I’m 17 and play a lot of club rugby as well at school. I’m about 5’10 (and a bit) and I weigh about 74 kg/162 lbs. I have about 1 – 2 years weight lifting experience. For club I play in the centres (usually #13) but have recently been playing Wing or Fullback for School and occasionally club too.
The weight training I usually follow is a 4 day a week body split, for example: Monday: Chest + Triceps, Tuesday: Legs + abs, Wednesday: Back + Traps, Friday: Shoulders + biceps (Thursday is my clubs training day), usually about 3 sets of 8 – 12 reps on each exercise. I find this programme easy to follow and I have seen some good results in the way of hypertrophy, however I feel that despite my gains I am beginning to plateau and that my weight training isn’t necessarily transferable to the rugby pitch. The way I thought of it is that professional rugby players don’t train like body builders, but they still look great too. I am considering starting a 3 day a week full body workout split to work more on strength and power or possibly an upper/lower split eg: upper: monday, lower: tuesday, upper: thursday, lower: friday. Trouble is I don’t know where to begin or what is best and whether or not to even change my routine in the first place. I know compound lifts are important but not sure about rep ranges, frequency and what exercises I should do on each day. I fear the mass gains I have developed may also disappear, so if anyone who could help me or recommend any suitable programmes that will build strength, power and size would much help. If anyone could post their own programmes that would be great too! I’m looking to progress my rugby into seniors where I will no doubt have to be a lot more physical!
Any sensible responses will be much appreciated 🙂
Update:
Plus if anyone was wondering, my diet is fairly clean. I try to eat plenty of protein with carbs as well as plenty of fruit and veg. I try to eat as well as possible. Most of my cardio comes from rugby training itself, games on sundays or playing touch rugby in the off season.
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Getting strong is always preferable for rugby, increasing muscle mass will increase bodyweight so can in some cases slow you down. I would get comfortable with weightlifting then start to increase your weight and decrease the rep range. I good starting strength program would be to do 5×5 training (5 sets of 5 reps), which is a fairly standard strength and conditioning protocol. Combine this with a diet of plenty of protein and good quality carbohydrate sources and you should be on your way.
Good luck
Source(s): I am a rugby coach and run a rugby blog/store @ www.simply-rugby.com
you may do this already, but instead of mixing your protein shake with water, mix it with mile (lots of it!) . also try to stick with compound exercises