GPS shapes Eyles’s day-to-day decisions more than any other measure. He tracks total distance, distance above 20 and 25 kilometres per hour, and acceleration and deceleration loads; a player who hits only half her usual high-speed running in a match gets her hamstring strength tested and her next session adjusted. His teams are also moving from absolute speed zones towards zones set at 90 per cent of each player’s maximum velocity. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Drag flickers get their groin strength monitored more closely than anyone else in Eyles’s squads, along with extra rotational work in the gym, hip and groin maintenance exercises on Fridays and plenty of hip mobility work. For goalkeepers he keeps the Nordic hamstring extension in the programme, because throwing a leg out to the side is a rapid eccentric action for the hamstring, exactly what that exercise trains. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Strength training builds tissue that can handle more force and resist fatigue for longer, which is exactly what protects hamstrings and groins, Eyles explains. He cites research showing the likelihood of hamstring injury falls as eccentric hamstring strength rises. His advice is to build strength before moving on to jumping and Olympic lifting, and to train all three contraction phases, not just the fast, explosive one. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Sprinting once a week is non-negotiable for Eyles: thirty to forty metres per rep for adults, adding up to between one hundred and three hundred metres of high-speed running in a session, often inside a warm-up. Agility work should be reactive and multidirectional, with deliberate deceleration training, because many knee injuries happen in the stopping moment. And running at 80 per cent does not count; sprinting needs full intent. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Two matches a week already give players their two high-intensity exposures, so Eyles builds everything else around them. Playing Wednesday, he lifts on Monday; playing Tuesday, he shifts lifting to Wednesday after the game, with the option of microdosing power work for advanced athletes. GPS shows who fell short of their usual high-speed running in a match, and those players get topped up midweek. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Injury reduction is your best sales pitch, Eyles argues: coaches want players on the pitch, and S&C keeps them there longer. Ask for the warm-up, since fifteen to twenty minutes buys a lot of physical work, and start beside the pitch or on the stairs if field time is scarce. He also suggests splitting training into stations, with one group doing physical work. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Hockey needs both systems, in Eyles’s view. Match length alone would class it as an aerobic sport, yet the intensity leans heavily on anaerobic capacity. For testing he has used the yo-yo test, the 30-15 intermittent fitness test and even simple timed laps of the pitch. He avoids thirty-minute jogs, preferring long intervals run at a meaningful speed. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Look for fatigue you cannot explain, says Eyles. Compare the past week’s load with the past month: a heavy week accounts for tiredness, but overtraining shows up over the longer term as slower sprint times, weaker jump results, disrupted sleep and players who keep getting sick. When those signs cluster, he freshens up the following week rather than pushing on. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.
Eyles trains his squads in the gym one to three times a week and holds at least one session even in tournament weeks. Sessions are full body with the accent on the legs, planned in blocks, with quality of movement coming before the load on the bar. Two exercises he refuses to drop are the Nordic hamstring extension and the Copenhagen side plank, because the research on both won him over. Watch the full masterclass: Injury Reduction Training Methods.