends in training and sports technology, maintenance of physical well-being and the science of conditioning.

Full course details click here

ABOUT SKA: Launched in June 2005 with a Federal Government grant, SKA is jointly owned by the University of Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney and the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. SKA assists the continued global growth of the sports industry, helping more communities around the world to benefit from Australia’s strong sporting culture. Since its launch, SKA has delivered sport management programmes at the prestigious Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, run facility management courses in China and various seminars and courses in Australia on topics as diverse as player valuation strategies, genetic doping in sport, player welfare, executive sport management, elite sport coaching, major event management and facility management.

ATTENTION EDITORS AND PRODUCERS: Course presenters are available for interview by contacting – Liz Herbert - Mobile: +61 407 234 221 Tel: +61 2 9331 7222 /