I'm going to be loading up the questions for today's ones from the Instagram. If you're not. At rugby muscle. I'm going to write through, I think I've got a good number of questions. If you are watching this one live as always comment in the live chat and I'll get to those at the end of the video, or as I finish up other questions, if you are watching a post-fact, please answer in the comments or ask the question in the comments below and I'll answer it on either a complete, separate. Well next month, a live Q and a, but I tend to get through, or I'm aiming to get through one of these every single month throughout the year, because I think it's a really good way to get you guys more in depth questions than I can normally provide, you know, on an Instagram, Q and a just in general for people that slide into the DMS or slide into my email box. This is a way for you refine your own knowledge of find your own understanding and your training. And it's a way to, get a little bit more in depth than what we normally do. And for you guys to dictate where the flow of the conversation goes, rather than, you know, if you're watching the video, you're obviously by default watching the video that I've, you know, I've it for you guys, but in the day. There might topics I'm producing it. Whereas when it's the Q and a, you guys are in charge. So any questions that you have ask them in the comments below, if you haven't done already, please give the video a thumbs up. I'm going to keep reminding to give a thumbs up. And also if you want to just check out the audio only version, we will be posting these backup on the rubbing muscle podcast. That she is one of the questions is to the podcast is coming back. Yes, it is. I've actually got a shortlist of guys that I've well, actually I've emailed. At least 15 different guests that we, have been chatting with to bring on. I think about five or so, I've already confirmed a couple of which I'm talking to within a week. And so that should be, should we really good look forward to getting the podcast back up? I enjoy this longer form, type of educational content because I do think it's the most valuable one. I don't see myself as a, as a content creator. I see myself as a coach. Advisors how to solve problems. And, you know, obviously believes the fact that the best way to solve those problems is to, for me to solve them for you. You know, I, that's why I do my job as a coach. So if you're interested in being coached in me solving all of your problems, That will be in the links below rugby-muscle.com or if you just want the training where we want to be dash muscles or comfort slash team. Okay. All those plugs out of the way. One more time. Subscribe. If you're new and give this video a thumbs up, let's get into the questions. Shall we? I see we've already got a question on the live chat, so I'll get to that one after the first one here. First question I get is how to bulk up in the off season without getting too fat or slow. So, first off I am a fan of sort of the bodybuilder approach of bulking and cutting. I do think, you know, creating muscle, it's not because. You have to go through those phases. It's the only way to build muscle. And it's the only way to lose fat. And that's what you need to do. And yet to have in seeds on an off season, like the bodybuilders do. But I do believe that bulking is, poking is like, Grain and gaining muscle is a very difficult thing to do. So, you know, by trying to gain muscle, without the excess calories, without giving yourself a big surplus of calories, particularly of carbohydrates, but giving yourself some of those calories in general, it's it makes things so much more difficult. It's like constantly riding your bike with flat tires. You can do it it's possible, but it's just a lot more difficult than it needs to be. So by getting yourself into a calorie surplus, you pump up your tires and you make your life a lot easier. You still have to pedal, you still have to put in the work to grow the muscle, but you know, you, you, you, you need to be, you know, for it to be most efficient, you want to be in a calorie surplus. Now the unfortunate thing that comes along with, I think the word bulking is kind of missing. It's the problem with that is that you think that you know, you, you're going to gain upwards of 10 cages of muscle, like that is lifetime successful gaining journey of gaining muscle. 10 to 20 kilos, like that's not going to happen in one season. So when you're thinking about Vulcan, you need to pull down your expectations. This is how you do it without getting fat, right? It's by con by not treating it like a, eat as many calories as you can. You treat it as a, a progressive system in the same way that you would do. If you were doing anything. If you're doing wakes, you wouldn't try one week doing 100 kilos for a squat. And then the next week, cause you felt good. Try 150. You don't want to gain your body weight that fast, but you want to take it slow. So I've done a whole video on how to bulk actually I've recently done a video about how hypertrophy occurs, and I think that you should go and check out that video for the, you know, for the real skinny on exactly how you should be gaining muscle, but that's how to do without getting too fat, same processes I'll get into. So you, if you, if you're gaining muscle and you're getting too slow, it's because you've got. Not just muscle. You've gained a lot of fat and you've got too heavy for your body to be able to produce. The other thing is when you comes to rugby players who want to gain muscle, like you should, you should be sprinting. You should be running when you're gaining muscle. In fact, in nearly every single mass gaining phase that I put clients through or anyone through, I always have at least at least one. To conditioning sessions in there. One of them might just be sprints, but they could be anything. Right. And because of those condition elements, that means as you get heavier, you're still used to that added size. The biggest problem, a lot of people run into when they try to gain size is they, they do. They take that bodybuilders approach of, you know, I remember there was an old phrase that said something like, you know, you shouldn't be standing when you could be sitting, you shouldn't be sitting when you could be laying. And anytime you're laying down and you should be in somebody's life or something ridiculous, but just a way to shoehorn in loads and loads of calories and drop down your, your own conditioning solo that your metabolism slows right down. And therefore you're even more encouraged of access problem is that, is that you've done. Don't you're not able to handle yourself and you need to be doing as much conditioning still, even when you're gaining muscle, because you not just because you need to have. The extra weight, but also because it makes you train better, which actually gives you more potential to gain more muscle. So someone that's out of shape might take two hours to get through a session that has a total of, let's say, 30 different sets, but someone that's in shape could do 40 sets in 60 minutes and therefore, and recover better because they're in better shape and therefore get significantly more. Yeah, muscle growth because they're doing extra conditioning. So don't skip on your condition and don't try and gain weight too fast. That that would be the easy answer to that. How to bulk up, but Teton question on the live feed on a power lifting program up until may. So I switch up. So I switch up to Olympic style for explosion. That depends on what the goal is. I would say no, because I would say you shouldn't be on a powerlifting program anyway. The way like power lifting is a different sport to rugby and Olympic lifting is a different sport to rugby. And this is a big problem and I'm going to have to make another video about this at some point in the future. What a lot of rugby players tend to do is okay. I need to train. They find out a training method that they enjoy it. Be it CrossFit bit powerlifting, strong man, a bodybuilding style of training, gymnastics, solid training, whatever that there is out there. They find a method, the, they, they kind of enjoy it. They see some good results. And then I say, how can I make, how can I adapt this for rugby? And that kind of defeats the, the object of training. The objective training is to meet a goal that you're trying to. So rather than figure out your, your, your path and then try and, you know, sort of direct that path towards the goals that you want to achieve. You need to figure out what goals you want to achieve and then direct, and then train, however you need to in order to reach set goals. I don't know. That sounds. A lot more abstract than people want in terms of answers. So what I should be doing when I'm in the bloody gym, but that's what it is. You have to have an end goal and then you work backwards and it gives you loads of options, which is, which is great, but it's also difficult because then you have to put in some, you know, thinking you have to actually have to like really decide what you need to do, and then you have to stick with it. And that becomes really difficult because, you know, how do you know if it's working. Yeah. After three weeks, you haven't seen a massive change. You do that by trusting yourself or by hiring a coach. And that's really, that's why hiring a coach is like a superpower because they do the thinking for you. And you know, because you've paid, you could, you're accountable and you're holding yourself to account. You're able to make that progress because you're not really thinking about it and you, you have to stick with it. You don't allow. There's constantly switch up and change the program as, as weapon. And therefore you had to stick with it long enough to see like significant results. So to, to answer the question a little bit differently, if you're on a strength phase until may, and then you're you want to do some power work? I would say, why not slowly introduce power? What now low-level jumps low level a medicine ball throws, stuff like that can be a fantastic introduction. You could do. At the beginning of your, of your strength workout, you could do that super set. So you would finish you know, your heavy lift and then you'd go straight into some jumps or some throws, you know, build a base, do something really simple. And you can expand upon that. It, there, there is no, like, this is exactly what you'd have to do. Hopefully that makes sense. If, and if you have a follow-up question to that, let me know. Okay. Back to the larger of a questions. How do you treat shin splints? I've done this, please search through this catalog. If you just type in shin splints, there should be one on this YouTube channel. I'll redo again. The problem is shin splints is I've learned this from Kia, the rugby strength coach. Once you've burnt toast, you can't unbolt it. So. Like the key to avoiding shin splints is to not overexert your or not spike up your volume. So high that you get shin splints in the first place. You have to gradually load it on lot of rugby coaches won't do that. That means that you, as a player, need to, you know, in the weeks leading up to pre-season need to get ready for that. Pre-season to be ready. Building up your shin strength, building up your foot strength and that your car shank can all help. The shin splints are a result of a huge spike in volume. So really you have to make sure that that doesn't happen, then you don't get shipments once you've got them. It's just a lot of rest until you know, until you're ready to go again. And in which case, what happens with a lot of people is that they then spike their volume straight back up. She's going to come back and they just repeat this over and over and over again. So when you get back to running slowly, re-introduce yourself to. Avoid as much as you can. Don't avoid discomfort, avoid pain unnecessary pain, and, and you'll be fine. Ian asks who you most excited about chatting to, or is it a surprise? I'm I'm excited to chat to everyone. I don't want to name them. Not because it's a surprise, but because I don't want to say apart, say someone who then doesn't come on the pod, just because of there's a, I've got a few in mind that I'm really excited to get that I've been trying to get on since the start I'm not famous rapper players, just people I've really looked up to, but their schedules have been hectic. And then we just haven't managed to do it and it's not, you know, and I'm excited to get them on just because I'm excited to chat to them. And it's been a few years coming. Yeah. Not because it's going to be, it will be an amazing episode. I'm excited to get these people on, but more just because it's been in a pipeline and we need to get it done. Other than that yeah, I'm excited for every guest I get on. If I'm not excited to get a guest on, I want to do it like this. Isn't I think I said at the beginning, I'm not a content creator. I'm a coach. So these discussions are here as a benefit for you guys. Hi guys. I just wanted to jump in here to tell you that if you're enjoying this podcast and you want to become a better athlete, then you can go ahead and visit robbie-muscle.com and pick up any of our free goodies. That is the 50 free Robbie conditioning sessions, the physique nutrition crash course video series, the supplement guide and newly added is a macro calculator. Yes, that's right. A macro calculator where you will be able to. Work out your protein, carbs, fat, and calories that you should be eating on a daily basis to give you a guide as to where to start your diet from this will help in conjunction with your 50 free conditioning sessions to build you out a decent little plan that will enable you to take control of your training and use effective training and nutrition to become a better athlete. All of that stuff, and more can be found@rugby-muscle.com or rugby-muscle.com forward slash macros for the macro. Next question. Do plyometrics have any benefit to robbing performance? Absolutely. Now first things first, let's clarify what you let's clarify what this means or what plyometrics means. I'm going to go. With the understanding that you aren't thinking plyometrics is in the actual real definition of plyometrics, which is like not which is like reaction, ground reaction, strength. Plyometrics is the, the stiff is, is, is stiffness training. So where you jump and then you hit the ground. You have to jump back up again without letting your body slowly descent, and I'm bound back up. It's like being a stiff as you can on the ground, like a real bouncy. Yeah. When you get bouncy balls, the harder that bouncy ball is the faster it bounces plyometrics is training your body to replicate that really hard for most people think about plyometrics as just general jump and power training. So I'm going to answer is the latter. Yes, absolutely beneficial. And I think it's so underutilized. I include some level of jump through hopping, striding, bounding sprint in some sort of explosive training plyometric training with I'd say 95 plus percent of the programs that I write for my clients and for all of the athletes. Number one, because if you don't train it a general rule of farm is the faster movement is, or a faster X fitness quality is the faster it is for you to lose that quality. So you need to keep training power because you will lose it faster. You don't lose strength. If you don't go to the gym for one week, you don't lose aerobic fitness. If you know you take, you know, you could take up to a month off and you'll still be quite in decent. Power work if you don't do it for a week or so, you will sort of slow down and that matters on the pitch. You need to train those qualities. I think it also is really beneficial because we as broccoli players who are in the gym alone, tend to lift a lot of heavy timber, which is done slowly. By definition, right? Because it's heavy stuff. It takes us some time to lift the weights up off the ground or lift them, you know, push the machine, do the movement, however, which way we can against the resistance it's, it's done slowly because of the weight we're doing against we're pushing as hard as we can. We're pushing this faster. We got, we're trying to move that way as fast as we can, but it's not actually in, you know, in total terms, moving that fast. So therefore. It's a really good idea to do some level of plyometric training with most of your, not most of your gym sessions, but at least once a week or twice a week, I think it's incredibly valuable for rugby players. And in fact, like people, people tend to struggle to find the time to do it or to put it into that program, but they're happily foot causes. Infinitely more powerful than a cow is any sort of plyometric movement within your train. next question comes from Jason, who says, how can you get insanely fit for rugby? Good question. Are you ready for this? Now? If you're new to this channel, this might be a shock. If you're not losing this channel, you probably know what it's coming and training. Aerobic training is like the, the nuts when it comes to rugby. Not because you play rugby, like completely a robot, right? You, you don't like you, you, you ropy is dictated by the high intensity actions that you take. However, the high intensity actions that you take are fueled by the aerobic system. You, every time you finish a high unsexy action, whether that's a scrum, whether that's a carry, whether it's a tackle, whatever you start. And then you breathe really heavy. The heavier you breathe, the more you are trying your, your body is trying to get that oxygen into your system to calm your body down, to prepare you to do another high intensity. Your the better your aerobic system is the faster that heart rate comes down and prepares you to go again, the faster you can go again, the more facts you can have in a game and the more effective, because you don't get tired as they go on. So then therefore your affects don't drop drop down or down and down, that will the more effective and you are over the game. And the more effects you can have over the course of a game, ergo, the better rugby player you are. So what are the aerobics? The other reason I love working in aerobic system is because it's almost like a free lunch. If you do zone two training by definition has to be easy enough that, you know, it has to be easy, right? And because it's easy, it doesn't impact your other training. It doesn't eat into your recovery. It doesn't create a tremendous amount of fatigue. The biggest limiting factor to type two aerobic type training. Time, you just, you know, you could do it for, you could do eight hours of of zone two training a week as a robbery plaque in season. You know, if you had the time and the food and the, you know, to do it, you could, you could do it. Reality is most people don't because there's, you know, there's just not a need. There's, you know, there's, it's just kind of impractical eight hours of. Zone two, plus your rugby training, plus your high intensity conditioning plus your your, your weight training. I, it gets a little, it gets too much. But you could that's that's the point I was trying to make you don't you shouldn't actually go and do eight hours straight away. You slowly build up. That's it right then your high intensity work is kind of taken care of in a million different ways with your weights, with your power up with your speed work that you should be doing, you should occasionally spend time working in that energy system, but more often than not you're training, when you're trying to have a quality as you're, you're working at Heights, the actions, when you're doing your rugby training at that for you will develop that. But, you know, the more, the more aerobically fit you are, the more opportunities you have to train those. Therefore again, the foster improvements you make the better play you come. That's how you become ready, fit work on your aerobic system. I think we have one more question and then we'll round this up unless we have any more comments on the youth on the, on the YouTube live feed. We have VM today that is clearly a spam comment. I've never had that before that weird. We'll get to the question. Y'all see. Ah, shout out to Jase. How you doing bud? He says, how do you work on how do you work on form on statute without a personal. Also complex movements. So same sort of thing that I said in terms of like the general direction of your program should be done with the movement. So what backwards from the outcome that you want, if you are snatching, chances are you're not snatching become to become the best Olympic lifter. You're snatching to become a powerful rugby. Therefore look at it through the lens of becoming a more powerful rugby athlete. Don't worry about the weight on the bar. Just worry about moving explosively. How do you want to move explosively? You want it for snatching. You want to drive your, and for a lot of power movements, you want to drive from the knees, from the hips and extend up on the toes. So ideally you can reach triple extension which has all three at the same time, not always going to happen, and it's not how it happens in a game. That's something I'm looking into it. My thought process on programming with that stuff. But you know, the, the more explosive that you move, the faster that bark and go with a statue or the Dumbo of a single arm, Saturday, love dumbbell, single arm tattoos, but the faster you can move and the more exposed to that, you can move the better. But that means that you're, you're extending all three joints as close to at the same time as possible. What tends to happen with a lot of people when they're doing those Olympic NIF title. Is now extend the knees first. And so then they'll end up in a hinge and then I've sort of like calmed the bar up too late and it all goes a bit messy. So refinements that you can do for that would be number one. So if we're working backwards, what is it you're trying to achieve? Okay. Yeah, whatever explosive a rubber glove, right? You've decided that a snatch is going to help. How can you make that as simple as possible so that you don't have to do a complex movement? Like, so clearly if you have to snatch from the ground, that's going to require a lot more technique than snatching from the hip. Right? So if you've got a, just standing, why is that? Because when your, because what was the first thing I said, the first thing I said. The oh, the earlier thing I said was a lot of people run into mistakes when they're doing when I'm doing that statues or when they're doing a lot of explosive moves because they extend that unease too soon. Well, there's a lot, lot greater chance of that happening if you're lifting from the ground. Right. Because that gives you room for, for those needs to straighten and all of a sudden, your whole movement's popped up. If you're already standing, when you're trying to do the snatch that doesn't. What do you do then as a, as a standing session, you basically jump with the bar, your hip, and then you catch it overhead. That's it as a symbol, as a movement, as it can be as very little ways that you can fuck it up. You, if anything, you fuck it up by trying to be too technical and you end up like, you know, hanging yourself in the face or doing a big kettlebell swing or something, just jump just cash. That's it. Simplify the movement as much as opposed to talking about a, you know, you could do this with a Dumbo. As well, you can just hold it down by the side, jock, catch it overhead. Okay. The more natural the movement, the better, the more simple the movement, the better, the less of a, a task you have to. And especially if you don't have a coach, like you want things to be as simple as possible so that you don't you, you, you don't see progress because of your technique. You see progress because you're becoming a better athlete. If you ha, if you've got a coach, he can refine where he or she, or I can refine your technique over time. I'll tell you things to look for. We can, we can improve on those things as time goes by, and that therefore you're better. Quality of moving is a progression, but for the most part like that better quality of movement is a natural progression from becoming more explosive. So you want to make that movement as is as simple as possible. Keep working on it over time, you should see it getting better. You should see, you should feel more explosive and you should be able, we should be capable of lifting more weight, or it should be capable of lifting. Actually you should be capable of lifting more weight at a faster rate. Everything should be more explosive. The other way to tell that and the other way to do that as an individual, now I would actually do this. I would ask you, cause he yeah, he if he says, how do you work on. Assuming he's saying, how does he work on it? And not me? How do I work with people? But either way, the answer is probably the same thing. Video yourself. Video sells ideally from a side angle or from a 45 degree angle. Don't, don't take up a whole jam with your, your video and equipment because you like a bit of a knob. You know, you're not a celebrity. Just, just, just, just take a video though, but that don't, don't feel like self-conscious, you're doing it because you want to become. So, if any of yourself, look back, give yourself a little bit of feedback on the side of the things that you want to work on. If you look back on that video and you'll see that your knees extended too soon, just, just think about it the next time and over time, you're going to correct that. What, because of those thoughts, and then after that, you're going to be able to do it autonomously. You want to get to the point where you didn't have a, of. On the field, right? Cause that's, that's how you play. You don't think about your movements. You don't think about using your glutes when you're playing a game of rugby, you just run or you just exploded. You just make a tackle. You have to think about it. It's the same thing with, with moving in the gym better. Right? You have to at the beginning, think about what you got to do. Tell yourself just before and try and make sure you get it right. Review it, refine it, refine it, refine it. Overall, this problem is easiest to solve by working backwards from what you want to achieve and making things as simple as possible. And, and going back to the original question that I got asked on the YouTube channel here was that, you know, that from the power lifting Olympic lifting, like, you know, don't, don't look at a complicated or, or a different method of training and shoehorn it to fit what. It's lazy, if anything else, right. It's it's, you're not, you're not powerless. You're rubber cloud. So, you know, I, I, there are several athletes I work with that don't do any barbell squat and at all, and they're just fine. They're actually them significantly stronger than they were when they were trying to Barb, our backs or whatever or Olympic lift or whatever it is. Right. Think about what you want to achieve and then build a program or build a long-term. Plan to get to where you want to be. And then, you know, where wherever you want to achieve with a short-term program, make it as simple as possible to get you to where you want to be and then make adjustments. And then once things do start to get complicated or if they have to do that's like you should already be in a place where, you know, it's going to get complicated and then therefore, you know what to do as a result. But most people on that most people want to have a need to be that I'm not. So, okay. That's actually a good thing. Right? You want to keep things as simple because then you want to keep seeing that easy pro progression. All right. That ends up. That's the, I think that runs off the questions from the prepared ones. I believe that ends up the ends off the live questions as well. Thank you guys so much for watching. One more time. I will say ropy-muscle.com. If you, you know, you want this live Q and a, but you want it done on a weekly basis specifically to you and your training and you want a program and nutrition. We want us not just to discuss like conceptual things, but actually talk about how your week went, how to improve your week. Look forward to the next week, improve that week and get you on the fast track to becoming an awesome rugby player that will be in the link below. Or if you just. World-class shaking conditions they're delivered directly to you. You have to don't know, thinking about your program and a tool. Just get your program delivered, right to your inbox as robbie-nelson.com for as team also in the link below, I'm going to start doing some occasional occasional, not, I guess we'll call them consultations. There'll be consultations that I'll be doing. To sort of unfuck your program. I want to, you know, this will be a paid service of course, but it will be your Jaime and we'll have just a one-time consultation. We'll build out your program together or we'll figure it out a little bit better and then we'll leave you on to you know, our lead up. I'll let you go. And from there, that's it mine up kind out this last bit, because I'm just talking nonsense. Anyway that finishes the video, give it a thumbs up. We've made it all the way to the end. Thank you guys so much for watching. I appreciate you all. I'll see you in the next one. All right. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed that episode of the rubbing also podcast, then I've got a quick little request and a potential prize giveaway for you. If you do set request, all I want you to do is go to apple podcast and type up a five star review. Just your general opinions of the podcast would be great feedback, but also helps us reach higher rankings. Get more exposure. Allow me to address. Guest and devote more time to develop a better all around podcast experience for you. All you have to do once again is going to give us a five-star review on whatever podcast service you use. Let me know you've got it. And then every single week I'll be selecting one review to give away a free prize that free prize will be over one free month of team Robbie muscle. That's our world-class shank for initial program app delivered directly. Phone or if that doesn't interest you, then we've got one free consultation where I'll go over your training program, your nutrition, and advise you out the best plan for your goals. Even if none of those things interest you is still doing me a solid and helping the podcast grow by going to give us five star review. There's no real excuse. It takes like one minute and that helps us show it exponentially. So I'd really appreciate if you could do that. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you in the next one.