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Developing Powerful Athletes for Rugby – Olympic Lifting Prerequisites

October 18th, 2011 · Power, Strength

Developing rugby players into rugby athletes is not a simple or easy task.  There are a number of factors of fitness you may want to work on before you move to these Olympic lifts and having a really good foundation in strength training will help enormously.

Having said that, there are a number of ways of training strength and power…just remember strength and power has become the dominant characteristic of fitness that the modern day rugby player has taken on…but Olympic lifting is a skill that has to be learned and mastered, much like different aspects of rugby skills.

It’s taken me a little longer than I planned to get this video done, but as I explain in it, I changed my mind!!

Olympic Clean Prerequisite – Front Squat – Olympic Rack Position

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Rugby World Cup 2011 – Lessons in Rugby Speed & Power from Weekend 3

September 27th, 2011 · Power, Speed, World Cup

During the RWC 2011 games this weekend there were quite a few examples of real rugby power and speed.

Kaino from New Zealand is the perfect example of the modern back row forward. He has absolutely amazing power and his hits are some of the biggest in world rugby.

I remember first seeing him play for the Barbarians at Twickenham about 5-6 years ago. He was only about 20 years old and the commentators were singing his praises and saying his potential was phenomenal.

In my mind his ability as a demonstrative and dangerous (powerful not harmful…or possibly, depending on where he hits you) was confirmed when he made one of the biggest tackles I have seen to date.

I can’t remember who he hit (I think it was one of the big South African second rows like Botha) but literally all they had to do was fall over the line and they’d score. Kaino, who was defending the line, had about 3 inches to generate enough power to knock him back and stop him scoring.

Not only did he stop him but he floored him…I mean it was like he’d been ‘close lined’, I sat there open mouthed thinking this guy is going to be so deadly. He showed some of this raw rugby explosive tackling against France at the weekend.

It took a few years for him to find his way into the NZ set up, which just speaks volumes about their strength and depth of talent.

Also in the NZ game we saw a player who might possibly become the next big star for the All Blacks.

dagga showed that you don’t need to be the biggest and most powerful person ion rugby to be dangerous. He possess an ability that the top sports men in the world do….whenever you think you’ve got him, he’s moved.

Pele was similar (different sport obviously) in the moment you tried to tackle him he’d moved on from that spot and you were most likely be tackling air.

dagga is similar and it’s what made Jason Robinson so dangerous. The ability to change direction and maintain near maximal speed is a skill that only the top rugby players possess.

Robinson and Dagg have very different running styles (power v grace) but the principle remains…if you can’t get your hand on a player then you can’t tackle them and the ability to keep defenders on the back foot means that you are more likely to break the tackle, step them or hand them off.

How do we teach speed like that….I don’t think we can. It’s either something you’re born with or not. To a certain degree some of it can be learnt or it is more accurate to say that you can develop your own potential to the max but you may never be Jason Robinson.

The legendary British athletics coach Frank Dick summed it up perfectly. When once asked “What is the best advice you could give to a would be Olympian?” to which he replied “Choose your parents wisely”…..Genetics can be a bitch sometimes!!!

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Rugby World Cup 2011 – Week 2 Physical Performance of the Week

September 23rd, 2011 · World Cup

Like last week the best performance this week comes from the highest ranking teams clash.

The Australia v Ireland game was amazing to watch and I was thrilled for the Irish.

The whole team played well, but in particular the Irish forward pack as a whole were immense. The front row were all exceptional and destroyed the Australian scrum (I talked about some of the reasons why I think this occurred in – Lessons in Rugby Power from the RWC 2011 Round 2 Weekend Fixtures).

Then we take a look at the back row. Surprisingly Heaslip was the quietest of the three. O’Brien and Ferris were so powerful and strong both in attack and defense. When Ferris picked up Genia, like a rag doll, and drove him back from their scrum you got the sense that it might be Ireland’s day.

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My physical performance of the RWC week 2 was Paul O’Connell. He (a bit like Roberts last week) was back to the type of form he showed a few years ago. He was hitting the ball at pace and taking contact on his terms not the tacklers.

The type of weight training that you should be doing in order to get more powerful and stronger in contact are things like deadlifts, front squats, hang power cleans and Olympic pulls. These types of exercises work the hip and legs in conjunction with the core and are how you build a foundation in explosiveness!

Make sure you check out this post – Developing Powerful Athletes for Rugby


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Developing Powerful Athletes for Rugby

September 22nd, 2011 · Power, Weight Training

In my last post I talked about the importance of having the necessary skills to be a rugby player.  In today’s professional rugby world the strength and power element of the game has become far more prevalent than back in the amateur days.  Now this is generally due to the amount of time professionals rugby players can dedicate to power and strength as well as other aspects of fitness such as speed and agility.

So how do you get more powerful?

There are a number of ways, but for me, Olympic lifting ticks all the boxes.

The contrast between the intention to be powerful and explosive versus the technical aspects of a complex lifting pattern lends it self well to the technical aspects needed in rugby.

Before you can even start to learn the basic techniques of Olympic lifting you need to master a number of pre requisite lifts.

Check out the video below and I’ll tell you a bit more….

Developing Powerful Athletes

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Lessons in Rugby Power from the RWC 2011 Round 2 Weekend Fixtures

September 19th, 2011 · World Cup

This weekends fixtures in the Rugby World Cup showed yet again how far the lower tier nations have come in the last few years.

Georgia were immense against England. They are now getting to the stage where their raw strength and power is now being expressed in rugby playing terms.

A lot of the former Soviet states put strength and power right at the top of the desired physical characteristics in their culture. As rugby players it is important that you can express the ability to generate immense levels of power and strength into usable movements on a rugby pitch.

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Let’s take a look at the stand out man from Sunday’s encounter. Georgia’s Gorgodze showed how to put the power and strength into real usable rugby playing ability. His running tackling and rucking were outstanding. It’s a real pleasure to see players like this really shine. Having said that he was voted the most outstanding foreign player in France’s Tops 14 competition last year, and there are a number of high profile world class players plying their trade over there.

The game between Ireland and Australia also showed how important technique is, in order to succeed at the highest level. The Australian front row were absolutely decimated by the Irish front three. I have no doubt that gym stats may well tell you that these rugby players are of almost equal strength and power, but it is how you apply that that is more important.

I think Australia are still suffering from the time when they cut live scrummaging from the game until players reached the Colts level. What that in fact did was not give these props the chance to learn their trade as they came up through the ages groups. Learning how to scrummage and defend against certain illegal binds/body angles is one of those skills you learn as you play. It’s the same with the back row boys who end up playing prop they just don’t get enough time (in most cases to learn the trade). It doesn’t matter if you’re the strongest and most powerful prop in the world, with out the correct technique you could be made in to mince meat…it’s a very technical skill.

The quickest and strongest don’t always make the best rugby players…but if you have rugby skills it helps make great rugby players into outstanding rugby athletes.

Look out for the next post on how to develop power.

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Rugby World Cup 2011 Round 1 – Top Physical performance

September 15th, 2011 · World Cup

The opening round is all done now and whilst I waited for Wednesday and Thursdays games to pass, before picking my player of the week, the best physical performance had to really come from the clash between the highest ranked teams.

That was, of course, Wales v South Africa and although South africa won the match the best performance could have come from at least three of the Welsh players.

Firstly, Faletau the No.8 was exceptional and made some great yards, through hard aggressive running.

Secondly, Roberts looked like he was back to his best (when playing against the Boks for the B&I Lions), with direct and powerful running with great body angle and leg drive.

However, the best performance of the day had to come from Sam Warburton, the Wales skipper. He was amazing, the TV stats say he made 20 tackles and that’s a player who was on a team with 60% possession and territory.

At the breakdown his ability to turnover the ball or force South africa to give away a penalty trying to stop him winning the ball, was like a masterclass.

So what makes him so good?

Opensides need to be both fast and have great speed endurance, the reason that Warburton makes so many tackles and is in a position to get his hands on the ball at the breakdown is that he has high levels of both. It’s no good being strong over the ball if you aren’t consistently the first one there.

Speed endurance can be effectively built by doing multiple sprints with short rest/recovery cycles. Try running 300m x 6 with 90 secs rest intervals and this will start to give you a really good speed endurance base. As for the speed element…well that’s down to a lot more.

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Rugby World Cup 2011 Opening Weekend….Top physical performances!

September 13th, 2011 · Uncategorized

With the fist round of matches completed and the first look at the players in most of the teams there were a couple of stand out performances and physical displays that need highlighting.
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Firstly, the most dangerous looking speedster!…(and it wasn’t him!)

As I’ve talked about before, speed is the hardest of the physical attributes to defend against and a few of these speedy players showed that they could be exciting in the RWC 2011.

Evans of Scotland looked dangerous and lively, although the Romanian team (which has shown incredible development over the last couple of years) are not a tier 1 side.

I also liked the look of Agulla from Argentina (the less said about the England performance the better) who has caught my eye a few times last season as a Leicester Tigers player.

However, I think the most dangerous runner in this tournament will turn out to be Ioane of Australia. Coupling his speed, hand off and change of direction with an exciting and unpredictable Oz back line could lead to some of the best displays of running speed and pace.

His incredible acceleration is obviously genetically high but his short acceleration sprints and change of pace sprints must be fantastic to watch. Try some your self.

Acceleration Sprints

15m x 5
10m x 5
5m x 5

Change of pace sprints

Mark out a 50m track with cones every 10m
Accelerate to the first cone and then try and maintain that pace through to the 20m mark.
When you hit the 20m cone try and accelerate further until 30m, again try and hold this speed until 40m before one final attempt to accelerate.

In the next post I’ll be discussing the overall best performance from the Rugby World Cup opening weekend.

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Physical Peaking for the Rugby World Cup 2011

September 9th, 2011 · General Debates

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With the rugby world cup 2011 only about 24 hours away the majority of hard training will have been done.

It’s far easier to reach a physical peak for a one off event or week such as in the Olympics but it is much harder to hold that peak over a 6 week competition (harder still in sports like tennis with multiple peaks and an 11 month season!).

What the strength and conditioning staff will be most concerned with now is maintaining the players fitness levels. They may have planned to peak towards the end of the competition but that’s dangerous!

During the rugby world cup the biggest part of the training will probably involve recovery and rehabilitation strategies, however in order to maintain the levels they built in the pre world cup camps they will use certain exercises and strength and power protocols that will keep the players in optimal condition.

Over the coming weeks I’ll share with you some of the ways to maintain strength an power during the season much as the RWC 2011 players will be during the tournament.

I’m looking forward to this rugby world cup, each week I’ll be looking at different elements of fitness displayed during the week and a player watch section dedicated to the most impressive fitness/conditioning display by a player.

Also each week a new post will be dedicated to improving power, the physicality and power displayed by rugby players these days are immense and I’ll share some of the secrets of how they do it!

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Rugby Pre Season Training…What should you do!

May 19th, 2011 · General Debates

So the season has come and gone and I’ve not posted for around a year.

There was a reason for that, I’ve been working on my Masters thesis into a specific hamstring injury. It’s been really interesting but now I’m back for more rugby fit updates.

Most players (in the Northern hemisphere) will have played their last game at the end of April.

SO after 3 weeks of down time you should be ready to start your pre season training.

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A lot of people ask me what sort of training they should be doing over the pre season. It really depends on 2 things: position and weakness!

Let me clarify that. If you are a winger but lack bulk then you would need to focus on a hypertrophy training program, but with an eye out that you don’t become slower. Alternatively if you are a prop and you have really good cardio-vascular fitness but lack strength then the strength element would be the most important.

It is hard to work on 2 or 3 things at a time but not impossible. For instance if you are a centre and you lack acceleration, bulk and aerobic fitness then working on all three at the same time will reduce the effectiveness of them. What this means is that if you want to bulk up then you will get the best results if you focus solely on that. When you try and do hypertrophy and aerobic at the same time they may effect the maximum gains you can make.

As rugby is such a multi faceted game I recommend working on multiple things at the same time…after all you aren’t trying to be Mr Universe, the Worlds Strongest Man or win the Olympic Marathon!!

Have I confused you?

Hopefully not….let me continue with the centre example.

He lacked acceleration, bulk and fitness. Acceleration is the least important in my eyes (still we’ll do some work on it) as it should improve if we add bulk and improve aerobic fitness.

His overview for the next 12 weeks might look something like this:

…..comeback tomorrow!!!

Alex

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Guinness Premiership Playoffs Showcase Rugby Power And Rugby Speed From Forwards

May 17th, 2010 · Power, Speed

After some awesome displays of forward rugby speed and rugby power over the weekend, here’s my top 3 demonstrations of power and pace from forwards in the Guinness Premiership Playoffs.

In reverse order,

At No. 3….Roger Wilson’s bullocking run from a snaffled line-out take against Saracens. He showed both power and pace to get away from the scrabbling hands of the Sarries back row.

At No. 2….Luke Watson of Bath, his dancing feet and then acceleration and power that left the Leicester defenders on the back foot for most of the match was wondrous.

Finally….At No 1…Tonga’huia’s 40 yard dash for the line (plus the irony of the situation, regarding his change of heart over moving to Sarries) could be the all time best try from a prop forward.

It really did have it all: Acceleration, to beat the covering defence; specific rugby agility and speed to weave and fix the last defender; a dummy and then a powerful hand-off to leave Alex Goode clutching at thin air.

Just awesome…watched it 3 times!

All three examples, whilst slightly different, demanded high levels of power.

I’ll be posting a new section with some Power programs soon, so make sure you come back to see how you can become a power player…the game is headed more and more that way…how much further can the elite game go…who knows!

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