Pre-Season Pro

Controversial opinion: you don’t need a gym membership, a netball court, or a full set of equipment to get better at netball. 😏

You need a body and that’s literally it.

A ball? Fab. Some cones? Even better. Access to a brick wall? You’re basically fully equipped.

But fr, none of it is required. It’s accessible to everyone and you can do it literally anywhere. An oval, a driveway, a concrete slab outside your back door, your lounge room floor. We mean it when we say anywhere.

Here’s what that actually looks like:

Interval runs — warm up, then work. Train work to rest ratios of 1:2-1:4, this could look like 20 sec efforts with 40 secs off, 10 rounds. Or 15 sec sprints and 60 secs recovery. Push hard enough that the last rep feels like the hardest one. This is the energy system that powers every sprint, every contest, every lead in netball. 10-15 mins plus your warm up and cool down is legit all you need.

Skill work — wall passes are genuinely underrated. Vary the height, the distance, the hand. Add single hand catches. Set up some cones and work your hip turns, your change of directions your leads, your speed and quick feet.

Strength, plyo and mobility — squats, lunges, broad jumps, skaters, snap downs, double leg to single leg landings, push ups, World’s Greatest Stretch, down dog pedals.

This is what S&C looks like without a gym.

Posterior chain, lateral power, landing mechanics, mobility — all of it, with absolute zero equipment.

DM or comment the word APP for netball-specific programs that work from home, the gym, the netball courts, your local oval... or anywhere in between. 😉

We put the full Mizuno netball range under the microscope. 🔬

Here’s what you need to know:

STEALTH NEO 2 — $240 (Std & D-width)
If you want one shoe that does it all well, this is it. The grip is fab on both indoor and outdoor courts, they’re comfortable and supportive. Their top end shoe, built for sharp change of direction and sudden stop-starts, good ankle support with side-to-side lockdown. The most cushioned/supportive combo.

MOMENTUM PRO/ELITE — $170+
Pro = lighter and more balanced feel, built for a slightly quicker player who still wants stability. Elite = max-cushion option, softer landing, grippier sole. Both have a 12mm heel pitch and wide, neural to high arch, stable base with reinforced sides so the foot doesn’t roll on landing.

LUMINOUS 3 — $220 (Std & D-width)
The lightest shoe in the range. Build for mids, covering ground fast rather and awesome grip for change of direction, rather than cushioning big landings. Flat and low profile, the outsole wraps around the outside of the forefoot for extra side grip on sharp dodges and has decent ankle support.

PHANTOM 3 — $180 (Std & D-width)
The all-rounder. Not as soft and cushioned as the Momentum, not as light and minimal as the Luminous. Great bang for buck. Balanced, flatter and more grounded feel for mids or players who like a lighter feel.

WAVE EXCEED (tennis) — $180+
Not a netball shoe, but we get Q’s about ‘court shoes’ a lot. Sole durability and grip is unreal as it’s designed for outdoor courts. BUT I found it doesn’t give much medial support (also flagged by experts) which can be problematic for knee injuries or cause the foot to ache.

All sizes run roughly AU/US 6-13. (UK 3.5-10.5 / EU 36-45.5)

Grip is awesome on all! They’re marketed as indoor but I think the grip would hold up well outdoor too.

vs. ASICS?

Mizunos normally are more comfortable with less need to wear in. Asics tends to run with a roomier toe box, Mizuno needs you to size into wide option. Mizuno grip slightly better but both are touted as being durable. Both great brands! End of the day, it’s personal preference & what your foot actually needs.

Lovedddd this range overall,

You’re blowing up in the fourth quarter, aren’t you? 👀 And if I had to guess, those winter sleep-ins have been getting a liiiiittle more frequent, a little easier to justify, a little more “I’ll just do it later” 🫣

Now I’m not saying fitness is number 1 on your to-do list, or saying you should be able to bounce outta bed 365 days a year buttttt, the easiest way to get fit is to stay fit. 😜

Not stop for a few weeks and then have to build it all back up again, because that is going to SUCK. Every time.

That second option is so much harder than just… not stopping in the first place.

All you need at this point of the season is 20 minutes, a couple of times a week. Intervals. Repeat efforts. High heart rate work with long recovery in between (basically training your body to do exactly what it needs to do late in games: work hard, recover fast, go again). That’s it.

That’s the whole thing standing between you and getting deep into finals.

We overcomplicate conditioning, think we need to be doing 10km runs 3x per week plus gym, plus netball, plus alllll of the extras. It can literally be 10 mins after a gym session. Get to training 20 mins early and just do some cone work. Go down to the courts one night and do some efforts in between putting shots up.

To maintain conditioning you don’t need much. But if you don’t do anything, you’ll be surprised how quick it disappears. 👻

If you want the actual 15-20 minute sessions you can just open and do, the In-Season Accelerator has you covered.

DM us ACCELERATE and we’ll make sure you’re peaking come finals 😏🏆

A zone defence is one incredible tool. 👌

Used well, it creates errors, forces turnovers and slows down even the most dangerous attacking line ups.

Buuuuttttt… it can also be beaten, if you know how.

Watching the Preliminary Final between the Vixens and Fever on the weekend was proof of just how much homework the Vixens had done.

When we think about breaking a zone: we don’t want to play into the areas they’re inviting us into (that congested middle is a trap!)

Instead we exploit the weaknesses in their structure by using the space down the sides (or over the back,) screening, front cutting and holding in front of defenders, then attacking the gaps they’re forced to leave open.

In this game, the Vixens did all of that. Every part of it.

There’s more than one way to set a zone and more than one way to break it, but what we watched on Saturday was about as close to a perfect example as you’ll see of getting it right.

If you’ve been wanting more strategies for your team (systems, set plays, zone defence, throw-in plays, centre passes and so much more to give you the edge, including how to break them when they’re used against you) keep your eyes peeled. 👀

Something’s coming in the next 2 weeks. 🙊

I wanna introduce you to your new best friend, proprioception. 😉

Proprioception is the body’s internal ability to sense its own position, movement aaaand the amount of force being used. It allows you to do pretty much anything without consciously watching your limbs.

If you close your eyes and touch your nose, that’s proprioception doing its job well. If you close your eyes and try to touch your nose but poke yourself in the eye… that’s poor proprioception.

We use proprioception EVERY second of a netball game. It makes us faster, it allows us to lose our defender, get better elevation, read the play quicker… It’s one of the most UNDERTRAINED things in netball. It’s also why netballers get injured, and re-injure so much!!

When you damage a ligament, a muscle or a tendon, the tiny sensors in that area get damaged too. That’s why rest is NOT good enough when you come back after an injury. Sure the ligament itself might heal, but your proprioception isn’t functioning properly. The signal between your joint and your brain is still foggy. And a foggy signal means a slower reaction. Slower reaction= more likely to roll it again.

Butttt this doesn’t just belong in a rehab program. It belongs in your gym sessions, your warm-up at netball training, your pre-run activation, all of it, all year round.

The good news? It’s genuinely one of the simplest things to train:
🦵 Single leg balance — eyes open, then progress to eyes closed (or soft surface)
🦵 Floating heel exercises — eg. split squats, Peterson step downs
🦵 Single leg mini squats
🦵 Wall Sprints
🦵 Single leg balance while catching and throwing a ball against a wall
🦵 Landing mechanics

Start with 30-60secs per side, a few times a week. Work it into your warm-up and you’ll barely notice the time investment but your ankles, knees, and reaction speed absolutely will.

This is why proprioception training is built into every single PSP program, because strong muscles can still get you hurt if they can’t sense where they are.

Want it all mapped out for you? Comment APP and we’ll send you the link for a free trial 📲

The idea for PSP started in May 2024, with two sisters having a coffee over the kitchen bench.

I (Anna) was talking about all the things I wished netball had… About how I wished the things I saw my 1:1’s clients coming to me for (rehab, strength work, postpartum return) were available for netballers everywhere.

And then Emily said the magic words “we need to get this into clubs.”

🤯🤯🤯

By September I’d launched our first Strength and Conditioning Pre-Season program direct to clubs. We had a free Drill Playbook for every club that signed up.

We saw awesome results from the first few clubs, then people started asking if we sold the Drills Playbook by itself.

And I was getting more and more questions about resources — if we had more for coaches, if we could do PDF’s for players in other countries… So I finished up with my 1:1 clients and went all in on PSP 🥹 Nerve-wracking as hell but I knew this was it.

Fast forward 2 years and we now have 4 player programs, 4 coaching resources and a training app (with much more planned for the next 12 months 🤫)

There’s over 80,000 incredible humans following along on social media, our products are being loved in 14 countries, by hundreds of coaches and players worldwide. 🤯

This started out as a little side quest of Anna’s 1:1 Strength and Conditioning Online Coaching biz and now it’s become a full blown business with Anna and Em at the helm (with a little help from Mum’s treasure trove of netball knowledge too!)

Umm this is literally such a pinch us moment! As if this is real life. 🥹

We are so thankful for the ride (and our awesome netty community) that’s got us here so far.

This is your sign that if you can dream of something, to go after it… if you want it more than anything, you can achieve it.🔥

I went to create a reel this morning on C’s and I wanted to augment it with some footage of the centres like Kate Moloney, Kate Heffernan and JLP… But I could find NOTHING of their work rate off the ball, their attacking prelim moves, their transitions down the court.

And it p*ssed me off.

Sure there’s incredible footage of C’s getting clutch intercepts, doing long bombs into the shooters, or a quick clip of a refeed…

But where is the footage of everything BEFORE the super shot? The body positioning that GOT the players the intercept? There’s hardly any.

This is problematic for so many reasons. How do young netballers learn that every little bit matters? Like keeping your WA from getting a possession? Screening for another player to get the ball? The zone defence, the footwork to hold, the precision passing? Putting tough defensive pressure on so that the other team gets tired and makes more errors?

If we’re only glorifying the ‘fancy’ stuff — netballers will always be measuring their game by those standards and always coming up short.

The kids look at positions like WD as a less desirable position because it’s very rare to do any of the fancy stuff there, yet a good WD can make or break a game.

So this is a petition to netball broadcasters and social media managers for netball worldwide to start showing the REAL stuff from our game.

Not only because it’s equally entertaining, but it’s also super valuable to learn from as players and coaches. And it sets a standard of what we think is ‘good netball’ (*cough*not just intercepts*) which helps all of us appreciate the work being done over the whole court.

Wide angle filming, commentators highlighting the off the play work, broadcasters getting different angles and putting some more varied clips on socials. 🙏

Thanks, love netballers everywhere x

There’s not much that’s more frustrating than getting a footwork call on the netball court. 😤

But you might be surprised that most footwork probs don’t actually come from not understanding the rules… they come from what’s happening juuuust before your feet hit the ground.

Let’s talk about how you can fix it, shall we? 😉

1. Build a stable base first.
If your centre of gravity is all over the place on landing, your body is going to correct that imbalance somehow and often that is an extra step you didn’t mean to take. To fix this, train single leg stability work, squats, glute bridges and lateral banded walks as well as landing mechanics like skater jumps, broad jumps, snap downs, lateral push off to single leg absorption… All of this matters more than you think!

2. Decel is an absolute must!
Before you ever add a ball, train the skill of slowing down with control. Sprint to a line and slow down with quick, short footsteps, think ‘quiet feet.’ Once that’s solid, practice by running onto to catch a ball. You want to be decelerating before the catch. If you catch first and try to stop second, you’ll take those extra steps whether you mean to or not.

3. Control your momentum, speedy!
If you’re still speeding forward fast when the ball arrives, your body will keep moving even after your feet have planted and that’s exactly how dragging or extra steps happen. Drills that work on controlling your speed on the approach will help here, but you can build this into pretty much any drill.

4. Balance BEFORE Release.
A little off balance on the catch is normal. But before you pass, get your base back under control. Practice this by setting up along a line and have someone pass the ball up to you, the goal is to catch it (and keep the ball in play,) stabilise and then pass back.

Coaches: these are genuinely trainable, drillable things, and they’re built into every single one of our Coaching Resources, comment the word FLAG and we’ll send you the link. 🚩

Players, all of this is built into our player strength and conditioning programs. Comment the word LEAP and let’s fix your footwork for good. 🔥