Basic Rugby Hypertrophy Program

After a year of nagging it looks like I’ve gotten a friend of mine, who is also probably the best player on our rugby team, to lift weights. He’s 6’6’', second row, rail thin, about 190 pounds. He’s never really lifted weights before aside from some screwing around doing curls and dumbbell bench I think.

The goal is mainly to put muscle on him, with strength a secondary goal. If he could put on 20-30 pounds over the next three months, most of it muscle, that would be awesome. No cleans, Olympic stuff, etc., for reasons of training economy and goals.

I taught him how to bench, squat, and deadlift correctly yesterday, and told him I’d email him a simple program. I’m doing this, and making good progress, but I think it wouldn’t have enough volume for him: Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos

Can anyone recommend a simple, 3-4 day a week hypertrophy program built around the compound lifts?

One other concern is that this guy is a complete beginner, I can’t really remember what I was doing when I was in that position. Should reps on most sets be much higher, 10-15?

www.defrancostraining.com/articles/articles.htm

Westside for skinny bastards part II.

A lot of people recommend it, but that is because it works, it would fit perfectly for your friend too due to some specifics it focuses on toward strength and power.

For the strongman day training (if you don’t have access to tires,kegs etc.), you could come up with some complex movements, such as a deadlift/clean to replace tire lifts, as an example.