Why is Matthew Lloyd paddling down the Maribyrnong river in a canoe - shouldn't he be training? There would have been some puzzled on-lookers last Wednesday, when the Essendon spearhead, along with other teammates that included Jason Johnson, Mark Mercuri, Sean Wellman and Andrew Welsh were paddling down the Maribyrnong. In actual fact the players were training. After the success of the electives program during the 2002 / 2003 pre-season, fitness coach John Quinn has brought the program back.

The Essendon players were able to select one elective out of the five on offer - Aikido, Canoeing, Running, Triathlon and Swimming. Each week they will participate in the elective and work on developing skills in that area. Quinn said the philosophy behind the electives program is that players get an opportunity to try another sport / activity that they might otherwise not get a chance to do.

""The electives program gives the players a break from normal training and keeps them mentally fresh. It also gives the fitness staff the chance to identify a weakness an individual might have and work on it. For example, a player may need to improve their upper body strength and canoeing is a good opportunity to do this,"" Quinn said.

Similar to last pre-season, players participating in the Triathlon and Running groups will compete in a number of races / carnivals. ""Last year the running group competed in the Rye Gift and Ringwood Gift. The players thoroughly enjoyed the competition side of things and it is something we will do again this pre-season. The other elective groups will also do different challenges at the completion of the program to test the progress they have made,"" Quinn said.

The BomberLand website will bring you more updates about the electives program over the pre-season.

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