Training for Rugby
New sports science findings to help you improve your strength, speed and agility on the rugby field. A must have for every serious player and coach!
"Training For Rugby was extremely beneficial. My training is now more structured and focused towards competition." - Finbarr McCarthy
Dear Athlete
Did you know that 2005 marked the tenth anniversary of professional Rugby Football Union?
It's hard to believe that only a decade ago rugby was a sport still dominated by big, beer-drinking amateur players. Today that ethos is long gone, as the sport has been catapulted into an era of super fit athletes.
No other sport, in terms of fitness and coaching, has made such major strides in the last decade. Yet so many of the training and conditioning techniques now being used by professional players and their coaches have yet to percolate further down the sporting ranks. Understandably, perhaps, those at the very top are hardly likely to volunteer the secrets that underlie their successes on the field…
So I'm pleased to announce the latest addition to Peak Performance's library of sports books, Training for Rugby. And to offer it to you today at a special online discount
Because Training for Rugby brings you the advanced training techniques used by top professional rugby players and their coaches. It explains how you, too, can achieve the advanced level of conditioning you need to play at your very best. You'll find out how to attain higher levels of strength, speed and agility - without over-training or suffering a debilitating sports injury. The last thing any athlete wants is to be kept off the field on the day of the Big Game - just when your team needs you most.
This brand new 86-page report presents you with a rare opportunity to assess the latest sports science research on rugby training and conditioning for yourself - and decide how best to integrate it into your daily and weekly programmes.
Read Training for Rugby today and here are some of the facts you'll learn:
- How can coaches adapt aerobic and anaerobic training to meet the needs of players in different positions on the field?
- What's the best way to enhance your ability to turn at high speed without injury?
- Which exercises specifically enhance a player's ability to avoid tackles - or break straight through them if need be?
- How can rugby forwards make sure they get maximum benefit from time spent in the weights room?
- Which forms of pre-match conditioning are most responsible for sports injury - and should therefore be kept to a minimum?
- What's the best way to adapt weight training programmes for youth players?
Because you're signed up on our Peak Performance web site to receive our weekly email newsletter, you qualify to receive this workbook at a greatly reduced price when you order your copy today. What's more, postage & packing is free.
And you've got 30 days to decide whether or not you want to keep the book or return it for a full refund. No quibbles. You have my personal guarantee of that.
Yours sincerely
Sylvester Stein
Chairman: Peak Performance
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Rugby Forwards and Backs: what's the best way to train for your specific position?
Elite rugby players, and their coaches, know that not all players should train the same way - at least not if they're aiming for peak performance. Instead, rugby players should train to reflect the varying energy demands of their field positions. However, before we can do that, we need a better understanding of what is physically required for certain positions. Only then can we devise more suitable and more effective training programmes.
Sports scientists classify team sports like rugby as 'intermittent sprint sports' because, in the course of a match, players will alternate between fast running or sprinting, walking, jogging and standing. Rugby matches are a bit like random interval workouts - except that they also involve non-running activities, such as rucking, mauling and scrummaging.
When rugby players perform these high-intensity activities, their anaerobic system provides the required energy, while the aerobic system predominates during the low-intensity activities. If the high-intensity periods are short (less than 10 seconds) and recovery times between efforts are relatively long (60 seconds plus) then the phosphocreatine (PCr) system will be the key source of anaerobic energy. This is the simplest and most rapid means of energy production, in which phosphate (donated by phosphocreatine) and ADP combine to make ATP - the body's primary energy currency and supplier to all cells. During the low-intensity periods, the aerobic system will replenish PCr stores, ready for the next high-intensity effort.
So from the physiological point of view, there are two interesting questions about rugby:
- What are the ratios of high-intensity to low-intensity activity?
- How does the work:rest ratio vary with player position?
The first chapter of Training for Rugby addresses this issue in detail, drawing on an unpublished recent time and motion study of 29 professional rugby union players who were filmed during the course of eight professional 'Super 12' matches in New Zealand.
Players were put into one of four positional groups: front row forwards (props and locks, or numbers 1, 3, 4 & 5); back row forwards (hooker, flankers and no 8, or numbers 2, 6, 7 & 8); inside backs (fly half and centres, or numbers 10, 12 & 13); and outside backs (wingers and full back, or numbers 11, 14 & 15). Then the amount of time they spent in each category of movement was analysed along with the frequency and average time of each individual activity.
The research findings are illuminating. They reveal precisely what kind of training programmes better suit forwards and backs respectively, and why. And you learn how best to train the anaerobic and aerobic systems to support the requirements of each player on the field.
The result: a rugby team that contains no weak points; all fifteen players have the specific anaerobic and aerobic reserves they need to last the full 80 minutes on the field. And even longer if need be.
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Power training for Forwards: how to get maximum benefit out of your gym sessions
All forwards in search of that elusive extra edge in strength and power look to resistance training in one form or another.
Often they think they need a new exercise to sharpen them up. But what they may not realise is that considerable improvements in training outcomes can be achieved without changing the content of their routines, simply by altering the sequence of exercises and varying the rest times between exercises.
In Training for Rugby we set out concrete, practical examples of how different sessions can be devised with specific outcomes in mind by changing the sequence and rest times between sets. All the sessions are based on just five exercises: bench press, bench throw, bench pull, the squat and the squat jump. And they take into account the different needs of the experienced and less-experienced weight trainer.
So you learn how to identify the optimal amount of recovery needed between exercise sets, how important is the order in which exercises are performed, and how best to factor in the impact of overall fatigue when designing a power training programme.
The chapter also includes easy-to-use tables that set out power and strength training sessions that you can incorporate in your own training programme, or that of your team.
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Speed/Agility Training: are you able to break through those tackles?
Think how Brian O'Driscoll is able to swerve around opponents from seemingly standing starts, while Matt Giteau has the uncanny ability of looking to throw a pass one way, then cutting through a gap at a completely different angle. And what about Joe Rokocoko - his awesome try-rate is largely down to his swerving running out wide whilst moving at full pace.
These abilities are a combination of the well-known concept, agility, and the lesser known concept, rotational power. Developing these specialist skills relies not just on innate ability and technique, but also on specialist conditioning drills and methods. Players and their coaches need pay particular attention to such skills as turning, turning to sprint, turning and passing, and turning to kick the ball, from both stationary and moving positions.
So Training for Rugby contains a detailed discussion of the speed/power/agility requirements of the rugby player, and how best to work specifically on these.
We start by looking at core strength, something that is crucial to the player who seeks to avoid tackles and deliver power where it is most needed depending on the threat being faced by the player at any one point in time. Because more is needed than merely the sit-up and crunch - though these two basic exercises undeniably have their place - we identify two exercises that are better at developing more dynamic-specific core strength. Then we examine the agility requirements of a top rugby player, and set out a range of drills designed to develop this specific sporting skill.
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Multidirectional Speed: You may be blisteringly fast in a straight line, but how quick are your turns?
Convention has it that athletes who are fast when travelling in a straight line will be fast in any direction. However, research suggests that this assumption may be false. We present the findings of recent research that concluded that while straight line sprinting training improves straight line sprinting performance, this increased zip did not translate into speedier turns. Indeed, the researchers discovered that the more complex the change of direction/turning task, the less the transference there was from straight-line speed training.
It seems that the ability to rotate the body at speed is a highly specific skill requiring specialist conditioning, and that being fast in a straight line is just not enough. So Training for Rugby includes several exercises designed specifically to condition a player's 'rotational muscles'. They're just what you need to 'blow off' the opposition and score that match-winning try!
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Weight Training for Youngsters: how can coaches best help future stars develop their potential?
While parents and coaches continue to express concern about the suitability of strength training for children and adolescents, there is mounting evidence that it is both safe and beneficial. Indeed, young people can experience the same benefits from strength training as adults.
Interestingly, relative strength gains from resistance training in prepubescent subjects are of similar magnitude to those seen in adolescents, although the latter seem to exhibit greater absolute strength gains. Improvements in various motor performances have been observed following resistance training in children. These include vertical jump, standing long jump, sprint times and agility run times.
Resistance training is also been recommended as a preconditioning aid for youngsters. Habitual levels of physical activity in children are declining, reflecting changes in modern lifestyles. As a result, the physical condition of many children leaves them ill prepared for competitive sport. Resistance training offers a means to prepare them for participation in other sports and recreational activities, thereby also preventing overuse injuries.
This injury prevention aspect of youth resistance training is an important consideration for young athletes - particularly rugby players. Strengthening muscles via resistance training will increase the forces they are capable of sustaining, making them more resistant to injury, while improved motor control and coordination will also improve balance and joint stability.
In collision sports like rugby, physical size is a determining factor for participation at higher levels. Young players are naturally predisposed to - and selected for - particular playing positions on the basis of their anthropometric (height and body mass) characteristics and strength capabilities.
As a consequence, for young players who aspire to play at the highest level, participation in strength training is no longer optional. Without experience of systematic strength training, young players are unlikely to have developed the physical characteristics likely to recommend them to scouts and coaches in the regional academy system.
Of course any weight training programme for youngsters has to be carefully constructed, and its delivery overseen by adequately-qualified staff. Because of this, our chapter on strength-training for young people includes comprehensive guidelines for anyone seeking to provide a weight-training programme to youngsters, taking into account both the chronological and biological ages of the individual children concerned.
We also set out, in the form of easy-to-read tables, several sample workouts designed for the different requirements of the beginner, the intermediate and the experienced weight trainer.
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Sports Injuries: how do you go about minimising the risk?
Rugby League is an international collision sport with an elevated risk of injury, compared with many other popular international sports. Some investigations have indicated that injury rates in rugby-league play are as high as 1.4 serious injuries per game, and the frequency of injury in the sport seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.
Rugby-league injury rates appear to be high not just during competition but also during training activities. As a result rugby coaches and athletic trainers have searched for ways to minimise the risk of injury during preparations for matches.
At the same time, the use of skill-based conditioning games has become increasingly popular during rugby workouts. The intensity of these skill-based games can be quite high, and - given that elevated intensity is a demonstrated predictor of injury - it is feared that the inclusion of the conditioning games might be raising the risk of rugby injury during training.
Are the skill-based games really risky, and which training activities actually are the major culprits when it comes to injury induction during rugby workouts?
Training for Rugby reports on the findings of a year-long research study conducted in Queensland, Australia, on 60 semi-professional rugby players. The study looked at eight different training activities and how these influenced the risk of getting hurt. The findings were quite unexpected! Our report tells you which exercise drills and sessions are low risk - and which are best avoided or kept to a minimum.
In the second part of our section on sports injury we discuss how you can adjust your training programme to arrive at the optimum balance between training and recovery. The chapter includes full details of two weekly programmes for a rugby player in season.
Details of your special online discount offer
As a registered member of our Peak Performance web site, you qualify for a copy of Training for Rugby at a special discount. Place your order today and you pay just $39.99 (GBP £19.99) instead of the full price of $39.99. You save 33%.
Training for Rugby is the latest in a series of special reports from Peak Performance, the sports science newsletter. This book is not available elsewhere.
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