Rubgy Training Exercises

[ali4390]

Afternoon all,

I am looking at getting back into rugby. Played all through school and a bit at uni but haven't played for about 4 years, however, having moved to a new city recently I've decided to take it back up. In all honesty I could do with gettng a bit bigger and vastly improving my fitness as I am currently 6'1 and weigh about 75 kilos, however would like to get to about 85-90 kilos. I will be looking to play down the wing so don't need to be massive, but it would be nice to be able to break tackles rather than just skip round them. It's worth highlighting that I will be aiming to start pre-season training in July so I have until then to try and make some changes.

I am assuming that the best exercies will be ones that help explosive power eg squats, cleans etc but what else should I be doing? Admittedly my legs are not as strong as they should be as I always concentrated on upper body when I was younger. Am I right in thinking that more weight/less reps is the way to go to build bulk as well as power? And what sort of diet should I be looking at?

In terms of fitness, I know that interval training will be the way to go. I play 5 a side football twice a week which has improved my fitness a lot recently but what specific exercies will give me long term duration whilst being able to have short fast bursts (no sexual innuendos please!)?

Sorry for all the questions, I have been out of touch with playing for some time and would like to be as preparesd as possible to avoid getting completely panned. Any advice, tips, links or words of wisdom will be much appreciated!

[DannyScene]

When I played I was a forward so it was a lot of core muscle stuff for me and legs, lots and lots of legs.
I've done a bit of googling and found this link for you, seems the guy wants to know how what workouts to do to be a good winger so might be useful to you, I haven't had time to read it all though

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=900...

[ali4390]

Yeah I had a scan through there yesertday and there was some helpful info but not a huge amount. I was kind of hoping there are some rugby players ni here who are already following a workout?

[BigBob]

Can't help a lot - when I was playing it was at Tight-head and my regime was simple. 20/14/1

No more than 20 fags a day, no more than 14 pints at a sitting and no more than 1 cow for dinner

Seriously though - why not go along to the local club now and talk to the trainer/coaching staff now. They'll know what levels you'll need to start a good pre-season and I'm sure would be happy to help.


BB

[oj121]

There was a MH issue with 1/2p a few months ago going through his gym routine. It was all high weight explosive stuff really on a high tempo circuit if I remember correctly.

Lots of core and agility work required too! Find a balance that works for you mate and if you have the time spread it out and focus on certain areas.

If your core is decent and ur fit enough to run flat out a few times a game surely thats enough for a local club level winger?

[Bosshogg76]

I am going to get shot down here but anyway:

You want have stated that you want to put on a 10kg or so. I would personally not put a figure on your gains, but train till you find a point that you find you are playing effectively. I got hung up with how much i should be weighing and not how effective I was being around the field. The consequence was that one season I started playing at 100kg at 5"11 I thought this was great, the problem was that although I was quite strong etc, I was nowhere as effective as i was the previous season, when I was 5kg lighter.

For fitness look how the game is played, short periods of intense activity coupled with an ability to produce this over an 80 minute period.

I'm not going to write down what you should do, as I have never met you, have no idea what condition you are now etc.

But exercises to look at are:

Strength work

Squats.
Dead Lifts.
Bent Rows. (Bar Bell)
Shoulder Press.
Pull ups.
Core (Planks, wood choppers etc)
Bench Press.


Power:

Cleans,
Hanging Cleans
Thrusters (the you tube link below shows Haskell doing them)
Plyometric bounding

Power/Speed Endurance:

Rowing Machine 500 metre sprints with 1 min off. (The new Concept2's have this as a built in program)
1 Min Running Pyramids (remember suicides?)

Injury Prevention:

Rotator Cuff Exercises
One leg Balances on gel pad, half Bozo

Some of this may help, some may not, the one bit I can't emphasis enough is the injury prevention work, incorporate these into your warm up routine.

and here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKI-J11lGqk

oh and just to add this might also help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCJpqqHtl3o&fea...

[GranderTransit]

ali4390 said:

Yeah I had a scan through there yesterday and there was some helpful info but not a huge amount. I was kind of hoping there are some rugby players on here who are already following a workout?

The downside to following a plan that most rugby players are currently following is that they will be out of sync to where you are. Are you looking to return this season and play or are you looking to playing next season?

My advice, would be find a club and start playing / training now. Get involved in the club and start up with skills work. You are not going to be able to compete with the players, at the moment, in strength or conditioning.

Write a gym plan that takes you from now until your first real training sessions (not summer fitness training). How long have you got?

Next analyse what your current weaknesses are. Do you spend quantities of time sat down? What is your injury history? This is your prehab work. stty expression but it is the work you want to get done early so that you don't waste you hard work and gains you have made by picking up an injury that you could have prevented early on. This area is not really sport specific work, simply turning you into a functioning athlete.

Next. What position are you playing. There is a vast difference in requirements for all positions on a rugby pitch. What movements are you going to be required to produce? Over head lift for a line out? scrummaging? Or are you a back and speed agility work will have a greater benefit? You are looking to get strong for the specific functions you play on the pitch. Getting strong in the hips will allow you to run fast and be agile as well.

Finally have a look at the intensities and workload of your position. A back is likely to have a longer working stint followed by a longer rest period. Where as a forward may have a shorter work and shorter rest. You want to create a conditioning plan that mimics the work rate you are going to need to put in. Quite often this conditioning is carried out on the field during summer training (this is all that we did as a school boy when I was playing). Chat to your coaching team. If they are running these sessions I wouldn't waste your other training time on this as they'll have it covered.

WRT adding weight. You may well be correct that being 90kg is appropriate. But don't have this as a target. Create a plan that covers all of the above and you will add muscle and therefore weight. Heavier muscle, that doesn't also allow you to perform for your sport is beyond useless.

As a final note. Try to avoid pushing too hard to get fit for the start of the season. An under trained athlete will perform better than an over trained athlete. No one will expect you to be the fittest on the pitch in your first game. It will take time to gain true fitness, possibly even a couple of seasons.

[BigBen]

I would echo the advice of joining your local club now, you will probably get some game time before the end of the season which will also serve as a good indicator of where your fitness needs work.

Our fitness coach does a lot of sprint work with 'down and ups' at each end of the sprint, this is good as it is representative of getting up after a tackle then run to the next breakdown. Squats also figured heavily in the exercise regime.

Ben

[n_const]

Thanks to all of these rugby threads lately me and a friend are going training at a local club next week super excited but also a little worried lol. Definately not past it at a grand age of 23 but have never played rugby properly only ever in school.

[ali4390]

Thanks for all the answers. I had arranged to go and join in at training next week but I took a heavy knock on my knee last night at football, so don't think I'll be playing for a couple of weeks now !