Middle management can cop a bad rap in the corporate world – as a popular hangout for aspiring work-shirkers, etc. But on a netball court, these staffers are the heavy-lifters. Fire the ball to their shooters and their work is done. Get that pass wrong, catching or throwing – even by millimetres – and there’s the possibility of a heartbreaking trip down the floor for their rivals.

Australia’s midcourt has been in good hands the last few years, thanks in part to Sydneysider Chelsea Pitman. The 181cm wing attack’s debut Trans-Tasman ANZ Championship season in 2010 was cut short by one of those wretched ACL injuries, but she was able to bounce back in the best possible fashion, proving an important part of the Queensland Firebirds’ recording-breaking undefeated run to the title in ’11. That campaign sky-rocketed Pitman to national team duties, and she hasn’t looked back, collecting 12 Test caps since.

By now it’s an experienced head that Pitman, a nursing university student away from the court, carries around on her  24-year-old shoulders. There are always plenty of unknowns in netball, but one thing she knows for sure coming into a  campaign of seven Tests for the Diamonds (five against the Kiwis and two against Malawi) is that she won’t be donning her gold skirt on game night without a fight from her ultra-competitive national squad-mates. Here, she takes Inside Sport through her training commitments for her domestic team, those mighty Queensland Firebirds.

MAD MONDAY

“We’ll start the week with a strength gym session; Monday is an upper-body weights day. We’ll do our warm-up, or pre-hab, which we also call the animal warm-up, because our trainer  Brynley Abad makes us do ‘spidermans’, ‘caterpillars’, ‘hurdles’ and the ‘monkey’ – we literally have to warm up like monkeys; get down and pretty much act like monkeys, make noises and everything ... It’s entertaining for us, anyway.

“Then we head into our supersets, which will be incline dumbbell press, with ... It’s always a push and a pull with our supersets. So we’re doing a pushing exercise and then a pulling exercise. Everyone has a different program. Everything is individualised depending on where you need improvements.

“Personally, because I can put on strength and muscle very easily, I only have to do three sets. Our trainer always wants heavier lifting, so we’re doing three sets of three-to-five reps. Bryn wants us fatiguing on the fifth one, so if we can lift six, we’re lifting too light. He literally wants you struggling to lift it every time. Our supersets might include an incline bench, then a seated row, then a normal bench press with chin ups, and then a bench pull with a bent-over or prone row.”