Year-round Training for Rugby - League or Union. Or Anything Else

 Year-round Training for Rugby - League or Union. Or Anything Else

I've been thinking of doing this since Endline Training put up his excellent treatise on building a year-long plan for Football and the American sports. I'd like to do the same thing here for the other sports - particularly Rugby.

We've also had a little League v Union debate on the forum today. I find the debate pointless as, while they have the same skillset, they are different games and to a large extent require different training. If you're familiar with the martial arts world, there is a great parallel with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Judo. Americans can appreciate that Canadian Football is played differently to American Football, as well - though the differences there are more tactical than physical.

I've actually been working on what may become a book. Much of this is from the outline for that. So, I'd appreciate it if that is kept in mind if you're sharing this. I've just done some modifications to make it read as a post for Bodybuilding.com.

In essence, I like to program backwards - starting from game day, round 1 (Week 0) and work backwards from there. I've done this for all sports I've been involved with and the blocks don't change in scope or order very often.

If round 1 is Week 0, the calendar looks like this:

Week 0 forward: In-season. Maintenance of attributes with a focus on recovery and injury prevention.

Week1-6: Pre-season. This could really be anything from 4-12 weeks, depending on level of competition, level of players and physical prep of players. Pre-season concentrates on SPP (Special Physical Preparedness). Since most people don't understand that here, I tend to term it "Game Speed Conditioning" and/or "Skills Under Fatigue and Pressure".

Week 7-15: Off-Season 2: The second of our main GPP (General Physical Preparedness) phases. To most players, I would term this the "Fitness Phase". Here, we look at introducing more conditioning to the program than we have had previously and work on recovering our strength and speed between bouts. Again, this could take less or more time - it depends on the individual's strengths and the length of previous blocks.

Week 16-28: Off-Season 1: This block is the "Attributes" block. Here, we're concentrating on strength and speed. If players are to gain or lose weight, they do that here, too. Conditioning focus here is for work capacity. If players have a particular weakness in conditioning, they may have remedial conditioning added here or may be moved to Off-Season 2 earlier.

Week 29-32: Recovery: Here, injuries are assessed, and mobility work increased. Nowadays, I program low intensity cardio here as well. The reasons for that, I'll get to later.

This schedule assumes that players don't have significant post-season committments such as rep football. It also assumes the player is committed and has time to train. This is often not the case in amateur sport - especially where there may be little competition for positions. In either case, the blocks are compressed. If a block has to be skipped, it is most often Off-Season 1.

Recovery Phase and Off-Season 1 have the worst compliance by players but ironically, are the places with the biggest influence on off-season improvement.

Since I described the calendar backwards, I'm going to detail the blocks themselves forwards - and not just to be confusing.

Recovery Phase:

You might hear the Recovery Phase called the "Anatomical Adaptation" phase, the "Active Rest" phase or plain old "Time Off". I think "Recovery Phase" is better because it spells out what it mean. It's rehab time. It's time to get the niggling injuries assessed and sorted out. It's time to make sure you can move well, and it's a time to rehabilitate your aerobic system.

Uh, what?

This is something I have always done, but have a renewed focus recently. A huge contributor to a player's ability to recover is his aerobic capacity. Specifically, it's what is often called the aerobic threshold that is important. That term is misused, as well. So, I use the term VT1. For a really good run-down on VT1 and it's importance, look up Fabio Comana and do some reading.

For the purpose of this document, we'll keep it simple, though. VT1 is the point at which you are no longer burning just oxygen when you exercise. It's measured through your heart rate. Not any of that 220-age garbage or anything like that. No, we actually want to know where that point is for each individual. So, we'll use the "Bodybuilders' Cardio" test. Set up a treadmill, bike or whatever. Set the tempo/incline/resistance, etc and begin walking/riding. Increase the speed and resistance over time until you can't carry on a short conversation in your normal voice. Congratulations. You've retty much found VT1. Write down your heart rate.

For the next few weeks, your cardio is going to be longer periods of exercise at a little above that heart rate. There's more to it than that if you want to get advanced, but you'll have to read Comana's work for that.

As far as mobility is concerned, pick a program and stick with it. Get the Rooney/Parisi warmup videos, Defranco's Limber 11, Scott Sonnon's Intu-Flow or something similar. There is no need for me to re-invent the wheel. There are literally dozens of excellent programs by people who know more about it than me. I'm looking into Kelly Starrett's "Supple Leopard" book now. It's could well be the best of the lot if you like assessments.

Speaking of assessments, if you're into FMS or similar, this is the time to do that stuff. Nowadays, I pretty much assess in the weight room during normal movements, though.

And that's what you want to see - the weight room stuff. Well, I don't prescribe weights here accross the board. Do what feels good. Do higher reps. Feel free to do "Beach muscle" work. I like bodyweight here, too. Consider this your deload from the year. If you must lift heavy, do a decent triple every now and then without going too heavy.

Injuries? Well, that's between you, the medical professionals and your coaches. My philosophy, though, is that it's better to be uninjured and unfit than super-fit and unavailable. Do what you can while prioritising the injury.

Off-Season1:

This is where we develop as athletes. Here, we are working on strength, power and speed. Conditioning is kept really simple and is heavily work-capacity oriented. If the aerobic base isn't in place from the previous phase, you would continue that, but for the most part, conditioning is done with what is often called "Weighted GPP".

I like to use sledgehammers, kettlebells, wheelbarrow pushes, Prowler/sled pushes and pulls, ropes and complexes. All of these are post-weightroom work.

Again, I don't like to re-invent the wheel. Istvan Javorek has an unbelievably good set of complexes available. Dan John has a great library, as well. Another one I've used to great effect is the Randy Couture / Team Quest complex. Any will do the job as a conditioning session during this phase.

Other than that, "Weighted GPP" is great. Pick an exercise and go. Programming is so variable here that you can just mix it up - Almost Crossfit-style.

You can pick a 4, 8, or 12 minute timeframe and go for maximum reps. Or short work/rest intervals - circuits with 30, 45 or 60 seconds on and off are great for team training here. Boxing rounds of 3 minutes on and one minute off are great here, too. Mix it up with 2 on, 1 off rounds to prioristise rep cadence, as well.

In the weight room, I program either a 3 day, full body routine or 4 day, 2-way split - depending on the player's time committment and experience in the weight room. Most players will be fine with the 3 day routine. You can even do a lot to make it valuable to the advanced player. However, more advanced players are usually using the 4 day program with an upper/lower split.

Here, you can select any template you like. There are lots of good ones. 5-3-1, WS4SB, the Bill Starr 5x5s, Starting Strength, old school Westside, the list goes on.

My favourite is a template I got from an old T-Mag article by Mike Robertson. It's in his "Designer Athletes" article. Over the years, though, I've modified it such that you wouldn't realise where it came from.

The actual individual programs vary based on eccentric and concentric requirements, weight to be gained and whether we need to focus on speed of accelration or total power but for the most part, what follows is pretty much the idea.

I use block periodisation in this phase and run a Hypetrophy orientation, followed by a Strength phase and a power phase. Off-season1 is generally a bit longer than Off-season 2 because I like to spend more time building the attribute base. Hypertrophy will be the longest phase and will be a period of increasing volume. I like a number of techniques here. You can use a simple double-progression scheme or a density training scheme such as ESD or Pavel's Bear method here. Doug Hepburn had a couple of great density-based programs, too.

For the strength phase, we focus on building strength in the first portion of the workout. This is where your choice of template earlier comes in. If you chose 5-3-1 for your template, you may have used 87.5-90% for your training maxes in the hypertrophy phase. Here, you'd increase that to 90-92.5% (or even 95%). I, personally think that each person and lift often requires something different here. King and Poliquin's 1-6 method is another favourite for me, as are plain old pyramids, etc.

For the power phase, we're going to drop the weights a little and work for speed of movement. You will likely have been doing this for periods through the previous phases, but now you'll be focusing on that aspect. This is where I would typically move power training from prior to the weightroom work into a contrast arrangement, for instance.

It's worth noting here, that we're usually looking to move near-maximal weights for as high a possible speed. It's what Louie Simmons calls a "Circa-max" phase. The higher acceleration is kept for later in the training year.

Across this time, we're training for speed on the field as well. We want to develop straight-line speed as well as agility. Depending on the player, we might train this 3 times per week or 2. Usually, I pick an agility-based drill from the combine prep coaches in the US. My favourite is the Illinois drill and I do about half of the agility work with that nowadays. For speed, I like to use 2x5x20m for most players. That means sprint 20m, walk back, repeat and continue to do so until you do 5 reps. Rest 3-5 minutes and do it again.

There are other routines and, if you prefer, you can plug them in here. XLAthlete.com (Cal Dietz's site) has some great plugin routines that I like to use for speed training, too. I also program along the lines of Charlie Francis' work for the more committed players with a pure speed goal.

How is this programmed? That depends on the goals and the routine selection. If a player is on a 3 day routine, we can do speed/jump work either prior to training (or use contrast training) or conduct it on the off-days. If you choose training days, advance players working on speed can run tempo on off-days.

For the 2-way split, you have more flexibility with speed programming. Most often, it will be done prior to lower body days. However, the template allows for tempo runs on upper body days, too.

Conditioning is always done after weightroom work. Additional conditioning sessions can be added, but that is more likely in the next phase.

Off-Season 2:

This like a rinse an repeat of Off-Season 1 - with a few exceptions.

Firstly, conditioning becomes more of a priority. Here, we replace some of those weighted GPP sessions with a sprint interval program. My favourite is this one http://www.trainforstrength.com/Endurance1.shtml

There are others, though. Tabata programs are rife at the moment. The routine above, though can take you right through pre-season and up to the season and is varied enough. It can also be done with different equipment to take the load off the legs.

During this phase, we also begin working on increasing our general endurance. For most, a program like the top one on this list by the fantastic Ashley Jones will be perfect http://articles.elitefts.com/trainin...-rugby-player/ There are other great programs for this. John Berardi has the "Mad Max" program, Martin Rooney's Hurricanes or any of the VO2 programs you find on sites like Brianmac.co.uk are good here.

We'll typically do one of these longer interval sessions once per week and the sprint intervals twice. Some players need it to happen the other way around.

In the weight room, we'll have a very similar program to the Off-season 1 program. The phases will be shorter, though, and the focus will be changed based on weaknesses identified in the last phase.

We also continue speed training here, but cut it back to once per week, generally. That will give you 4 running sessions a week. That is hard work.

Pre-season:

I don't know many people who can handle the pre-season load with 4 days in the weight room per week, but some do maintain that. Most go back to 3 days per week. Volume is cycled over this 6-8 week period and the weight room is broken up into the same blocks as before. However, the blocks are shorter and the focus is now on speed and acceleration development. The power phase will focus on lighter weights for max speed.

Volume in the weight room is often necessarily cut due to the increased load at club training. Pure speed sessions are typically dropped at this stage, as well. If your team is heavy on conditioning at weekly training (as it is for most League teams), you'll likely drop at least one of your conditioning sessions here, too.

This is where you'll be working on SPP and practicing your skills under fatigue at training. So, you'll be getting more conditioning here, as well. If you are playing trial games, you'll have to adjust your individual training around that, as well.

We concentrate on maintaining our speed and we'll do a lot more conditioning training in groups. With lots of sled high intensity, low rest stuff with the scrum machine, sleds, ropes bags, shields and sprints.

Some people will need to cut back to 2 full body sessions per week in the gym.

In-season:

Your pre-season load will largely be dictated by your team's training. So will in-season, but there are some good guidelines.

Firstly, 2 full body routines per week. Some people train 3, others maintain a 2-way split. Still, most people can't train 4 times a week in the weightroom. Whichever way you choose, cycle your heavy weights so that you are only working with challenging 1-3RM weights every 3-4 weeks. Cycle your repetition volume in each workout the opposite way. So, as you increase your intensity in the primary lifts, program less sets of secondary lifts.

Continue (or increase) your pure speed training and reduce your conditioning. You'll be getting a lot at practice and on game day.

For the most part, I recommend players train 2 full body days per week (Monday and Thursday), using contrast training on the Monday with the higher load for the week. On Thursday, do more dynamic work for the lower body. This means an increase in dynamic work and reduction in max and repition loading. I got this from Dave Tate in an email about Rugby training a few years ago. I think it may be up on the EliteFTS Q&A page if you want to have a look at how he'd program in-season.

Conditioning is done after your weightroom work on Monday. You can get an extra session in on Wednesday if you need remedial work or had a light game load.

So, that's pretty much it. A full year's training. There's a lot of detail missing on individual sessions, but a lot of clues as to where to look.

Here are a few exceptions and adjustments:

Most club athletes: This is a routine for committed athletes. Give this to a committed player and you'll get high compliance. Give it to your average clubby or someone who thinks he knows better and you'll get precisely zero percent compliance.

If you strip the guts out of this piece, the program is pretty simple. Lift year-round, build speed and strength early, build specific conditioning later. keep that in your mind.

Rugby League V Union: This one is always the big one. Players get a chip on their shoulder about who is fitter/stronger/faster. The argument is rubbish because the dependency is on the individual athlete. Although the games are different, the vast majority of players in both codes will get 95% of the way to the top with exactly this program. If you are at that point (or have convinced yourself you are), then you may need to make some changes.

Rugby League players will want to concentrate less on hypertrophy and more on power throughout the two Off-Season cycles. Union backs and League players in general will want to improve their ability to recover from high intensity efforts quickly. So, there are a number of alternate conditioning programs available that can plug in where the conditioning programs are listed in here. Likewise, speed and agility becomes paramount in both games for the outside backs. Find alternate routines for speed development and plug them in.

Sports outside the Rugby codes: This works for everyone. Different sports require different emphases, though. I know a lot of Aussie Rules and Football (Soccer) players who use this setup. I got the layout from studying NFL teams and college Football and Basketball programs, as well. So, it works there, too.

Just think about the adjustements you need to make. Maybe a Foootball (American) player needs anaerobic conditioning. Simple. Pull the VO2 and lactate recovery work and add an alactic program in Off-season 2 and pre-season.

Aussie Rules and Gaelic players will want to concentrate more on VO2 work. Soccer players, as well. This will work for field hockey, etc as well. For Ice Hockey, though, all bets are off. I'm much more comfortable at 100F+ than freezing.

To an extent, this is a 3000 word breakdown of my life's passion. I hope you guys like it.

What about someone playing another sport in the off-season?

This is pretty easy. You simply have to factor it into your training. If you play cricket, for instance, you'll keep the training the same, but will have to find a lot of time to manage it, since a cricket game takes about 106 days. Maybe you can do burpees between overs.....

If you're swimming, playing summer soccer, touch football, or another summer sport I haven't mentioned, you simply subtract your work from the routine. If you swim four days per week, with one of those sessions a time trial, you'll drop around 2 of your conditioning sessions (swimming is largely concentric only and doesn't tax recovery as much as some other sports). Some people will be able to swim a lot and still manage their regular training.

If you play touch, soccer, or similar, you'll have to temper the conditioning - especially in off-season 2.

What if your summer sport is your primary sport and you just play your winter sport for fun?

In that case, you need to reverse the roles. Structure your training around the summer sport. Playing an off-season sport is great, but you can't do it at the expense of your primary sport.

What if you're pursuing both sports?

This happens a lot in junior ranks. If that's the case, you have little choice but to run the in-season templates pretty much year-round. The tough bit is fitting in the recovery phase and the pre-season phase. That's why it's OK for juniors. They're still learning to exert 100% in training and don't really manage to overtrain. That changes when they get to 15-16.

If you're older than that and you are in a position where you feel you need to train for peak performance in both sports, I'm sorry, you're probably going to have to pay someone to help you with your specific routine.

If the extra off-season work is related to your sport (eg. Pre-season or post-season representative duties), then you will have to extend the in-season program and, in the case of pre-season rep, shorten the previous blocks to fit them in.

For the most part, if you're at that level, I hope you have some help from the rep coaching staff, anyway.