Most players completely cock up their in-season training programme for rugby.
Either completely overdoing volume, and underperforming on game-days. Or neglecting the physical side of training and regressing in-terms of strength/speed/size during the season.
In this article, we’ll be showing you 4 templates you can use in order to set up your in-season properly:
Training Plan 1: Lower-Upper-Full
Who’s it for?
The intermediate-advanced rugby athlete who wants to focus on physical development.
Strengths:
- Holistic Physical Development: This split gives you the opportunity to continue to build strength, muscle, speed, and power in-season.
- Front-loading Week: By having the heavier lower body session at the start of the week, and power/speed sessions towards the end, you should go into game-day with little fatigue whilst feeling explosive.
- Good training volume without game day fatigue: The secret of this structure is the use double days, with two days completely off. This allows you to get in more volume across the week without excessive fatigue on game-day. Great for athletes who prioritise their physical development.
Weakness’:
- Time Commitments: There is one double day, in order to manage fatigue. Some athletes will struggle to find the time to do lower-body and rugby training on the same day.
- Sports Specific Training may Suffer: Performing a lower-body session prior to training on Tuesdays may interfere with your ability to perform at training.
Training Plan 2: Full-body Strength and Power
Who’s it for?
The athlete who struggles with in-season fatigue and has a good base of strength.
Strengths:
- Fatigue: The low volume of this programme is great for maintaining strength and power without excessive fatigue on game-days.
- Time: Only two sessions a week of ~ 60-75minutes is feasible for the busy player.
Weakness’:
- Poor Hypertrophy and Strength Stimulus: Due to the low frequency and one session geared more towards power, this isn’t a good option for athletes looking to build muscle mass or develop strength.
Training Plan 3: Full-body Strength Focus
Who’s it for?
Great training template for novice athletes that need to develop foundational strength standards.
Strengths:
- Strength Development: Novice/intermediate athletes should be able to gain huge amounts of strength in-season if you stick to the basics. Include squat/hinge/push/pull/carry/core patterns in both training sessions and look to increase weights weekly.
- Time: Plenty of time for life/skill development. Really good for the young student athlete who has a lot on their plate.
Weakness’:
- Fatigue: Intermediate-advanced athletes will struggle to do 2 strength focused full-body sessions in-season. Squatting and deadlifting heavy twice a week during the season isn’t a good idea for these athletes.
- No Power Training: although there’s still a speed session once a week, there is no dedicate power work. You can superset your squats with jumps, and maybe do an olympic lift/loaded jump at the start of the session, but most novice athletes should be focusing on building the foundational strength standards first anyway.
Training Plan 4: Lower-Upper-Full (V2)
Who’s it for?
Intermediate-advanced athletes with a flexible schedule.
Strengths (same as V1):
- Good training volume without game day fatigue: The secret of this structure is the use double days, with two days completely off. This allows you to get in more volume across the week without excessive fatigue on game-day. Great for athletes who prioritise their physical development.
- Holistic Physical Development: This split gives you the opportunity to continue to build strength, muscle, speed, and power in-season.
- Front-loading Week: By having the heavier lower body session at the start of the week, and power/speed sessions towards the end, you should go into game-day with little fatigue whilst feeling explosive.
Weakness’:
- Time commitments: If you work a full-time job, it can be difficult to fit double days in. Particularly when I’d recommend having around 6hrs between sessions.
- Sports specific training may suffer: Performing a lower-body session prior to training on Tuesdays may interfere with your ability to perform at training.
These aren’t the only ways to organise your training week, but they give you some concrete ideas that you can apply immediately to better organise your in-season training programme for rugby.
If you want to put your own spin on it, read my article on the principles of in-season training.
