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RS - Power Exercises for Rugby

Strength and power are essential for rugby players, as they enhance performance in various game situations. Effective power training involves specific guidelines such as warming up, focusing on explosive movements, minimizing ground contact, and ensuring proper recovery. Key power exercises include Olympic lifts, plyometrics, the dynamic effort method, and strength-power complexes, which can significantly improve a player's overall performance.

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6 views

RS - Power Exercises for Rugby

Strength and power are essential for rugby players, as they enhance performance in various game situations. Effective power training involves specific guidelines such as warming up, focusing on explosive movements, minimizing ground contact, and ensuring proper recovery. Key power exercises include Olympic lifts, plyometrics, the dynamic effort method, and strength-power complexes, which can significantly improve a player's overall performance.

Uploaded by

speedsitesza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Power exercises for rugby players to master

Strength is crucial for successful rugby. Rucking, mauling, scrummaging, and fighting
for possession of the ball all require strength, and lots of it. In many instances,
especially in player-on-player situations, the stronger you are, the better. However,
rugby is not just about strength alone.
A lot of rugby players hit the weights to improve their performance, and while that
commitment and effort should be applauded, many mistakenly follow programs that
are not rugby-specific, training like bodybuilders rather than the athletes they are.
It’s one thing to be big and strong, but rugby players also need lots of muscular
endurance and another muscular fitness component – power.

Guidelines for effective power training

No matter what power exercises you include in your workout program, follow these
guidelines to make them as effective as possible.

1. Warm up – power exercises expose your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and


joints to a lot of force. To maximize performance and minimize your risk of injury,
make sure you warm up suffi ciently and specifi cally. Rather than static
stretching, you may be better off with a mobilization routine.

2. Explode – the aim of every power exercise is to move at maximum speed. Put
everything you can into each and every rep, ending your set when you cannot do
so. That means ending at 3 reps if your 4th could be slower than the others

3. Follow through – if you have to put the brakes on at the end of a power
exercise, you train yourself to slow down. Imagine doing squat jumps under a
low ceiling and having to stop yourself hitting your head. Do that often enough,
and you’ll train yourself to jump lower, and not higher. Instead, make sure you
fi nish each rep as you started it; at maximal speed.

4. Minimize ground contact – in jumping exercises, you should imagine the


ground is red hot to minimize ground contact time. This develops reactive or
elastic strength which is your ability to turn an eccentric contraction into a
concentric contraction. Depth jumps are one great movement that focuses on
reducing contact with the ground.
5. Establish a base level of strength – power training is the peak of the training
intensity pyramid. The loads might be lighter, but the velocity is much higher.
Power training should only be attempted after a successful period of basic
strength and core training.

6. Think quality, and not quantity – unlike bodybuilding training, which is all about
training volume, power training is all about intensity and quality. Workouts should
be relatively short, and terminated as soon as you begin to feel tired and unable
to perform at your best.

7. Don’t forget recovery – power training is deceptively tiring and takes a lot out of
your body and nervous system. Make sure you allow adequate rest for recovery
and adaptation. Enhance recovery with proper nutrition and enough sleep.

Power exercises for ruggers

There are hundreds of exercises that can help increase your power for rugby. Rather
than provide you with a long list, in this section we’ll examine the most common power
training methods, providing you with appropriate example exercises.

1. The Olympic lifts and variations

Olympic lifting should really be called powerlifting, and powerlifting could be called
strength lifting. This is because the Olympic lifts involve lifting heavy weights very
quickly, which is the very definition of power, whereas powerlifting involves lifting very
heavy weights slowly – the definition of strength.
Semantics aside, the Olympic lifts are a proven method for developing power. After all,
the most effective way to lift a weight from the floor to your shoulders or overhead is do
it quickly.
The main disadvantage of the Olympic lifts is that they can be hard to learn. The best
way to learn the Olympic lifts is under the tutelage of an experienced coach as
improper form can soon lead to injury.
Luckily, there are some simple variations of the Olympic lifts that are easier to learn
and more accessible.
The Olympic lifts and their variations include:
• Power cleans (from the floor or the hang position)
• Squat cleans
• Jerk
• Push press
• High pull (from the floor or the hang position)
• Snatch
Check out this video for an in-depth demonstration of
the power clean:

How to Power Clean with Mark Rippetoe | The Art of Manliness

2. Plyometrics

Plyometric exercises involve a rapid loading or stretch phase, followed by a rapid


contraction. This trains something called the stretch shortening cycle or myotatic reflex.
In simple terms, the faster you load and stretch a muscle, the harder and faster it
contracts, a bit like rapidly compressed spring. That’s why you can jump higher if you
rapidly bend your knees first, but won’t be able to jump as high if you squat slowly and
then hold it before jumping.
If you do this type of training often enough, you can increase the amount of power you
can produce voluntarily. Plyometric exercises often involve jumping, but can also
include medicine ball exercises.

Good plyometric exercises include:


• Vertical jumps
• Box jumps
• Depth jumps (jumping off a raised platform to increase initial stretch)
• Hurdle jumps and hops
• Stair running
• Bounding
• Jumps and hops for distance
• Clap push-ups
• Medicine ball throws
With all plyometric exercises, the aim should always be to turn the eccentric or
stretching/loading phase into the concentric/lifting phase as quickly as possible. For
example, when doing squat jumps, you don’t squat down, pause, and then leap.
Instead, on landing, you try and spring into your next jump as quickly as possible.

Check out this video of 23 different plyometric


exercises:
Plyometric exercises - 23 Plyo Variations

3. The dynamic effort method

The dynamic effort or DE method is a good way to develop power in a regular gym
environment. It uses the exercises that most ruggers are familiar with and turns them
into power exercises.
For the DE method, load up your barbell with around 50-60% of your one repetition
maximum. This will feel quite light. Then do two to three reps, lowering the weight
under control, but lifting it as fast as you can. Rest 1-2 minutes and then repeat. Do six
to ten sets in total.
The DE method works really well with squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and overhead
presses, but could be applied to almost all free-weight exercises. As with all power
exercises, your intention must be to move the weight as fast as possible, and you
should terminate your set and workout when bar speed starts to decline.

Find out more about the DE method in this video:


The Dynamic Effort Method

4. Strength-power complexes

With this method, strength and power exercises are combined so that you can a) train
multiple muscle fitness components at the same time and b) increase your
performance in both types of training.
For strength and power complexes, you perform a heavy set of an exercise using
around 90% of your 1RM. After a 3 to 5-minute rest, you then perform a power
exercise using a similar movement pattern. Because of something called post-
activation potentiation, or PAP for short, you’ll be able to generate more force in the
power exercise than normal. The power exercise will further excite your nervous
system so that you can then, after another 2-3 minutes rest, perform better in the
strength exercise.
For example:

• 1a. Barbell back squats x 3 reps


• Rest 3-5 minutes
• 1b. Squat jumps x 8 reps
• Rest 2-3 minutes

• 2a. Barbell bench press x 3 reps


• Rest 3-5 minutes
• 2b. Clap push-ups x 8 reps
• Rest 2-3 minutes

• 3a. Weighted chins x 3 reps


• Rest 3-5 minutes
• 3b. Medicine ball floor slams x 8 reps
• Rest 2-3 minutes

• 4a. Deadlifts x 3
• Rest 3-5 minutes
• 4b. Power cleans x 8
• Rest 2-3 minutes

This is an excellent training method for ruggers who have limited time for training.
No matter what position you play, power training will improve your performance. Ideally
done in the late off-season and early pre-season, and after establishing a solid base of
general strength, power training will make you a more complete and effective player.

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