Behind every successful athlete is a dedicated support team working tirelessly to help them reach their peak performance. For the NSW Swifts, it's not just about playing netball—it's about ensuring every player has the physical capabilities to thrive in the demanding world of elite sports and the skills to perform efficiently and effectively.
One of the key figures in ensuring the team’s physical readiness is James Begley, the Head of Strength and Conditioning.
“Strength and conditioning is building your physical capacities to be able to execute your skill. I like to think of it as a pyramid. It’s the base of the pyramid because the way you execute skills on court, are based on how you move, if you can't run or move well, then you can't build your skills on top of that.”
As the team progresses through the pre-season, Begley emphasises the importance of building a strong foundation.
“At the moment, we’re very strength-focused, building our base and ensuring that we have the capacity to tolerate our training load,” Begley says. “The goal is to make sure the players are physically prepared to take on the rigours of the season.”
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As the season kicks into full gear, the focus shifts. The team moves from foundational strength focus into more power based movements to ensure they feel strong and powerful and at their best.
In the fast-paced game of netball, two key skills that are essential are running and jumping. Begley explains how strength and conditioning plays a pivotal role in refining these skills.
For running, Begley explains that Swifts players cover significant distances depending on their position and playing style.
“We’re running a lot in the game, so it’s looking at the difference between positions and game style, then filling in the gaps and making a weapon out of our high-level athletes,” he says. "The goal is to ensure athletes are efficient in how they transition across the court, moving with speed and agility."
When it comes to jumping, which is crucial in many netball positions, Begley works on exercises that focus on force absorption then being able to reapply it into different directions. This is done predominantly in the gym, rather than court as we can bias what sort of adaptation we have. Regardless of position, we want everyone to be explosive and powerful, it just may look slightly different for our shooters vs our mid courters.
To monitor the players’ physical progress, Begley uses a variety of tests, including the Netball Bronco, the team's main conditioning test.
“The Bronco test is a six-minute running test,” Begley explains. “We start on the baseline, run to the 10m line and back, the 20m line and back, rest, and then at the two-minute mark, you go 10, 20, 30 three times, then at the 4 minute mark, 10,20,30, three times. This is something the Diamonds are doing, it’s a great snapshot of where the players are at for netball-specific conditioning.”
Other tests, like sprint times and jump testing on force plates, are also part of the assessment process.
“We also do 5 and 10m sprint times, and the players are all fairly consistent – there is only 0.3 of a second difference between first and last with Lambden, Smith and O'Shannassy currently leading the pack,” Begley adds.
“We also track their vertical jump using force plates, including counter-movement jumps and squat jumps, to measure power and strength.”
Additionally, players undergo strength testing using equipment like the trap bar deadlift to measure their 1RM (one-rep max) and determine their relative strength in relation to body weight.
Begley brings a wealth of experience to his role, having worked across a variety of sports including volleyball, rugby, and basketball before joining the Swifts—a team widely regarded as one of the premier women’s sporting squads in Australia.
“The team is very professional,” Begley says. “The standards of success are really high.”
Begley’s strength and conditioning program ensures that the players have the physical capacities to excel on the court. Whether it’s fine-tuning an athlete’s running technique or building explosive jumping power, Begley is a significant member of the Swifts high performance team of experts who are behind every Swifts player working tirelessly to support them in their high-performance journey.
NSW Swifts
