An insight into the role of Head Strength & Conditioning Coach, Tom Laumets

18/05/2022

Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at the Sandringham Zebras, Tom Laumets, talks about his journey from player to coach and his role at the Club!

If you think you recognise our Strength and Conditioning Coach, then that’s probably because you do!

Tom Laumets previously spent 5 years as a Zebras player before he jumped at the opportunity to take a permanent coaching role at the Club.

Outside of the footy world, Tom has always had an interest in strength training and keeping fit, an interest that saw him complete his undergraduate in Exercise and Sports Science at Deakin University and then a Master’s Degree in Strength and Conditioning from ECU, WA.

Tom’s role at Sandringham is to take care of the strength, conditioning and rehab of the players. This starts in pre-season where he needs to make sure he can get the players as fit and as strong as possible to prepare them for the year ahead. He’ll work closely with Head Coach, Jake Batchelor, to make sure the players are getting the correct training loads leading up to round 1. 

"One of the challenges with this aspect of the role is that each year the Club has a mix of players, many coming from a range of different local clubs all with different fitness programs, so I need to take this into account and get the players up to speed as quickly, but safely, as possible," Laumets explains.

On top of this, Tom always has some players in rehab, where he will need to individualise a program for them to recover whilst getting them back up to match fitness.

A new gym program goes up on the whiteboard in the gym each month for the players, along with pre-season and Christmas break running programs. There was even a running block for the players to complete during the bye week.

If Tom isn’t at Sandringham, then you can probably find him down at St Kilda Football Club, where he works with the St Kilda Academy as well as the AFL boys. 

The Academy squad is made up of next-gen AFL prospects. They are still young so Tom’s role here is to educate them on the importance of recovery and conditioning and how they can put their best foot forward in this aspect.

With the Saints boys, Tom focuses on more of the strength side of their training as well as some rehab.

Between the two clubs it adds up to a full time role for Tom, who loves his job and says it doesn’t even feel like he’s at work most of the time. If you asked him if he misses playing footy then he’ll tell you that every now and then he does, but then he remembers he’s doing what he loves for a living. He still gets to kick the footy around with the boys at training and he’s part of the whole culture of the Club, and the best part - he doesn’t have to wake up sore and bruised on a Sunday morning after a game! "I'm very happy with my role, I reckon I have a good mix going on at the moment," says Laumets.

Tom was originally able to get placement at the Club, whilst still studying and playing, with previous Zebras Strength and Conditioning Coach, Steve Forcone, who is now at the Saints. He completed placement throughout his 4th and 5th years of playing, then halfway through the 5th year Steve asked him if he wanted to take over from him, but it would mean he would have to stop playing footy. After weighing it up, he realised that this was a good opportunity for him and he had got all that he wanted to get out of his playing career.

Laumets spoke of his transition early days from player to coach, "Initially I was slightly nervous because it’s always hard to tell your mates what to do, and I'd wonder if they were going to respond or just give me donuts".

These nerves were quickly put aside as the respect he built in 5 years as a player translated to respect as a coach, which gave him confidence and it was all pretty seamless from there. 

In his spare time, Tom’s not opposed to a bit of Netflix, with Peaky Blinders being one of the favourites. One of his not-so-guilty pleasures is being a self proclaimed ‘Marvel Nut’, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to find him at a midnight Marvel cinema premiere.

Tom is keen to spend some more time between the two clubs in the future, an alignment  that he says is working really well, exemplified when the AFL boys come back to the VFL and are really buying into the team structure. It’s obvious that he’s passionate about what he does, is a great asset to the Club and is really enjoying it.

Written by Mason Bursill - Sandringham Football Club Media