A Rugby Winger and His Workouts

July 27

Speed Training (Grass)

Skips for height & distance 2 x 20m
Footwork drills 2 x 8 slaloms

Agility Drills 5 x (T, Box, W)

4 x 2 x 20m (lying on floor, kneeling, 3 point etc)

6 x 60m WB recovery with a 20m intensity limit

4 x 50m 5 mins rest

Mixed it up a bit and had more straight line speed work. Volume seemed just right, had a longer recovery for the final runs and chased my training partner who had the ball and passed to me when I caught up. Will do weights tomorrow.

Weight: 157 lbs
Chest: 39.9"
Waist: 31.4"
Arms: 13.2"
Legs: 23"

Progress made in two weeks - put on 4lbs, added an inch to my chest and 1/2 inch to my legs. Lazy with my diet, eating oats too often especially in the evening where I should be having sweet potato. Strength and speed are improving nicely.

July 28

Power Clean 5 x 3 x 80kg Initiating the movement by driving through my feet, worked really well

A1 Back Squat 5 x 3 x 115kg didn’t need as much focus to get these reps out

A2 Borzov Jumps 5 x 3

Swiss Ball HS Curl 3 x 11

SL Hip Thrust 1 x 5 x 10kg

Hip Thrust 15 x 10kg, 15 no weight - didn’t like the short SL reps, my friend used to do 3 x 30 unweighted to supplement sprinting, I dropped to two leg to get a decent number of reps out.

TGU Sit Up 3 x 5 x 17.5kg

Ab Wheel 3 x 8

Better session than Wednesday, the change to my hip thrusts worked me harder and felt like it was of more benefit. New 3 week training cycle that will take me through to our first pre-season fixture, will be pushing on to higher weights in the key exercises.

July 29

AM Session:

Push Press 3 x 5 x 67.5kg - up from 65kg, handled it ok

Split Stance OHP

2 x (6 x 50kg, 5 x 52.5kg, 4 x 55kg)

A1 Bench Press 4 x 6 x 90kg - up third session in a row, good progress

A2 DB Rows 4 x 6 x 27.5kg

Numbers are getting closer to what they should be and with the short recovery i’m pretty pleased.

PM Session:

B1 Bench Press 85kg x 9, 6, 5, 5, 4, 1

B2 Incline DB Hammer Rows 2 x 12, 10, 8 x 20kg

DB Press 25kg x 8, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4 - Really tough to get any reps out, thought I would end up doing 2’s and 1’s to finish

Strict Pullups 12, 7, 7, 4

3 way Shoulder Raise - 2 x 12, 10, 8, x 5kg - these are fine at this weight, can’t do the full set without stopping anyway

That was probably the hardest session so far, the increased reps made a difference and I was really glad to finish. It’s making me stronger so i’ll keep forcing myself to do it.

RuckItAll if you see this I didn’t get any message from you about London SE 2, and I PM’ed you the other day which i’m guessing didn’t get sent either.

July 30

Had a 12 hour interview with a gym, got a chance to train with one of the other applicants and he showed me some really cool agility drills that i’ll be implementing into my current sessions.

Missed rugby training so I popped to a nearby pitch and did:

5 minute run (~1120m)

5 x 40 secs on 20 off (~200m), 5 x 30 secs on 30 off (~160m), 5 x 20 secs on 40 off (~120m)

5 minute run (~1170m)

Didn’t get a whole lot of food in during the day so I took it easy and cut the work sets in half (should be 10x each run), hit me loads aerobically and I was tight the next morning.

July 31

Power Cleans 3 x 5 x 80kg - kept the same weight as the reps are up from 3 to 5

A1 Back Squat 2 x 5 x 115kg, 1 x 5 x 120kg - did these at the gym so had a safety bar which gave me the confidence to lift more

A2 Borzov Jumps 3 x 5

RDL 3 x 5 x 80kg - changed exercise again, probably going to do hip raise Sunday and RDL today.

Ab Machine 15 x 32kg, 15 x 39kg, 15 x 46kg - didn’t write ab work so forgot what I had to do, did this instead

Pleased with my back squat and my technique in RDL, probably took in 1200kcal yesterday so lacking a bit of energy.

Aug 1

Missed Rugby Training again, trained with my mate and we dragged ourselves through conditioning.

8 x (22m x 3 then 100m jog)

10 x (35m x 4, 30 sec rest)

8 x (73m x 2, 30 sec rest)

8 x (10m, 10m back pedal, 28m, 18m back pedal, 40m, 50m jog, 15 sec rest)

Total of around 4km of running and 1.2km of jogging, legs were pretty gone at the end as the back pedalling was tiring my quads out. Both agreed that this was more intense than rugby training would’ve been, only key thing we are missing out on is team strategy else we’d just do this every week.

Aug 2

AM Session:

Push Press 3 x 5 x 67.5kg

Split Stance OHP

6 x 50kg, 5 x 52.5kg, 4 x 55kg - these absolutely flew up so I increased the weight
6 x 52.5kg, 5 x 55kg, 4 x 57.5kg

A1 Bench Press 4 x 6 x 90kg

A2 DB Rows 4 x 6 x 27.5kg - these are getting quite easy and I have no shoulder pain any more

Feel like I had a jump in strength, push press was still tough but I had no leg drive thanks to yesterday’s conditioning.

PM Session:

B1 Bench Press 85kg x 10, 8, 6, 5, 1

B2 Incline DB Hammer Row 2 x 12, 10, 8 x 20kg

C1 DB Press 25kg x 8, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3 - need to be heavier because these are toppling me over when I try to get them in position when tired

C2 Strict Pullups 13, 10, 7 - should probably do weighted ones so that i don’t get them done in 3 sets

3 way shoulder raise 2 x 12, 10, 8 x 5kg

Had quite big rest periods between supersets as I was training a friend at the same time, didn’t make shoulder press any easier and I may have to choose a new exercise as I feel my torso is under more strain than my shoulders

Well I was wondering if the PM had gone through.

I’ll tell you that the initials of my club are CP and they were runners up last year. Will I be playing with you or against you?

Keep up the good work, I’ll be trying to build up to your sprinting workouts over the next few weeks

That’s cool man, I play for TW so should we both end up in the 1st team i’ll be lining up against you 2nd November.

Aug 3

Speed Training (Grass)

Skips for height & distance 2 x 20m
Footwork drills 2 x 8 slaloms

Agility Drills 5 x (T, Box, W)

4 x 2 x 20m

6 x 60m WB recovery with a 20m intensity limit

4 x 50m 5 mins rest, supporting run and pass

Really happy with my speed from a rolling start, we were trying to simulate match situations for our 20m starts and went for diagonal run and cut in to sprint, flew down the pitch for those. We took that start into the 50m and i gave my friend a slight headstart and we worked on passing at high speed (2 of 4 successful). It’s quite hard to judge the weight of pass when someone’s travelling top speed and this could make the difference in a game situation.

I spent the weekend at a friend’s Ironman competition so missed weights on the Sunday and I was really tight from 600+ miles of driving, half of which was straight after the speed session. I’m going to work on foam rolling between my upper body sessions today and hope to be better tomorrow.

Aug 5

AM Session:

Push Press 3 x 5 x 70kg - really happy with the increase from 67.5kg but I forgot it was meant to be 4 x 4 so that annoyed me

Split Stance OHP 2 x (5 x 52.5kg, 4 x 55kg, 3 x 57.5kg) - pretty sleep deprived today and push press took all my effort so this was hard

A1 Bench Press - 4 x 6 x 90kg

A2 DB Rows - 4 x 6 x 27.5kg

I had a hectic weekend with poor diet and hardly any sleep so quite glad to get that out the way. Got home and had a 5 hour sleep before evening weights.

PM Session:

B1 Bench Press 90kg x 8, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 1 - couldn’t make 20kg for rows and do 87.5kg with my weight plates so I went to 90kg and found it ok

B2 Incline DB Hammer Rows 2 x 10, 8, 6 x 20kg

Shoulder Press 15kg x 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,4 - ladder reps, ascending 1-10 with 15 secs rest, enjoyed the difficulty level of this

Pullups 1,2,3,4,5,5,3,3,3,2 - ladder reps too, didn’t expect anywhere near the success so did as many as I could for the 10 sets

3 Way Shoulder Raise 2 x 10, 8, 6 x 5kg

I was finding it harder to get the weight onto my shoulders for 25kg DB press than to press it, and my pullups would need to be weighted for 6-10 rep target range, so I substituted the 30 rep total format for the 1-10 half ladder. I don’t ever see me doing the pullups to 10 so it’s nice to have something you can improve on indefinitely, and shoulder press was a pleasant struggle too.

Aug 6

Dynamic and static stretching during the day, mainly hamstrings and glutes.

Rugby Training

Driving a guy with a tackle pad backwards, stop-start, 2 x full pitch
4 x 50m WB recovery
8 v 4 drift defence, 3 x 4 mins
half pitch touch
8 x 20m sprints

Jackknives 3 x 15
Ab Marching 3 x 30

I enjoyed pushing someone backwards and it tired out my legs a lot in the final part. Had a few good bursts of speed in the games but had enough left in the tank to stick some sprints at the end. It’s looking like we’ll be doing contact in the next two weeks as long as the ground softens up, i’d still like to pack on some size while maintaining my speed to give me a chance of matching up physically.

Aug 7

Power Clean 4 x 4 x 82.5kg - first rep is so easy but I sometimes struggle with the last one

A1 Back Squat 4 x 4 x 120kg - worked on driving knees apart and valsalva manouvre. I know if I can put on a few kg’s of muscle my squat numbers will come up nicely.

A2 Borzov Jumps 4 x 4

RDL 3 x 5 x 80kg

TGU Sit Up 3 x 5 x 17.5kg

Ab Machine 3 x 15 x 46kg - better this time, adjusted the seat for full RoM

Solid session, have to keep churning them out and I can definitely see certain numbers just jumping 5-10kg when my body copes with the stress of these training weeks. Will research how to transition these workouts into pre-season fixtures and eventually into the season, I feel i’ll have built a really solid base in which to progress.

I feel good about taking my athletics training mentality into rugby, most of the guys went to the pub after training yesterday and I’m here busting my ass every day, can’t wait until I drop the volume and really show what I can do.

Aug 8

Dynamic and static stretching again, have a youtube video i’m copying using a resistance band, it’s just under half an hour and i’m happy following it on rugby days.

Rugby Training

8 v 8 touch, tackler changes to attacking team
passing drills
12 x 6, exploiting gaps
3 x 22m, 2 x 50m, 1 x full pitch (11.96 secs)

5 mins ab holds

Turned up early to get a good warm-up, was happy with my pace and not many people turned up so there were big gaps between defenders in touch. We finished 20 minutes early and I got some sprints in, felt superb on the last run.

Aug 9

Just realised I work out every day…

AM Session:

Push Press 4 x 4 x 70kg - it’s more of a push jerk, nice and explosive, could do BW next

Split Stance OHP 5 x 52.5kg, 4 x 55kg, 3 x 57.5kg, 5 x 55kg, 4 x 57.5kg, 3 x 60kg - increased again, really easy

A1 Bench Press 4 x 6 x 90kg - easy!

A2 DB Rows 4 x 6 x 27.5kg - might move to 30kg but otherwise I don’t consider increasing weight in this to be a priority

Top session, everything was easy and instead of increasing I just did the prescribed weight and will move on next week.

PM Session:

B1 Bench Press 90kg x 9, 6, 5, 4, 4, 2 - slight improvement on last week, felt light

B2 Incline DB Hammer Rows 2 x 10, 8, 6 x 20kg

Shoulder Press 15kg x 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,6 - progress from Monday, three extra reps

Pullups 1,2,3,4,5,6,4,3,3,3 - also three extra reps

3 Way Shoulder Raise - 2 x 10, 8, 6 x 5kg

Front Squat 10 x 10 x 20kg, 10 x 30kg, 10 x 40kg, 10 x 50kg

Want to improve my VL as i’ve been squatting too wide for too long and my inner thighs and VM are pretty developed and there’s a flat bit on my quad where my VL should be. Haven’t front squatted in a good while so just did high volume to get my bar hold sorted and find my groove.

Nice to still be pushing up my numbers every session, if I showed myself a program with this volume last year i’d immediately say it’s too much, but i’m getting it done and pushing forward with my nutrition to turn it into muscle gains.

Weight: 159 lbs up 2lbs in 2 weeks
Chest: 40"
Waist: 31.6"
Arms: 13.3"
Legs: 23"

Done Sunday morning, I was pretty dehydrated this morning and I do it all first thing before eating or drinking so I know that’s the smallest and lightest I could be.

My target was >158lbs by 1st Sept so it’s nice to surpass it early. Eating is clean, would like to keep my waist under 32 but beyond that I don’t mind if the inches add on chest, arms or legs.

Aug 10

Speed Training (Grass)

Skips for height & distance 2 x 20m
4 x 2 x 20m

3 x 60m first 20m we used a skipping rope to resist the person to replicate pulling a heavy sled, then they get released and sprint

3 x 60m WB recovery with a 20m intensity limit

3 x 60m 5 mins rest, supporting run and pass

Footwork drills 2 x 8 slaloms
Agility Drills 5 x (T, W)

Bit of a change around, we were getting fatigued from the early runs and by the time we got to top speed work we weren’t actually able to reach top speed. I kept the accelerations in early to be a warm up of sorts, then 3 x 3 x 60m with various rules. The drills are tiring enough when fresh and doing them at the end was so tough and my quads were knackered the rest of the day.

Aug 11

Power Cleans 4 x 2 x 85kg, 2 x 90kg - the quality drops for higher rep stuff so I worked on heavier doubles with a lower total volume

A1 Front Squat 4 x 6 x 80kg - narrow stance, first front squats in years so wasn’t too ambitious with the starting weight

A2 Vertical Jumps 4 x 6 - I read Dan John’s Never Let Go and he mentioned front squats & vert. jump supersets

Hip Thrusts 3 x 20 - better than the awkward single leg balance with a weight that I was doing, prefer high rep for these

Ab Ripper X 175 reps - oh dear! - and with several rest periods. Less than halfway, need to get this done and scrap whatever isn’t working

I was not at all fresh today, I knew it from the first power clean which I couldn’t get beyond my belly button. It’s a combination of the many sets of practicing front squat on Friday, a tough sprint session on Sat morn and going straight to London to see friends after that instead of getting my recovery stuff done. That being said I changed a few things around today so it was important to just get the session done.

I’m confident enough to know where it’s appropriate to change sets, reps or exercises and what are suitable replacements, so i’m tweaking the details of my session while still getting the same stimulus and keeping that progression going. I know ab ripper x improves my mid-section, and i know that was what held back my front squats back in 2010-11 so i’m making sure it’s up to scratch.

Aug 12

AM Session:

Push Press 5 x 3 x 72.5kg - bodyweight push press, nice landmark

Split Stance OHP 2 x (4 x 55kg, 3 x 57.5kg, 2 x 60kg)

A1 Bench Press 4 x 6 x 92.5kg - increase from 90kg, coped well

A2 DB Rows 4 x 6 x 27.5kg

Felt good, forearm is quite tight and I can feel the sessions catching up on my upper body.

PM Session:

B1 Bench Press 90kg x 9,6,5,4,4,2 - identical to Friday

B2 Incline DB Hammer Rows 2 x 8,6,4 x 20kg

Shoulder Press 15kg 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,7

Pullups 8 x 4 - had a little extra rest and worked on quality

3 Way Shoulder Raise - 2 x 8,6,4 x 5kg

I think the last five weeks have rapidly caught up with me in the last few days, this is week 6 of 6 and I think it’s good for me to have to soldier through this week and earn my deload. I got home from work at 1pm and crashed on the sofa for an hour and a half, feeling really drained and will plan my deload soon so I have something to work towards.

Aug 13

Dynamic and Static Stretching, some MobilityWOD stuff on hips, shoulders, quad

Rugby Training

Touch 14 v 14
Drift Defence
Tackle Bag Work (lots!)
Touch 14 v 14 with proper rucks at the breakdown, then final 2 mins full contact

General Strength Circuit, 232 reps

I need to work on the position of my back in the tackle, as it became clear that my spine wasn’t lined up nicely and it was quite uncomfortable just to hit the pads and drive them back. I think my shoulder is low enough but my hips aren’t, also wasn’t wrapping with the arms properly. Full contact was brief and the ground was rock solid so I was distracted by the blisters i’d got going on both feet already, i’m low on socks so wore some shitty thin ones and my feet are a mess now.

Rather than a deload week i’m changing the schedule a bit, I will be taking Sunday off to have a little break from it all and i’ll start filtering in the new exercises in the next few days.

Aug 14

AM Session:

Power Clean 3 x 3 x 80kg

A1 Front Squat 4 x 6 x 80kg

A2 Vertical Jumps 4 x 6 - got some great height on these

RDL 4 x 5 x 80kg

Ab Ripper X, 400 reps - rested a few times but felt stronger through my sticking point

Nice session, quads and hams got hit hard and I got good RoM on the RDL due to the flexibility work yesterday morning.

PM Session:

OHP 3 x 8 x 50kg - probably going to settle on 4 x 8, weight seemed easy at first but ended up being a good challenge

B1 Bench Press 4 x 6 x 92.5kg - pretty easy

B2 DB Rows 4 x 8 x 27.5kg - will take this up to 10 reps, i’m used to higher volume on the rows

Rotator Cuff, 2 movements, 3 x 10 x 5kg

This is my Wed PM session as of next week and I thought i’d try it out today. Haven’t settled on sets & reps, i’m condensing four upper body sessions into two and taking the load down an appropriate amount. Rugby training will involve more shoulder work now we’re into full contact so it’ll be a balancing act for the first few weeks.

Initial layout for those interested is:

Mon AM: Bench 5/3/1, Close Grip Bench, Rows, Shoulder Raise
Mon PM: Power Clean, Front Squat ss Jumps, RDL
Tues: Rugby, Abs
Wed AM: Speed Session, Abs
Wed PM: (above + Push Press)
Thur AM: Power Clean, Front Squat 5/3/1
Thur PM: Rugby, Pullups, Abs
Fri: — Rest —
Sat: Rugby Match or Speed or Conditioning, Hip Raises, Shoulder Raise
Sun: — Rest —

Looks like a good plan, what is “Front Squat ss Jumps” listed for Monday PM?

Nice plan, although I have noticed you have 3 days with 2-sessions-a-day. How long do you plan to do that?
I find that 2 sessions a day can take a lot out from you, and after experimenting I prefer no to do 2 sessions a day for more than one day a week. Unless you have the whole day just to rest and recover, I would not recommend it.

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Front Squat superset with vertical jumps, so I do 6 reps of front squat, then as soon as it’s racked I bust out the explosive jumps (complex training). Was waiting 30 seconds between squats and jumps but apparently you’re meant to do it immediately.

Bird, I agree I found it hard doing two in one day but the volume is low enough now that i’m effectively doing one day of exercise but splitting it into two bits to fit around my schedule. I could happily do it all at once but I have a nice 80 minute window between my work which I use to fit in what I can.

Aug 15

Rugby Training

Touch 8 v 8
passing drills
2 v 2, 5 v 3
Touch 8 v 8

Not a big turn out so they couldn’t do the scheduled tactical stuff. I enjoyed it and i’m getting more confident on the ball - as a winger i’m used to being the end result of a passing move and so all I do is catch it and run. I filled in at fly half for the second game of touch and due to some mis-communication it went terribly. The rule is I have to touch it every time but I thought the scrum half had to be the same guy, so when he went into contact I thought I had to fill in at 9 and the coach kept saying turnover when I touched it. I’m glad I put myself forward though, everyone seemed pretty pissed off that I didn’t know what I was doing but i’ll be more confident if I do it again.

Aug 16

Pullups 3 x 8

Power Clean 3 x 6 x 60kg

Front Squat 5 x 60kg, 5 x 70kg, 10 x 80kg - back to 5/3/1, had good gains with front squat last time

Bit of a scrambled session, meant to do pullups after rugby and cleans/squats on Thurs AM so I put them in now to get a feel for the weight. Probably better cleaning 65kg but I want to focus on keeping it light and fast. My legs were tight from training so i’ll get on top of foam rolling later today. My abs have been hurting from ab ripper, at first I thought i’d had a dodgy breakfast but realised it was just ab ache.

Speed session and some assistance work tomorrow, then a long awaited rest day on Sunday!!