Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning

Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning Co-Director and Head of Athletic Development at AVOLVE Performance

25/03/2026

Fail to prepare, then prepare to fail

With in season about to kick off for many field based athletes, making sure you get your in season loading is one of the vital pieces to get right for a successful season.

Having a set routine throughout the week or a game plan in mind for when those short turn around come in hot is an effective way to manage training load and continue progressing your athleticism during the in season demands.

There’s plenty of ways to schedule and plan it out, these are just some of my go to plans I’ve found worked well in the past 💪🏼

17/03/2026

I’m not a massive wall drill guy, but I do prefer an option like this over your more traditional wall drill

Wall drills can be useful for introducing basic acceleration positions and reinforcing some postures and exchange speeds.

However, for a positioning drill, it definitely misses some key positions that we need to find and reinforce in effective acceleration mechanics.

02/03/2026

AFL EXAMPLE SESSION w/

Check out this example session for an AFL athlete working on speed, power, change of direction and injury resilience during the pre season.

POWER
1) Lateral Bound to Vertical Hop 3 x 3 e.s
2) Hang Clean Pull + Power Clean 2+1 x 3
3) High Pogo 3 x 10 (tracking RSI)

STRENGTH & ACCESSORIES
A1) Trap Bar Deadlift 3 x 3
B1)Smith Machine Bench Press 3 x 5 @ >1m/s (not shown)
B2) Supinated Chin Ups 1x 3 top set, 2 x 4 back offs
C1) Cable Loaded Hip Flexion 2 x 12 e.s
C2) Ankle Run Specific Iso Hold 2 x 30s e.s
D1) Harop Curl + Pulse 2 x 3-5
D2) Adductor Medium Lever Hold 2 x 20s e.s

18/02/2026

The story might be the story that strength and conditioning coaches read themselves to bed.

It’s a great eye opener for athletes and parents of athletes to understand that simply doing their sport more is not always the answer.

Yes, it probably should take up most of your training resources and depending on the demands of the sport will change the need for specialisation.

BUT, dedicating so much time to the sport itself without addressing the various other factors impacting sport performance can be a huge risk to overall development.

Don’t underestimate the effect of training variety
Don’t overestimate the need for specialisation

06/02/2026

Steal this quick easy movement prep if you need some new ways to get rid of that stiff body fast

1-2 rounds of these bad boys should get you lubed up and ready to take on the session

1) Closed Chain Russian Twists, another special
2) Roll and Reach
3) Band Assisted Hamstring Swings
4) Deep Squatted Jump Variations
5) Speed Press, stolen from and no they aren’t don’t with much speed 😅

20/11/2025

Here’s a quick case study looking at one of the intro speed sessions for an OzTag athlete. We worked on two key positions to develop her efficiency and speed in max velocity.

If you’re keen for a FREE GUIDE to some of my go to coaching cues for creating effective changes in a few critical technique components for both acceleration and max velocity, comment ‘CUE’ and I’ll send it over to you!

06/11/2025

Linear progression is a myth

Otherwise everyone would be olympians 🤷🏻‍♂️

Athletes will look at their progress in the gym and being able to increase the weight on the bar week to week and see it as a standard for progression, but in most cases they simply increasing the intensity at which they train at or reducing the reps in reserve.

When consistently utilising velocity trackers and timing gates, we see progression in its true form, and it’s a little more chaotic than first assumed, however, gives us valuable information about whether our training programs are actually working or if things need to be adjusted.

Not measuring training consistently, assumes you’re getting better, when in reality you might be beating your head against the wall for months and years on end.

30/10/2025

Band assisted jumps are commonly touted to be an effective stimulus for developing greater speed and contact times.

This little experiment set out to see how much of a difference the band made to not only contact time but also force production for bilateral jumps.

I found that the bands didn’t achieve a dramatic or significant difference in contact times, even performing slightly worse for one athlete, compared to unassisted pogos as well as reductions in force production with assisted pogos.

Now, movement strategies are very unique and we can probably achieve some faster contact times with a few cues which may affect the results (also often resulting in less force and lower jump heights), but, without instruction, it was interesting to see not much of a difference on time spent on the floor here.

There may be a few possible reasons for this result from the top of my head I can think of:
1) repeated jump performance is heavily dictated by coordinative factors - having low exposure to band assistance may impact that ability - more exposure may influence this?
2) reduction in body weight load and landing forces may reduce elastic energy stored and sequential stiffness created
3) Achieving low ground contact times is a complex skill that goes beyond just simply a reduction in bodyweight loading

Or even just luck and needing a bigger sample size (particularly those newer to plyos or trying with single leg maybe have greater difference). Either way, if you’re looking to progress your plyos - maybe a band assistance doesn’t achieve the massive decreases in ground contact times you may expect and can also take away the amount of force we’re looking to transfer in those short time frames.

Keen to hear your thoughts in the comments below ⬇️

22/10/2025

ARE HATFIELDS CHEATING?

Now full disclosure, my bias sits with the Hatfield set up. I’m a fan of them and see them as a nice tool to take away the stability of a lift to maximise the load used and force generated in a particular position.

I’m sure there’s plenty of limitations with this small n=1 study and probably should have tested at heavier loads (couldn’t be assed loading 260kg again) but from this data, it’s probably fair to say that Hatfields will still require you to work hard and will be a good stimulus for force development.

20/10/2025

Here’s a case study of how our testing data highlighted some qualities that needed some extra focus in our initial training block and the strategies we use to develop them.

From our data, we know that you can’t just throw a bunch of plyos on athletes and hope they stick. You need to choose specific option that will stress that trait that you want to develop.

16/10/2025

It’s time to stop gassing out

These examples are ways we can look to target specific conditioning qualities that may be holding you back in your sport.

Covering both low intensity and high intensity qualities, try these sessions out if you’re keen for a bit of direction and focuses to build upon over time.

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