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Rugby Muscle

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In Season Program athlete development with a focus on "athletic strength"
Athletes doing this should be adequately fit, with a solid aerobic base as this program will demand that. 
Sessions are designed to be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with games on the weekend. 
Mondays will be upper body, Tuesday Lower body with power, Thursday full body strength and Friday will be a low-volume power "primer"

In-Season

Full Spectrum

In-Season Athletic Strength Focus

Phase 1 building the full spectrum of power strength and performance

Block 1

Block 2

In Season Program building a full-spectrum base.
Athletes doing this should be adequately fit, with a solid aerobic base.
In Season Program athlete development with a focus on "athletic strength"
Athletes doing this should be adequately fit, with a solid aerobic base as this program will demand that. 
Sessions are designed to be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with games on the weekend. Adjust to your schedule as needed. 
Monday will be conditioning with some specific accessories, Tuesday will be heavy weights, Thursday will be weights with power conditioning and Friday will be a low-volume power "primer"

In-Season Full Spectrum Comprehensive Development

Training days should be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Optional Q Work on off daysBase phase for conditioning, strength, power and movement

Base Builder

Off-Season Program building a full-spectrum of speed, power and strength
Athletes doing this should be adequately fit, with a solid aerobic base as it will be used here, but not overly developed. If you have time, you are more than welcome to get in some extra "Q Work" which is low-level aerobic training.

Off-Season Power, Speed and Strength Focus

Phase 1 building the full power strength and speed components.

4 Days of strength biased hypertrophy work to be done in the off-season. 
If you are severely lacking size and strength, this is your go to, total length of both blocks combined is 12 weeks, after this you are encouraged to go to a different program to manage your other areas and make sure you don't leave yourself with too much ground to gain before the season
Off days should have Q Work at least 1-2x a week

Hypertrophy

Off-Season

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Off-Season Intense Hypertrophy Hyper Focus

4 Day Hypertrophy built around heavy base lifts

Intense Hypertrophy 1

A rugby player's spin on the legendary GVT, athletes will be prepped from the previous block and have the ability to progress well with these

Georgian Volume Training

Full-spectrum program with just 2 sessions a week of training, aiming to maximise all areas of rugby S&C as efficiently as possible

 In-Season Full Spectrum Bonsai Approach 2x Weekly

Block 3

 Full Body Power + Athleticism developed with just 2 sessions a week! 
This is a 10 week training program consisting of 2 three week block followed by one final block of 4 weeks. It takes into account all the rigors of being in a rugby season whilst allowing for improvement in all areas of rugby S&C.
If you find yourself with more time than needed to do the 2 scheduled sessions, it is advised to do low-level Q Work aerobic training. You can find more about this in the guide.
These sessions will be done whenever your schedule allows, but ideally you won't be training the day before a game

Off-Season Full Spectrum Bonsai Approach

This program is for any athlete preparing for Pre-Season. With 12 weeks of training you will be ready not just for the games to come, but also your team’s preseason as well.
The first phase is designed to bring up your strength to a peak, and bring up your running volume so that the first week of rugby preseason doesn’t smash you.

The schedule should be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday with Saturday being your long run day. Ideally this order is kept but if you need to switch the run day to Sunday, that’s fine, you can either take the rest day Saturday or Monday.

Week 1 should feel “easy” as we build into it. Place a big priority on your movement quality, and if you need to, rest longer… I don’t want you finishing sessions feeling wrecked… in fact you should feel fairly fresh after basically every session. Stick at this for the whole 12 weeks and accumulate the work and you will see big transfers to on-pitch performance.
If you have not trained for a while it wouldn't be wise to start this right away.

Pre-Season

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Pre-Season Full Spectrum Development

Full-spectrum program with just 3 sessions a week of training, aiming to maximise all areas of rugby S&C as efficiently as possible

 In-Season Full Spectrum Bonsai Approach 3x Weekly

Ok welcome to the In-Season Conditioning Major Focus Program.
As is obvious, the main goal is getting you as fit as possible in 12 weeks, specifically as it pertains to playing 80 minutes of rugby.
Because you’re in-season, all the higher-intensities are kept far enough away from game day to allow you to recover from and peak for your matches.

The schedule should be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with your games Saturday but of course, if your games are scheduled on different days, adjust accordingly. This works perfectly if your rugby sessions are Tuesday and Thursday, especially since Tuesday is also a field session.
If you can’t make Thursday, scheduling this session in for Wednesday works as well. Don’t fear Friday’s session interfering with your Saturday game, we’ve done this countless times and it’s never had a negative impact.

If you have time and feel ok, some extra zone 2 work is absolutely fine to be done on off-days, but don’t feel the need, you’ll get great conditioning gains from what’s laid out here.

Also note we’ve dropped strength and power work down to a very low volume, with the way it’s programmed you could very well get stronger, but it’s way down the priority list here.

Week 1 should feel “easy” as we build into it. Please pay attention to the intensities… the goal is not to wreck you every session, in fact you should feel fairly fresh after basically every session, it only gets pretty hairy towards the back end of block 2. Stick at this for the whole 12 weeks and accumulate the work and your engine will build.

Conditioning Focus

Sprints

In Season Conditioning Major Focus

Ok welcome to the In-Season Conditioning Bonsai Approach Program.
As is obvious, the main goal is getting you as fit as possible in 6-12 weeks, specifically as it pertains to playing 80 minutes of rugby.
Because you’re in-season, we’re staying away from longer runs and utilizing the field. 

This program works perfectly if your games are Saturdays and your trainings are Tuesday and Thursday. But really you could fit these in whenever.

If you have time and feel ok, some extra zone 2 work is absolutely fine to be done on off-days, but don’t feel like you’ve fallen short if you don’t.

Also note we’ve dropped all strength work and kept power work down to a complete minimum. Because of the intensities, you shouldn’t lose too much strength and whatever you do lose can be gained back. If you can only make 2 sessions we have to be clear and accept our priorities.

Week 1 should feel “easy” as we build into it. Please pay attention to the intensities… the goal is not to wreck you every session, in fact you should feel fairly fresh after basically every session, it only gets pretty hairy towards the back end of the blocks.


Bonsai

Conditioning

In Season Conditioning Bonsai Approach

Ok welcome to the In-Season Power Major Focus Program.
We’re working here to really increase your on-field power and speed. We’ll be using French contrast methods, plyometrics and lactic power intervals to try and get the most out of you.

The schedule should be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with your games Saturday but of course, if your games are scheduled on different days, adjust accordingly. This works perfectly if your rugby sessions are Tuesday and Thursday, especially since Tuesday is also a field session.
If you can’t make Thursday, scheduling this session in for Wednesday only really works if you move Tuesdays session to Thursday as well. You could also move Tuesdays session to Sunday and arrange that way. 

If you have time and feel ok, some extra zone 2 work is absolutely fine to be done on off-days, but don’t feel the need, since conditioning isn’t the major focus of this program.

Also note we’ve dropped strength work down to a very low volume, with the way it’s programmed you could very well get stronger, but it’s way down the priority list here and we won’t really be performing the traditioninal lifts as such.

Week 1 should feel “easy” as we build into it. Place a big priority on your movement quality, and if you need to, rest longer… I don’t want you finishing sessions feeling wrecked… in fact you should feel fairly fresh after basically every session. Stick at this for the whole 12 weeks and accumulate the work and you will see big transfers to on-pitch performance.


In Season

Power Focus

In-Season POWER Major Focus

This is a comprehensive rugby development program with 2 6 week blocks of 6 days a week training. 
Because of the lowering volume through the legs, it will get you perfectly prepared for a season in the future and fill in any gaps in your athletic development before transitioning to a specialist program for in-season.

The schedule should be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday with Saturday being your long run day. Ideally this order is kept but if you need to switch the run day to Sunday, that’s fine, you can either take the rest day Saturday or Monday. The leg hypertrophy day is deliberately before the long run to pre-fatigue you so that you run slower due to the fatigue you’ve already accrued in your lower body, that’s the point - don’t use the long-runs on Saturdays as a race, if you wish to run fast, save it for the sprints and MAYBE the Q work in the second block.

Off-Season Full Spectrum Comprehensive Development

This program is for any athlete preparing for Pre-Season. With 10 weeks of training just twice a week you will be ready not just for the games to come, but also your team’s preseason as well.
Because of the value of a strong aerobic system, one of your sessions will have a major conditioning focus, with the first one being more of a strength/power focus.
 
Everything is covered at a minimal volume. Keep your work intentional and push yourself each session but take your time during the rest periods as needed.
If you wish to do extra LISS aerobic work on your other days if you have time you are welcome to do it, just keep the intensity tapered.

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Pre-season Bonsai Approach

If you have 3 sessions to do a week and want to start relatively-fresh, this is THE program that is going to build the base for you

Build THE Base (3x a week off/pre-season)

Here we're going to establish some lifts and get into the grove of Rugby Muscle Training. If there's a chance for more Q work... do it

Block 1 

Now we're going to build on the power and conditioning from block 1

Now we ramp things up for 6 weeks to be ready for what's to come

This test week isn't even supposed to be make or break, the idea is just to give us solid information to use for the training block and to compare to the future. Be willing to really push yourself, make sure you're nice and well rested and above all, DON'T take it so serious 😂
These tests are going to give a real honest assessment of where you're at with your strength, aerobic capacity, power and speed. I've made this testing as simple as possible so that you don't need equipment or anything fancy. Of course if you have fancy stuff to measure.... do it! Otherwise, all the testing in this program is all you need!

Testing

Off-Season Testing Block

This test week isn't even supposed to be make or break, the idea is just to give us solid information to use for the training block and to compare to the future. Be willing to really push yourself, make sure you're nice and well rested and above all, DON'T take it so serious 😂 These tests are going to give a real honest assessment of where you're at with your strength, aerobic capacity, power and speed. I've made this testing as simple as possible so that you don't need equipment or anything fancy. Of course if you have fancy stuff to measure.... do it! Otherwise, all the testing in this program is all you need!