Position specific training for rugby can be overhyped.
As a winger, your training won’t look drastically different to centres.
The foundations are the foundations.
However, we often see these 4 areas neglected within each position. Use these exact guidelines to help:
Front 5 Forwards, don’t neglect these 4 areas:
- Isometric Strength: Dominating scrums requires inhuman levels of isometric strength; build it through isometric squat and deadlift variations (25 reps @ 70-85% or 10 reps @ 85-100% per session).
- Neck Strength: Your neck is equivalent to the wingers six pack, it’s your badge of honour (Aim for 30-50 reps per session of both neck flexion and extension).
- Trunk Strength: Holding up a scrum requires an iron midsection (Use rollouts, weighted bear crawls, and loaded carries to build it).
- Acceleration: The games evolved, and you need to be a ball carrier (Aim for 80-140m per session, in reps of 5-15m, with full rest periods to develop speed into contact).
Backrowers, don’t neglect these 4 areas:
- Frontal Plane Strength: Improve your ability to mobility and strength in the breakdown (Use lateral split squats or lunges at least once per week to develop strength at length).
- Aerobic Conditioning: You need a beastly engine. Accumulate time in the aerobic zone (~120-150 bpm for 30-90 minutes per session).
- Upper-body Armour: Bodybuild your neck, traps, and shoulders i.e. your contact armour (Perform 30-50 reps per muscle, twice a week).
- Horizontal Force: You need to be able to bust through brick walls (Build horizontal force production through sled pushes, broad jumps, and resisted acceleration exercises).
Half-backs, don’t neglect these 4 areas:
- Aerobic Conditioning: You need a relentless engine to be an effective half-back. Accumulate hours in the aerobic zone (~120-150 bpm for 30-90 minutes per session).
- Hip Health: High volumes of kicking can destroy half-backs hips (Build robust hips through Copenhagen’s, hip flexor knee drives, and lateral lunges).
- Acceleration: You want to be a running threat yourself. Develop acceleration off the mark through short acceleration training (Aim for 120-240m volume per session, in reps of 5-40m, with full rest periods)
- Agility: Create your own space (Practice 1 v 1’s at the end of training)
Centres, don’t neglect these 4 areas:
- Horizontal Force: You need to be able to bust through brick walls (Build horizontal force production through sled pushes, broad jumps, and resisted acceleration exercises).
- Upper-body Armour: Bodybuild your neck, traps, and shoulders i.e your contact armour for high volumes of contact (Perform 30-50 reps per muscle, twice a week)
- Agility: Be able to run around and through players (Practice 1 v 1’s at the end of training)
- Acceleration: Be able to run through holes. Develop acceleration off the mark through short acceleration training (Aim for 120-240m volume per session, in reps of 5-40m, with full rest periods)
Back 3 players, don’t neglect these 4 areas:
- Top-end Speed: Acceleration creates opportunities, but top-end speed puts points on the board, that’s your job (Aim for 200-300m per session, 5-40m reps (at top-speed), with a full rest period between reps).
- Reactive Strength Ability: Your reactive ability will make you fast on your feet (50-80 fast plyometrics like pogo jumps, hops, and bounds to build your spring).
- Vertical Jump: Improve your aerial ability by increasing your vertical jump (Aim for 30-50 maximal jumps per week).
- Hamstring Health: The back 3 is plagued with hamstring issues, in addition to training speed, get them strong (perform both knee dominant (i.e. Nordics) and hip dominant (i.e. RDL) hamstring exercises).
Position specific training for rugby isn’t balancing on a bosu ball doing clear outs.
It’s about building essential physical qualities within each position. We hope these guidelines helped.
If you want a free In-Season training plan, follow this link – Game Ready: The Inseason Training Programme
