Rugby Workouts

A substantial part of rugby is fitness. With new substitution laws, players must be able to play a full 80 minute game with only a 10 minute half-time. While this takes what many players refer to as "heart" or "passion", it also takes a little bit of plain fitness. Dedication is paramount to the rugby ethos. As AlexBlum commented aptly on one of my posts, "Rugby is a game where strength of body, mind and team shows you the way to victory." In training for rugby over the years I have developed a few very effective work-outs which I will now share with you. The rugby section of athletes.com also has some good workouts.

Rowing: Row in the gym as a prelude to lifting weights. This is a good full-body exercise that warms muscles for more strenuous exercises and also gives a brief cardiovascular workout. Try to do at least 625 meters every 2 minutes and 30 seconds and increase this until you get to 2500 meters in under 10:00min. Don't try to do too much more because this is only a warm up.

Weight Lifting: Typically, try to do 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions.
-Bench press
-Shoulder press
-Triceps lift
-Biceps curl
-Seated leg-extensions
-Prone leg extensions
-Sit-ups. Lots and lots of sit-ups.

Running: Run during off-days. I typically start out at about 2 miles every day I'm not lifting weights or playing rugby, and eventually work up to around 5 miles.

Playing: Whenever you can, play rugby, because it combines the different muscular and cardiovascular aspects of the training.

Feel free to modify this workout schedule to fit your needs, but whatever you do, remain consistent. Good rugby can only come through good fitness. A balanced diet, lots of water, and possibly some multivitamins or whey protein are also good for training. If you train well it will make all the difference come game-time, and allow you to have more fun at things like the after-parties...