How Brodie Grundy Locks In At The End Of A Long Season

How Brodie Grundy locks in at the end of a long season

The Sydney Swans' season may be all but over, but Brodie Grundy is still giving 100 per cent every week

WHEN MEN’S HEALTH visits Sydney Swans HQ, a high-performance training facility within the Moore Park sporting precinct, the team has three games left in the 2025 home-and-away season and virtually no shot at cracking the top eight. Still, the atmosphere is not one of defeat.

The Swans’ loss at the hands of the Brisbane Lions in the 2024 grand final dealt a crushing blow to the team’s morale, inflicting a wound that hadn’t entirely healed by the time the 2025 season began. The Swans lost eight of their first 12 games and looked like the shell of the side that cruised to the minor premiership just one season earlier. Then something clicked, and the Swans have now won seven of their last nine games.

The sudden energy shift can be put down to the Swans’ leadership group elevating their level of play. Brodie Grundy, after an inconsistent start to the year, has since re-established himself as one of the game’s best ruckmen. That didn’t happen by accident. On the day of our visit to Swans HQ, Grundy is in the facility, on his day off, getting in another workout during a launch event for the Nike Metcon 10.

“When you talk about finals being out of the equation, I acknowledge that that’s the reality, but I’m not letting it affect my process,” he tells Men’s Health after wrapping up a workout. “I try to focus on things that are in my control and reset every moment. In game, if I make a mistake, I need to reset quickly and not let it get to me. I do the same thing at the start of the week whether we’re coming off a win or a loss, I reset, and I find that I’m being a lot more present as a result.”

Grundy attributes his resurgence in form to focusing more heavily on mindset. He’s taken up journalling and sees it as a way to externalise his thoughts while not giving a voice to the more negative ones. It’s part of a renewed focus on self-development and self-improvement.

According to Grundy, he owes his recent good form to the practise. “Throughout this year I’ve had periods where I’ve been inconsistent. Journalling holds me in good stead and keeps me focused,” he says. “Really bolstering my mindset this year has been something that’s enabled me to get back to playing my best footy.”

It has now been 13 years since Grundy was drafted with the 18th pick in the 2012 draft, and with experience has come wisdom in regards to training. “Now that I’m older, I try not to throw the kitchen sink at every training session like I used to when I was younger,” he says. “It’s important to get away from the club sometimes and recover mentally as well as physically. Sydney is a great city to do that in, whether it’s going down for a swim at Bondi or Bronte, or just getting out in the sunshine during winter, it’s a great way to be able to switch off and add some perspective to your outcomes.”

That said, when he does train, Grundy still trains hard. As do all the Swans. “We’re in here quite a bit,” he says. “We usually do four or five sessions per week.”

How Brodie Grundy and the Sydney Swans train

“In terms of strength sessions, we do our main lower-body day early in the week and an upper-body day midweek,” Grundy says. “Then we do a prep session the day before a game. That’s optional, not all players do it, but I do it because it helps me feel light and fast, gets my nervous system activated. We do one more session as a team called a ‘power session’, which is all about building that power and explosiveness.”

Not every team trains like this. According to Grundy, a three-club veteran, different teams have different structures and systems, with different areas of emphasis. “Sydney is different to Melbourne and Melbourne is different to Collingwood,” he says. “Melbourne is really big on volume of training. It was a lot of running and doing a lot of everything, it was brutal. Here, we appreciate running volume, but we spend more time working on things like change of direction, doing shuttles, things like that.”

Grundy and Taylor Adams during a workout in the Nike Metcon 10

To handle that workload, having the right gear is paramount. Luckily for Grundy, Nike are a Premier Partner of the Swans, so he has access to all of the brand’s innovations, like the Metcon 10, which is the reason for our meeting. “I really like them so far,” Grundy says. “They’re light, they’re durable and they’re pretty stable. The last few times I’ve worn Metcons I thought they felt quite rigid, but the Metcon 10 feels way more flexible.”

“Having a training shoe like the Metcon 10 allows us as athletes to show up in what is a pretty dynamic strength and conditioning space,” Grundy continues. “You know, one day we’re doing some heavy lifts like leg presses and deadlifts where we need that stability, and the next we’re doing jumps and working on explosiveness and we need that flexibility and lightweight feeling.”

Nike Metcon 10 Brodie Grundy

Three days after our visit to Swans HQ, the team takes on the Brisbane Lions in a rematch of the 2024 grand final. For the Swans, it’s effectively a dead rubber, with their finals fate out of their hands. For the Lions, the result could decide whether or not they finish inside the all-important top four.

The Swans ultimately exact a measure of revenge and come out on top. Grundy plays a starring role, kicking his sixth goal of the season before going off with an injury in the final stanza. It’s a gutsy performance that knocks Brisbane out of the top four and proves that the Swans – and Grundy – still have plenty of bite.

By Cayle Reid

Cayle Reid is Associate Content Editor at Men's Health Australia, covering everything from developments in fitness and nutrition to the latest innovations in performance gear. When he's not tracking down a celebrity's fitness routine or putting a new product to the test, he spends his time staving off injury on long runs, surfing and staying up late watching sports in incompatible time zones.

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