Rugby Training Log

June 12

No time for training, arms postponed to Friday.

June 13

Had a really good practice today. Started with some conditioning and then did a bunch of defensive alignment drills. Was performing poorly at first but then started coming up with the line better and aligning better. Still have to improve my ability to get in front of the opposition.

June 17
Cleans

115 x 5
125 x 5
130 x 5
125 x 5
115 x 5

Pushups 2 x 10 x bw
Leg lifts 2 x 20 x 90 degrees

Cleans felt ok, basically just muscled up the 115’s. Left room for improvement but felt good to have something heavy in my hands. Still figuring out my training and equipment situation but I’ll be doing low reps for compound exercises for the next little while and likely starting 5/3/1 when I’ve got a better idea what my actual maxes are (although I’ll be stopping sets short of failure).

June 22
DB Shoulder Press 35/8 30/10
DB Curl 25/14 20/16
Triceps Pushdowns 6 plates/6 5.5 plates/3
YTWL’s 2 x 12

Not sure what happened with pushdowns, glad to improve the other two exercises. Keeping it a short arms workout because I have a rugby game in 11 hours and wanted to get a sweat going and stretch. Playing blindside flanker, we’ll see how this goes, I’ve got the size for it (perhaps not the strength) but I’m used to playing in the open field so I’m just going to turn the brain off, crash, ruck, and see what happens. We’re 0-5, not a good year, yet weirdly these are some of the better players that I’ve ever played with but we just keep finding ways to lose. With 5 games left, we need to run the table to get a home game in the playoffs (all teams make the playoffs, stupid, I know).

In.

tweet

You’ve gone from scrumhalf to flanker? Haha hope the transition works out. I’m keeping a log on here myself, Rugby orientated training, i’ll be checking in regularly to see how you progress.

Where you playing your rugby?

[quote]theBird wrote:
In.

tweet[/quote]

[quote]B-Man wrote:
You’ve gone from scrumhalf to flanker? Haha hope the transition works out. I’m keeping a log on here myself, Rugby orientated training, i’ll be checking in regularly to see how you progress.

Where you playing your rugby?[/quote]

Thanks for the support guys. I’m playing rugby at a low level in Toronto and will be checking out your log B-Man and have seen yours already Bird. Just played flanker yesterday, no way I’m staying at that position, ended up playing a half at lock as well (we were just low on numbers). Was out of position pretty often but was able to secure a few rucks and make a couple of tackles.

Will be taking the day off training as those scrums took a lot out of me, but will be getting some lighter work boots to hopefully get rid of these shin splints that I’ve had since the beginning of the season.

June 25
Deadlifts 5 x 185/165/155/165/170
Cable Tri Ext 12/4 plates 14/5 plates
Calf Raises bw x 15/15
Flies 20 x 10/12

Going to do squats and presses this week and then start off cleans with 7 x 3 on Friday or Saturday

June 26

Press 65/5 75/5 80/5/5/5
Curls 30/9 25/11
Leg lifts bw/20/20

Could have gone heavier on presses but I didn’t want to miss a rep or hurt myself, I’ll probably be taking these slow as I’ve rarely done them in the past.

July 1st

Front Squat 135 x 5/5 125 x 5/5 130 x 5
Ghetto GHR x 8/5
Chinups 2/3
Pushups 10/10
Leg Lifts 20/20

Happy Canada day

I definitely want a squat rack

July 13
Started at wing and then moved to 9 for the second half. Did well returning kicks and supporting in attack from wing, also did well to contain the other team’s winger and outside center. Was passing well at scrumhalf but there is huge room for improvement in setting up the defensive line, missed a couple tackles too.

July 14
Shoulder Press 95/3 105/3 95/3 100/3
Chinups (neutral grip) 2/1/1/1/1
Cable tri ext. 5 plates x 12, 4 plates x 10
Curls 30/11 25/8

Took last week off for a variety of reasons but it seems that I didn’t lose too much strength, gotta keep the momentum going this week.

[quote]RuckItAll wrote:
Just played flanker yesterday, no way I’m staying at that position[/quote]
Aw why not? Flanker is the best!

July 16

Deadlift 205/3 185/3 195/3 185/3
Pushups 2/10
Leglifts 2/20

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]RuckItAll wrote:
Just played flanker yesterday, no way I’m staying at that position[/quote]
Aw why not? Flanker is the best![/quote]

There’s nothing wrong with flanker but passing and kicking are my favourite parts of the game. Are you playing club rugby this summer or do you play in school?

July 22

Clean 115/3 135/3 145/3
Full warmup followed by sprinting and kicking.

Light day but I was on the field for around an hour so I’ll take it

July 23
Front Squats 135/3 155/3 165/3 (clean PR)
Press 65/3 75/3 80/3 95/3 105/3
DB Rows
Leg Lifts

July 24
Deadlifts 185/3 205/3 215/3
Ghetto GHR

July 27

Lost the last game of the season and with that we rival the the 2008 Detroit Lions. Played at blindside flanker, did well at hitting rucks in support and covering on D. Had the lead at halftime but didn’t have any subs so as we got tired the other team really started to pour it on. We get one playoff game in two weeks but apart from that I’m just focusing on being in good shape for rugby in England.

Training hasn’t been spot on but I’m going to run a cycle of 5/3/1 with estimated maxes from last week (where I did 3 reps during work sets). Not going to worry too much about assistance work.

Basic breakdown:
Maxes (Training max in brackets):
Clean 160 (145)
Deadlifts 235 (210)
Front Squats 180 (160)
Press 115 (105)

Going to aim to lift 3 times a week with cleans and presses on the same day. Chest will be hit by doing db flies and pushups. Weight will be cleaned for front squats and presses, this shouldn’t have too great an effect as subsequent cycles will be done with access to a rack. These numbers aren’t going to blow anyone away but I hope to build slowly and maybe even test my maxes in 3 weeks (just for fun, I’ll use the recommended progression of 5-10 pounds per cycle).

[quote]RuckItAll wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]RuckItAll wrote:
Just played flanker yesterday, no way I’m staying at that position[/quote]
Aw why not? Flanker is the best![/quote]

There’s nothing wrong with flanker but passing and kicking are my favourite parts of the game. Are you playing club rugby this summer or do you play in school?

[/quote]
Na I’m out of school. I was asked by a guy if I wanted to play in their club this summer, but I enjoy powerlifting so much at this point I didn’t think it was worth the risk of an injury that would impede my strength training. It’s still my favorite team sport though. There are quite a few rugby players on TNation as well.

July 30
Front Squat 105/5 120/5 135/7 105/5/5/5
Pushups 10
Chinups 2/1
Assistance work got cut short but I’ll be doing some sprinting and kicking later.

Aug 1
Deadlifts 135/5 160/5 180/5 135 5/5/5
Curls (30\13 25\11 30\5)

Was late for a rugby social so I didn’t do much (any) assistance work. Continuing the first set last approach for some added volume, Wendler recommends doing the first set for 3-5 sets of 5-8 so I’m starting at the bottom (with 3 sets of 5) and will work my way up (to 5 sets of 8). I’ll also add some “joker” sets in eventually.

Will probably be switching to a mixed grip at some point so that I can really up the weight, but for now everything will be double overhand. Would really appreciate some advice on which grip to use for the purpose of training for sport.