Pre Season tips for Rugby coaches

With the 2017/2018 season feeling like it only finished yesterday, we are only a couple of weeks away from the start of another season with majority of teams heading back into pre season training during the first week of July. Pre season is such an important part in any sport as it is where the grunt of the work is done, where we can put large focus on developing capacity, speed, strength and skills without having to worry about injuries through weekend games.

Here I will outline some of my top tips for coaches/players on the best way to approach pre season training from a Strength & Conditioning standpoint.

1. Gradually increase intensity and volume: As much as we would like our players to try and keep in relatively good condition during the off season, the likely-hood is a lot of them won't hence why we need pre season to build them back up again. Too many times have I seen players come back in and the first week coaches just blast them high volume running and full contact drills at 100% intensity - this is doing no one any good. Each week/ session we need to gradually increase the volume and intensity of the work we do, that way players can get the best adaptations from the training. For example in the first week if you have programmed 800m worth of running distance, increase by 100/200m the 2nd week and so forth. Don't get them running 800m the first week then 2000m the second week, it's just too much stress on the body and the players who haven't stayed in condition during the off season won't be able to cope and you increase your risk of injury. We have to build a base and lay the foundations first.

2. Do speed work: In rugby we are required to sprint and we expect our players to be able to run as fast as possible. However the best way to make our players faster is to expose them to high speed running. Try and introduce some speed work at the beginning of your sessions and expose the players to running at close to max velocity, focus on improving technique with good rest durations between spirt intervals.

3. Multidirectional Running: Rugby is a sport where we are constantly needed to change direction, accelerate, decelerate and evade defenders, for that reason ensure when you do running drills you take this into consideration and implement them. You cannot simply perform only linear running drills!

4. Agility Drills: A big part of rugby is evading defenders and defending yourself. With sound agility training it is possible to significantly enhance your effectiveness on the field by avoiding contact in attack, and better positioning yourself to make contact in defence. You’ll reduce your risk of non-contact injuries as the vast majority of non-contact tears occur during agility based movements. You’ll also be able to indirectly improve your conditioning by moving more efficiently and wasting less energy as you manoeuvre around the pitch.

So there are my 4 tips to take onboard ready for the start of pre season. I do have a few more but these I would say are the most important for field based pre season sessions.

JD