Strength is one of the key components that go in to making a good rugby player.

Strength is the ability of the body to produce or resist force or forces. For rugby players strength is important in a number of different ways and having the correct amount of strength essential.

You’ll find strength has a part to play in just about every aspect of rugby play:

• scrummaging,
• tackling,
• sprinting,
• changing direction,
• jumping in a line out or for a high ball

All of these require strength as a specific rugby fitness element.

Power is closely aligned with strength and as a general rule of thumb the more powerful you are the greater your strength, but you can be strong with little power.

For a rugby player it is essential to get a really strong strength base in order to work on a lot of other aspects of the fitness matrix that makes up the fitness needed to play rugby.

Strength can further be classified into absolute and relative strength.

• Absolute being the total amount of weight you can lift
• Relative being in relation to your body weight.

However, in the early stages of training any strength gains will have a positive effect on just your general conditioning.

The specifics of relative or absolute only really become an issue when you have been training for a while and you have developed some ‘weaknesses’. If you are a winger there’s no point in having a great absolute strength but also weighing in at 20st (unless you’re freakishly big like Lomu was) because it will negatively impact your sprinting ability.

Likewise there’s no point in a prop having a relative strength of say 2.5 times body weight in the squat, but only weighing 80kg, it’s just not enough absolute strength (and sheer mass).

Regardless of you absolute or relative strength levels, if you’ve never lifted weights before then you need to start by laying that great foundation that was mentioned above.

The only way to build the type of strength needed in rugby is to follow a resistance training program. The weight training workouts below will give you a firm base to begin with.

Fit 4 Rugby – 6 Week Foundation Strength Program for Beginners

N.B. If you have no weight training experience then this is not the place to start, checkout the programs under General Preparation to get going.

http://www.fit4rugby.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Foundation-Strength-6-Weeks-Beginners.pdf

Just right click on the link above and choose to ‘save link as’ or ‘save target as’.

If you’re a bit more experienced then you may like to try the Fit 4 Rugby – 6 Week Foundation Strength Program for Intermediate / Advanced.

http://www.fit4rugby.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Foundation-Strength-6-Weeks-Intermediate_Advanced.pdf

Just right click on the link above and choose to ‘save link as’ or ‘save target as’.

Getting strong is only part of the puzzle, converting that strength into functional strength and useable strength on the pitch is what it’s really about. That’s where periodization comes in to it own and allows you to convert gym strength into real player attributes.