Feature Team of the Week: Men's Rugby Union

Feature Team of the Week:

Men's Rugby Union

1. What BUCS League do you compete in?
The Men's 1s compete in BUCS North 1A, Mens 2’s compete in Northern 3B and 3s compete in Northern 5B.


2. What is your training schedule?
Monday

A.M: S&C 
P.M: Rugby Session

Tuesday

A.M: Recovery session

Wednesday

P.M: Compete (or extra Rugby session)

Thursday

OFF

Friday

A.M: S&C
P.M: Rugby Session

Saturday

Optional Weights/Conditioning session

Sunday

OFF

3. When are games?

BUCs games are Wednesday, and some players
compete for local or home teams on the weekends.

4. What kind of training do you do in S&C? 

Our S&C sessions are built around trying to develop well-rounded robust athletes to cope with the demands of Rugby. We try to hit all of this throughout the week including power, strength and aerobic conditioning. Players will often come to sessions with collision injuries from previous games, so individual sessions will be given to keep the players progressing which will involve exercises the physios have given integrated into the team session.

5. How do you feel S&C has helped you develop as athletes?

S&C is helping the team become a lot fitter, faster and stronger, which is helping keep the boys ready for both training and games. S&C allows some players need to focus on their individual weaknesses, whether than is mobility, movement, strength or fitness related.



Jordan Webster, Graduate S&C Coach, leads the Men’s Rugby Union Programme, here’s what he had to say about the programme:

“Men’s Rugby Union this year had a lot of new players and also lost a lot of good players last year. Due to this, a lot of our players haven’t really done strength and conditioning. So as a relatively ‘new’ athletes to strength training, we started basic. I had 3 main objectives to complete by the end of this year:

1. Get the majority of players to buy into S&C and what it can do for their performance. This was made so much easier due to a strong leadership group that were senior players and encouraged participation. This was an important step in creating a performance culture for the team.

2. Build a huge base. As a relatively young and smaller team, we needed to develop a huge foundation of hypertrophy and strength so we can compete with the more physical teams.

3. Educate the players. Teaching/refreshing the players on the basics of recovery, nutrition, hydration and mobility. This is extra important for a team that has such an intense/busy week of training/competing.

A lot of the work we do with the team is develop a solid foundation of movement and strength. We started as basic as you could go, mastering the basics of squatting, deadlifting, lunging, pressing and pulling. We spent the first 3 weeks of our programme with circuit type training, getting the team fit and ready for the high work load that was going to follow. Our programme from the start of the semester into Christmas ran loosely as follows:

Week 1-3: Work Capacity Circuits (30 seconds ON/15 Seconds, 10 different exercises, 3-4 rounds, 2-3 times a week)

Week 4-8: Hypertrophy/Strength (3-4 sets of 6-10 reps, full body
workouts, 3-4 times a week)
Week 8-12: Max Strength (3-5 sets of 2-6 reps, full body, 2-3 times per week)

Our programming follows a linear periodisation model which finishes with Varsity. One of the biggest issues we have with rugby, being the amount of contact injuries we pick up. This isn’t something I can control, so my job is to work around that injury and still train the rest of the body so that we don’t lose speed or power in-season. If the shoulder is injured, there is still many ways to train the lower body including Leg Press, Split Squat variations and Squats. 

If the team does have a big game on a Wednesday, we may reduce volume (NOT intensity) on the Monday session. Although we don’t do this too often, because if we skipped 2 sets of squats every week, we are missing up to 160 sets over the course of the September-April playing schedule. That is a lot of opportunities to get stronger and create an adaptation. This doesn’t mean we don’t react to the athlete’s readiness as they come through the door because we do, but its knowing the difference between ‘cant be bothered’ and ‘NEEDS a recovery session’

Here is one of our Rugby Union 4 week programmes, with an emphasis on Strength and Power using Front Squat, Deadlifts and Bench Press as the main movements of the week.