Australian Football
How I Train: Christian Petracca on how he prepares for a game
The Australian Rules star explains how he gets ready to play his best, including on the biggest stage of all: The AFL 2021 Grand Final.
Throughout our conversation, his dedication to his routines shines through – and these routines helped him win the Norm Smith Medal as part of Melbourne’s premiership-winning team in 2021. Speaking about his time in the AFL system and what he’d tell young athletes, Christian says he’d recommend that they “build a really good strong routine that you're happy with and you feel comfortable with doing”.
Read on to learn more about how Christian and the Melbourne Football Club prepare for each game, and what the training routine of one of the AFL’s most talented (and hard-working) footballers looks like. As Christian says, “you need to create really strong, good habits” as an athlete, and these habits saw him play an integral part in Melbourne’s first premiership in 57 years.
Christian Petracca in the locker room drinking Red Bull
© Photographer Credit: Samuel Costin / Red Bull Content Pool
01
How much time do you spend training in any given week?
It really depends on the date of the game. The usual week is a seven-day break if we play on a Saturday and we play the next Saturday. In that case we would probably do one main session about three days out from the game. That would be a big running session of about six or seven kilometres. We usually do two leg sessions and one upper body session throughout the week as well. We also do a little bit of touch work, stationary type stuff where we focus on our decision making, handballing and kicking. It’s non-contact, very, very low-level stuff but it's still time on legs.
For me, on my off days, I feel like that load isn’t 'not enough', but I feel like I still want to do a little bit more. I go to a yoga studio down the road from my house. I do Pilates as well, and I've got a reformer at home thanks to Red Bull. It’s amazing. I do a lot of yoga, a lot of Pilates, and every night I'm doing some stretching 15 minutes before bed. I’m using my sauna as well.
02
What do you try to focus on most at training?
For me, I focus on goal kicking, something that I need to add to my game. I also focus on my inside 50 entries and doing some stoppage stuff before the session. I’ll work with Gawny [Max Gawn, Melbourne’s ruckman] and our other midfielders to get some connection with him. On my days off, it's definitely a lot more kicking with Adam Yze, more around the ground kicking, around the body snaps and driving my leg type stuff.
03
How important is sleep to you?
I absolutely love and need my sleep. For me, the three pillars of recovery are definitely sleep, hydration and nutrition. All the other things like ice baths, your spa sessions, your sauna and your stretching, they're all the one percenters just to tick off the boxes. They do help, but having a quality sleep each night is really, really important. Having a bad night's sleep on one night is okay, but if you're going to bed every night and you're only having seven or six hours, especially for an athlete it really builds up and you do notice a difference with your body.
For me, the three pillars of recovery are definitely sleep, hydration and nutrition.
04
How important is the mental side of footy to your game?
The more I've gotten into the game and become more established, the more I've realised that the game is 90% mental. That’s probably the case with any sport to be honest. The ability to remain calm during games, maintaining your confidence level and self-belief and not having doubt in yourself. I think these are all keys to being successful in any industry you're in.
I see a psychologist through the AFL Players Association who I absolutely love seeing, I think the stigma around males [seeing a psychologist] should stop to be honest. I think seeing a psych has done me wonders with my mindset around myself, my insecurity, being confident during games. I do a lot of mindfulness, do a lot of meditation. I've got a gratefulness journal. Just little things, which seeing other athletes in other sports talk about, I felt like I really wanted to involve that into my life. It's honestly been amazing for me, not just in footy, but in life in general. It's been really good.
05
Do you think the attitude towards mindfulness/seeing a psychologist as an AFL player has changed over the last few years?
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think the stigma around it has definitely lifted - not lifted, I still feel like it's got a long way to go – but I feel like a lot of males are feeling a lot more comfortable about speaking to psychologists about their feelings and about how they're going. Everyone's going through something and no one's perfect.
Seeing a psych has done me wonders with my mindset around myself, my insecurity, being confident during in games.
06
When you’re training, how do you know when it’s time to let your body rest?
That is the hardest question you'll ever ask an athlete. It's such a fine line, because I’ve realised that switching your body off and resting is probably the perfect way of actually recovering. It's tough though because athletes want to push themselves, and there’s a mindset that If I give myself an extra rep, or an extra set then that's going to make me play better on the weekend. I like to push myself, but I also think there's a fine line.
If you feel good that day then you can push yourself, but there is definitely a fine line when doing that. To be honest, I think it's more of a superstitious type thing that athletes do to get them ready for the game. For me, if my body's sore, I don't want to push myself because that can then create further injury. I've got quite sore knees, and I did my ACL a few years ago. If I feel like my knees are sore, then there's no point pushing it. You can just rest and sit out and ice them because that's a better way of actually recovering rather than creating further injury.
Christian Petracca stands in the corridor to the field
© Photographer Credit: Samuel Costin / Red Bull Content Pool
07
How do you think your approach to training has changed since you were first drafted to Melbourne?
I feel like I've got an amazing balance of pushing myself and having great routines. I think that's the biggest thing for any athlete. If I was to give advice to a young kid coming through it’d be to build a really good strong routine that you're happy with and you feel comfortable with doing.
Routine in life is everything. I think you need routine in your life. You need to create really strong, good habits. When I first got to the league I was 18 years old and I didn't have good habits. I didn't really know what to train like, and I feel like I wasn't a great trainer. Now I feel like I'm a great trainer. I understand my body, I understand what to eat, how to train and my mindset going into games as well.
08
Are you someone that pays attention to the data that sporting clubs track when it comes to your game?
We definitely do get a lot of GPS data – how far we’ve run, speed etc. Definitely the speed and sprint metres are the two things that we focus on. There have been periods where two weeks in a row I’ve had really high sprint metres in a game. During the following week, they’ll back me off. They’re really good at giving us that transparency - if I’ve pulled up sore, they’ll go ‘OK, your sprint numbers this week were really high, we’ll pull you back this week during training’.
09
Finally, when you’ve had a tough half of footy, a tough day or even a tough week, how do you find that extra bit of motivation to keep going?
Early on in my career, I struggled with consistency – being able to play a full four quarters. I’d play a really good quarter then drop off. Over the last few years, I’ve been able to reset, calm down and take a breath. Any athlete will tell you that their breath is the most pivotal part of being able to reset, switch off and focus your mind on the job.
If I’m having a bad quarter or if I’ve made a mistake I’m now able to move on to the next thing and not dwell on it. If I’ve had a great half/great quarter, it’s the exact same approach. It’s all about resetting and switching onto the next thing, not living in the past. You need to switch your mind to the next task in hand.