The Pole headed the Banner’s strength & conditioning this season, following past All-Ireland successes with Tipperary and Galway
The Pole headed the Banner’s strength and conditioning this season, following past All-Ireland successes with Tipperary and Galway
In conversation he will say things like “the way hurling used to be”, unconsciously but in context. Beyond his short experience, how many reference points did he have? He understands, though, that he has been part of the most convulsive decade the game has known. In hurling’s age of Citius, Altius, FortiusLast month, Kirszenstein was the strength and conditioning coach for the All-Ireland hurling champions for the third time in eight years: Tipperary in 2016, Galway a year later and now Clare.
Lukasz Kirszenstein with Henry Shefflin during their time with the Galway senior hurling panel. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho “Believe it or not it was hard for me to break into strength and conditioning. Someone told me once, pretty abruptly, ‘You’re never going to get into strength and conditioning because your qualification is not recognised here.’ It was from a top university in Poland. I said, like, ‘We will see.’”
From one team sport to another, he reckons about 75 per cent of strength and conditioning occupies common ground. The last quarter is full of variables. So he needed to learn about hurlers. At the end of 2013, Kirszenstein took a chance. He quit his job in the hotel and trusted in his ability to attract clients. At the beginning of 2014, Tipp were the only team on his books; by the end of the year, he had added the Ireland women’s rugby team. They were amateurs too, doing blocks of training in regional pods.
“We have a shelf life in S&C. In professional sport it’s a little bit different. In amateur sport, I think there is a best-before date.” “In conditioning work, one of the rules is to progressively overload, but not all the time. If you’re doing it all the time, it’s probably overkill. “I wouldn’t be jumping the gun if I saw something out of sorts, but it’s a conversation starter. It’s not a real science because it’s a subjective marker – you don’t have data for it, you just have a number that the player came up with. But it does help. That’s one of those layers that gives you that extra bit of, ‘Right, where are we at?’”
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