Rugby Weight Training

Rugby weight training

Simon Shaw was widely quoted in the press on Wednesday, talking about the number of injuries suffered by players.

About one third of the elite player squad are unavailable for selection for the Autumn Internationals due to injury. Shaw blames an excessive emphasis on gym culture for the injuries, with a Jonny Wilkinson syndrome of over training with not enough rest.

I agree with there not being enough rest, and I agree that there is too much emphasis on physical development at the expense of skills – just look at the number of scrums needed due to knock ons!

But the situation has developed at the Senior level due to the lack of professionalism at Junior level.

Here are a few of the problems:

Too much playing of rugby at an early age which does not allow for physical development over time.

Instead, the players get to about 16 and are told to put on massive amounts of weight in a short time.

This leads to an over emphasis on hypertrophy, rather than athletic development, conditioning and skill rehearsal. That is why University age players tend to be chubby, stiff, unfit and less athletic than their 16 year old counterparts.

The Academies skimp on resources at the under- 16 level, so that those junior players are given poor advice ( if any) – such as don’t do any weights before 16 or here is the programme the first team are doing- do that.

Hiring people who are still at University and offering them free kit instead of a wage, is not a recruitment policy for getting expert advice to the most vulnerable and important group of players.

The 18-21 year old player goes from 40- 50 matches a year to 10-12 and so does spend too much time in the gym. When they get to a certain size, they start to play 30 matches a season again, but do not have the underlying fitness to cope with that.

They may also try to maintain certain fitness targets set by their S&C Coach which were achievable during limited playing time, but lead to breakdown during a full season.

The problem is, it is too much, too late.

If you want to do something about it, book on one of our coaching courses and learn how to help the players at your club.