Key Takeaways

  • Inter-county camogie players cover around 6 km a match, with about 124 accelerations and 83 decelerations. Output drops in the second half.
  • 71.4% of camogie injuries are to the lower limb, led by the thigh and the knee. In one study over a third of injuries were recurrences, twice the rate seen in hurling.
  • Team training builds fitness but often falls short on sprinting. Small-sided games gave players 31% of the sprinting of a match, minute for minute.
  • Female athletes tear their ACL at around three times the rate of males in comparable sports. Programmes built on strength and landing cut that risk by about half in the research.
  • For most club players, two short gym sessions a week, planned around club nights and the match, is enough to see a difference.

Search for camogie strength training and most of what comes back is research papers and governing-body PDFs. Good ones, but not written for the player standing in a gym wondering what to do next. This guide takes that research and turns it into something you can use.

We’ll cover four things:

  1. What a camogie match asks of your body
  2. Where camogie players get hurt
  3. How to build a strength and speed programme around club training
  4. The questions players ask most

What a Camogie Match Asks of You

The best picture we have comes from GPS studies on inter-county teams. In one squad, players covered 6.13 km in a match, with 546 m of high-speed running and 256 m of sprinting, and hit a top speed of 7.22 m/s, about 26 km/h (Connors et al., 2022a). Another study on a different squad found around 14 sprints a game (Duggan et al., 2024).

The distance isn’t the whole story. The number of starts and stops is. Across 206 full-game files, players made 124 accelerations and 83 decelerations a match, and 40 of those accelerations were hard ones, above 3 m/s² (Duggan et al., 2025). Midfielders were busiest, with 139 accelerations. Full-forwards made the fewest, at 98.

Then there’s what happens as the game goes on. Accelerations fell from 66 in the first half to 58 in the second (Duggan et al., 2025). Measured in 5-minute blocks, sprint distance dropped by 59 to 100% from a player’s best block to her worst (Connors et al., 2022b).

So the picture is short, sharp and repeated. Lots of starts, stops and turns, a few longer runs, and a body that has to keep producing them when tired. That’s what we train for.

What Team Training Covers, and What It Misses

Team training does a lot of the work. It builds the running base, and game-based drills bring the decision-making that no gym session can.

Where it tends to fall short is top speed. In one inter-county squad, small-sided games gave players 127% of match running per minute but only 31% of the sprinting (Connors et al., 2022a). Peak speed in training was 6.66 m/s against 7.22 m/s in matches. The authors’ own conclusion: getting players to match-play peak speeds in training “should be a priority”.

That gap matters for more than speed. Regular exposure to near-top-speed running, above 90% of your max, is one of the ways we look after hamstrings through the season (Duggan et al., 2022). If the only time you hit top speed is in a match, your hamstrings are getting their biggest load with the least preparation.

This is where your own training fits in. The gym and a bit of pitch work fill what team training misses.

Where Camogie Players Get Hurt

The main prospective study followed 62 inter-county players from three teams through a championship season (Buckley and Blake, 2018). A few things stand out:

  • 26.4 injuries per 1,000 match hours, over six times the training rate
  • 71.4% of injuries were to the lower limb. Thigh 23.8%, knee 19%
  • Hamstring strains and Achilles tendon problems were the most common single injuries
  • Sprinting caused 19% of injuries and turning or cutting 14.3%
  • 38.1% were recurrences, more than twice the 17% seen in hurling

It’s a small study over 11 weeks, so the exact percentages will move as more research comes in. But the pattern matches what we see across field sports: hamstrings, knees and ankles, and injuries that come back.

Players also carry a lot. In a survey of camogie players, 88.2% had been injured in the previous season (O’Connor et al., 2019). In another, 85% said they had kept playing while injured (O’Connor et al., reported in Duggan et al., 2020). That might be part of why so many injuries come back.

The ACL question

In the Buckley study, 9.6% of the players had already ruptured an ACL. Across comparable sports, female athletes tear their ACL at around three times the rate of males (Montalvo et al., 2019).

The good news is that this risk responds to training. Across the meta-analyses, programmes built on strength, landing and movement control cut ACL injuries in female athletes by about 50%, and non-contact ACL injuries by about 67% (Webster and Hewett, 2018). The effect was biggest when players started in their mid-teens (Myer et al., 2013).

That’s why landing, deceleration and single-leg strength sit in the base of every camogie programme we write, most weeks, not as an add-on.

Building the Programme

Four things we build into a camogie programme. The detail changes from player to player. The ideas stay the same.

1. Speed first, and fully recovered

Speed work goes early in the session, straight after the warm-up, while you’re fresh. The reps are short, under about 5 seconds, over 10 to 50 m (Duggan et al., 2020).

We want every rep fast, with full rest between them, about a minute for every 10 m you sprint. We don’t want short-rest sprints dressed up as speed work, because tired reps train fitness, not speed. Most of the work sits in the first 10 to 20 m, where camogie is decided, with a few longer build-ups where you get near top speed.

2. Hamstrings at length

Hamstrings are the headline muscle injury in Gaelic games. We look after them two ways: the sprinting itself, and strength work that loads the hamstring in a long position. Nordic curls and single-leg Romanian deadlifts both do that job, and the research on camogie recommends slow, heavy lowering work for the knee and hamstring (Duggan et al., 2022).

You’ll feel Nordics the next day early on. That settles within a couple of weeks.

3. Landing and braking

With 83 decelerations a match, braking is a skill worth training on purpose. The progression runs from controlled to reactive (Duggan et al., 2025):

  • New to jumping? Start with soft landings. Drop off a low box and land quietly, knee tracking over the toes. Once that’s clean, landings get bouncy and flow straight into the next jump.
  • Then add bounce. Pogos and small jumps on two feet, spending as little time on the ground as you can.
  • Then one leg. Hops on the same leg, then bounds from leg to leg.
  • Then planned cuts and stops, and finally stops you react to.

We’re looking for the knee to stay in line with the foot as you land and cut. We don’t want it caving inwards, because that’s the position the ACL struggles in (Duggan et al., 2020). Early on a lot of players will see the knee wobble a bit on single-leg landings. That’s normal, and it’s exactly what the training fixes.

If you’re newer to this, start at the low end and stay there until it’s clean (Duggan et al., 2020).

4. Strength on two legs and one

The main lift is usually a squat or a trap-bar deadlift, with single-leg work alongside it: split squats, step-ups, single-leg RDLs. The camogie recommendations call for both, to build strength and landing mechanics together (Duggan et al., 2020).

How strong is strong enough? For experienced female athletes, a back squat of about 1.6 times bodyweight has been suggested as a marker, with those below it potentially more exposed to lower-limb injury (Duggan et al., 2023). That figure comes from college athletes rather than Gaelic players specifically. That’s a long-term target, not a starting point. Most players get plenty of benefit well before it.

Fitting It Around Club Training

Most inter-county teams train on the pitch two or three times a week with a match at the weekend (Buckley and Blake, 2018). Club players are often similar. The gym has to fit around that, not compete with it.

A few rules of thumb for placing sessions:

  • The hardest gym session sits three or more days before a game.
  • A short, sharp session (a few starts, some jumps, lighter lifting) can sit two days out.
  • The day before and the day after a game are gym-free.

Here’s how that might look with a Sunday match and club training on Wednesday and Friday:

DaySession
MondayOff, or an easy walk and mobility
TuesdayGym A: speed, jumps, main strength lift
WednesdayClub training
ThursdayGym B: shorter, faster, lighter
FridayClub training
SaturdayOff
SundayMatch

If your club trains different nights, shift the gym days to keep that spacing. Some weeks it won’t line up, with a midweek game or a double fixture. Then the short session goes and the main one moves.

An example session

This is an example of Gym A for a player with a year or two of gym experience. A real programme is fitted to the player: training age, injuries, kit and the time of year all change it.

PartExerciseSets x reps
PrepMobility, a short split-stance hold, a few short bounds5 to 10 min
SpeedAccelerations, 10 to 20 m, about a minute’s rest per 10 m5 to 6 reps
JumpsBox drop landing into a countermovement jump3 x 3
Main liftTrap-bar deadlift3 x 4 to 5
Single legSplit squat3 x 6 each leg
HamstringNordic curl3 x 3 to 5
TrunkSide plank2 x 30 s each side

About 45 to 60 minutes. Seven lines. It doesn’t need more.

Through the Season

The emphasis shifts across the year, while the same four things stay in:

  • Off-season: more strength work, more volume, time to learn the lifts.
  • Pre-season: heavier and more specific, with more speed and jumping.
  • In-season: less volume, keep the intensity. Strength is worth holding on to through the season (Duggan et al., 2020), and speed stays in every week, just less of it.

We work in 4-week blocks: three weeks building, then a lighter week to let it land.

Don’t Skip the Warm-Up

The Camogie Association has its own injury prevention programme, and Activate and the GAA 15 do a similar job. In college Gaelic games players, the GAA 15 cut the injury rate by 66% (Schlingermann et al., 2018). Yet when camogie coaches were surveyed, only 13.4% had heard of the Camogie Injury Prevention Programme (O’Connor and Lacey, 2020).

If your team doesn’t do one, it’s worth asking. It takes 10 to 15 minutes and fits before training or a match. For how to structure your own, see our RAMP warm-up guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I lift weights during the season? Yes, with less volume. Two shorter sessions a week, placed away from games, is usually enough to hold on to strength and speed built in the off-season. Stopping completely tends to mean starting again every spring.

Is strength training safe for girls under 18? Strength training is well supported for teenagers when it’s supervised and technique comes first. The GAA’s own youth guidance starts with five movements: squat, hinge, plank, push-up and inverted row. And the ACL research suggests the mid-teens are when prevention work does the most good (Myer et al., 2013).

Should I train differently around my period? The research is mixed. The camogie recommendations floated adjusting training by cycle phase, while calling the evidence limited (Duggan et al., 2020). A later meta-analysis found strength barely affected by cycle phase, and the advice that followed was to track your cycle and symptoms rather than follow a fixed rule (Duggan et al., 2023). In practice: train as normal, and ease off on the days you feel rough. The Camogie Association’s Female Athlete Toolkit is a good place to start.

Is leaking during jumping or sprinting normal? It’s common: 61.6% of elite female Gaelic games players in one study reported it, most often when jumping or sprinting (Culleton-Quinn et al., 2024). Common doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. A pelvic health physiotherapist can help, and it’s worth raising early.

I’ve had an ACL reconstruction. Will I get back? Most players do. In a study of hurling and camogie players after ACL reconstruction, 89.5% returned to play, on average about 10.8 months after surgery (McAleese et al., 2025). Your surgeon and physio’s plan leads. Strength and landing work then carries on long after you’re back.

Want This Built for You?

This guide gives you the principles. If you’d rather have a programme written around your position, your injuries and your club schedule, that’s what Custom Programming does, delivered in your own training app.

Coaching a camogie squad? We also put together programme packs for club and county teams.

Related reading: The Physical Demands of Hurling, Hamstring Injuries in GAA, The Plyometric Training Guide for GAA Players.

References

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  2. Connors P, Browne D, Earls D, Fitzpatrick P, Rankin P. Comparing the current training running demands of elite camogie players to competitive match-play. Sports. 2022a;10:113.
  3. Connors P, Earls D, Browne D, Fitzpatrick P, Rankin P. The positional and temporal running demands of elite inter-county camogie match play across 5-min intervals. Sport Sci Health. 2022b;18:1331–1337.
  4. Culleton-Quinn E, et al. Int Urogynecol J. 2024. doi:10.1007/s00192-024-05893-2.
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