Yes, what is going on? Everybody. Welcome back to the rugby muscle podcast or YouTube channel, however you're watching or listen. It's great to have you here today. As you can see in the top corner, we are going to discuss what tools you need to get faster for rugby. I think this is going to be an eye open episode for a lot of you, because this is something that I get asked a fair bit and it's, we're going to dive right into it, but also kind of Ram so before we do get into the discussion of what tools we need, I do think that there is a place to just introduce, like getting faster for rugby. Why would we want to do it? Right. Cause I do think there are so many people that watch this stuff and they watch rugby and they come onto the rugby muscle, YouTube channel or anything. Okay. I'm training for rugby. I want to get big. I want to get yacked. I want to get strong. I want to be powerful. I just wanna be massive, you know, that's what's gonna make me a better player and speed. You kind of either have it or you. now I'll dismiss that argument in a second, but first and foremost, you want like being fast for rugby is probably one of the most effective tools that you can have in your locker. You look at Lewis ream, you look at will Jordan. The amount of tries that they score purely because they are rapid is ridiculous. Now they're on a different level of rapid, right? But there's no reason that you can't do. For your relative level, they score so many tries just because they are so much faster than their opposition and that like, it makes it them as just literally just as players, complete game changes, it changes how they are able to play the game. It changes how their team can play because they've got such a huge weapon in their speed. Not just that though, but getting a high level of speed can not just isn't just for wingers. It can also be for hookers for every player. Right. I said hookers, cuz I looked at Dan Coles there who is also. And he is like becomes world class because of his speed. He's solid in many areas and plays really well, but his speed allows him to operate at an even higher. same thing applies to Sam Simmons, who is a like world class number eight. And maybe wouldn't even be in a conversation for world class number eight, if it wasn't for his speed. Yes. He's strong over the ball, but he carries really strong. He hits really hard. He plays really well. A lot of that is because of his speed that allows him to carry so hard because he is rapid. Then you look at guys or particularly you look at ANW DuPont, who is probably. If not the best scrum half in the world, like maybe even the best player in the world right now in the last couple years. He, yeah. You know, you don't think about his, his speed. When you look at him play, you think about how intelligent he is, about how he reads the game about how he's also really strong. And people can't seem to bring him down, but he's also rapid watch some of his tries and his support lines that he runs, he skins opposition to get there. And he's able to be the player he is because of the speed that he has developed and because of how fast he. Now, all of these guys are rapid, but I think a really good example. We have to go back a few years and we'll look at Mike Brown. Mike Brown, when he first came on the scene for England was a good player. He was a solid player. He was a solid fallback, but people question, whether he was actually fast enough to be an international fallback, like that was genuinely what people were asking at the time when he came onto the scene. I thought that was his glaring weakness. He went away from his club not like he left his club. Like he just went to a different coach to purely work on his speed and it paid off. He like over the course of a year or two, all of a sudden transformed his game and, and was not just a steady Eddie, but scored a load of tries and was, was a really good player because he then was able to use his speed as an attacking weapon and as a defensive. Weapon as well to get him outta jail sometimes to, to make good tackles, but like he added speed to his game. He wasn't fast to begin with. Like, I mean, maybe he was, but relatively right. He wasn't relatively fast as a fallback. He then became fast, like legitimately fast because of the work he put in. So it isn't just, you are born with it. You can put in the work and you can get faster. The problem. I then see from a lot of rugby players, is this mindset of, oh, I've ever gotta work my speed or I've gotta work my strength. You know, it does not have to be one or the other, not just because like strength in general does not take away from your speed going to the gym. I've gotta commenter that regularly comments on this channel says about, you know, you gotta get out the gym because rugby's all about speed going to the gym does not slow you down building muscle. like, unless you're in the top, top, top 0.0, zero, 1% of people that are trying to like work on their speed building muscle is not going to slow you down. It's the time that it takes to do these things more often than not a lot of people that are just only working their strength, don't want to sacrifice, you know, their fourth or fifth gym session to work on the speed. Likewise, if people that are only working their speed don't wanna sacrifice one extra session. To go and do their strength. You don't need as much of the volume to either these things that you probably think that you need, right. it's easy to get strong. It's also easy to get fast. If you keep things simple, particularly for the level of just continual improvement as an amateur rugby player, it's not that hard, right? It just needs dedicated. The other thing for speed is that it's actually gonna help you stay fitter. A lot of people don't think this, but if you are already operating faster, if you already improve your speed by like you. Two kilometers an hour, is that become your top end speed becomes two kilometers an hour faster. When you are then operating at a lower speed, that's a smaller percentage of your top end speed, which means you are not working as hard, which means that your drop off isn't actually as bad because your top end is just that much higher. Right. So if you think, like, if you say. what's the playing a game. Like maybe he would be able to maintain, like, even if he was knackered a faster speed than most people on that pitch could ever get up to. Right. You saying bolt? Probably a terrible example. Cause he's really old and doesn't play rugby, but you get to the point, maybe I could have used what was it? Dwayne chambers that made a rugby a uh, appearance a couple times. Anyway. I, you don't need any more examples. You don't mean me waffling on anymore. You understand at this. That like, yes, you can put in some speed work. It's not gonna take away from your strength work. You can do both of these things and be fine. So then the question comes, okay, what can I do in a gym to get faster? This is not your solution. I could be like nuance and say, you know, there are different things that you can do and getting stronger can still help you get faster, which is definitely true. But you are not, you are not getting stronger for the purpose of getting faster. You're getting stronger for the purpose of getting stronger, because getting stronger is a good thing for rugby. There are so many things that you can do in the gym to help your rugby. And there are also so many ways that you can get faster that have nothing to do with the gym. So I don't think if you're someone that wants to improve your speed, going to the gym is really the solution, right? Like I say, it can help. It can be something that you can. But it's not why you're in the gym. You're not using, you're not doing hip thrusts, like with the sole purpose of getting faster. And even if you are science, by this point has shown that's not the solution that we all thought it could be. That it's just, you need to do. You need to be strong enough. And then you need to work on your speed, which is not done in the gym. Even if we're looking at the use of sleds, which are becoming more and more popular in gyms these days, it's not the solution for you. Really, if you want to get faster, I think these commercial gyms more and more are getting these sleds in because they look cool because people wanna do them because they look cool. That's kind of it, right? If these sleds are used properly, they can be a huge tool. They can really help your speed. Particularly if you are looking for that top, like 1% increase that you need to, and you're already doing everything else to really get faster, what is that? Everything else I'll get into that in the. But the point here is that more often than not, if you are just using the, the sled to get faster, If more often than you're gonna be end up abusing it, you're probably gonna end up not getting the effects that you wish you could've got. Rather you could be doing something else that would make you much faster. I've often seen and have advised people to use dead mills. If the Jim doesn't have a sled and these are again, valuable tools, a dead mill is where you just turn off the treadmill and you use the magnetic force as a resistance sleds and dead mills are great tools to use. Power output for high end conditioning work, where you're really trying to be as explosive as possible, but you're not necessarily trying to work on your speed, just using these sleds and using these Deb mills. That's more often than not, you're not going to be improving your speed unless you're doing all of the other stuff that's going to help you get faster. That could be Hills for some people. Maybe, but once again, it's a tool that more often than not is abused. The reason that we like to use Hills or, that you could use Hills is because it can have a significant injury reduction effect because you are not Using as much force into the ground because the angle is higher, it means that you can't confront down from as greater a height. It means you can't apply as much force to the ground as you would do. If it was flat. It also means that your hamstring isn't quite is an extended position that, you know, then reduces risk of your hamstring per possibly tearing because you overextend. The problem I see with this argument is that you're still going to have to do this eventually in a game of rugby. So rather than, you know, wrap yourself up in cotton war and protect yourself. And then when it comes to a game, also smash into 15 other fully grown humans and hit each other as hard as you can and do all of the risks that are associated with rugby. Like why not just gradually expose yourself to that risk and, and work on your actual sprint technique. The problem with the hill is that it can actually make you slower because you are changing your sprint mechanics. When you run up a hill, you then apply those sprint mechanics and you're not using the full force and full extension of your body. You're not gonna be faster. I, I know this might be confusing to some people because you know, you're always told that hill sprints are the you know, they kind of have like a tribal effect in rugby. People love doing hill sprints with rugby. I remember once when I was told, when I was a youngster and my club and my head coach who had nothing, no strength and condition background whatsoever. No sport science background whatsoever said, like he told me if I wanted to build my quads, I need to do some hill sprints, not if I wanted to get faster, but he also said that it has that as well. He's like, you don't wanna be squatting lad. You wanna be sprinting up a hill as fast as you can. Like terrible advice, absolute terrible advice. Doesn't build up your chords. Like it, it, again, same thing with the sleds, right? It can have a, a good effect if particularly, if you want to go as hard as you can, and you don't want to cause a fatigue that an actual sprint might cause, or have that risk of injury that an actual sprint might do. Like if you are, if you are really looking at that high end power work and that high end power conditioning work, maybe that's, that's a really good place to use it, but to sprint up a hill to get faster, it's just, it's just not done really fast. People will sprint up Hills and they'll stay really fast. People, slow people don't sprint up Hills and then get faster. That is just not the way it works. The thing that really fast people do and that slow people never do because they're slow is just go and. I'm not talking about sprinting. And then having 10 seconds rest or 20 seconds rest and being knackered the whole time. That is not sprinted you're you are, you're not sprinting. If you're not running above like 95% of your absolute maximum speed that you can run. No, I'm talking about taking a sprint for maybe five to 20 meters at. You would just start and you would sprint, or you could do a flying start. So you would jog into that and you would sprint as far as can for five to 10, to maybe 20 meters. That's it? That is as simple as sprint. It needs to be. And the problem is, is that most people are asking me how to get faster in the gym, or they're asking me like what sleds they can use and doing all these different things. And what they haven't done is just gone out and sprinted. This was by far the most dramatic improvement I ever had. In my speed when I played rugby was when I went out consistently twice a week. And I just found a field that was actually opposite at my house at the time I just went out and I practiced sprints twice a week and I saw a significant increase in my speed because I was just sprinting and yes, my mechanics improved and yes, I did do a little bit of research on the mechanics. I want. I want to create when I'm sprinting, I was thinking about my top end speed. I'm thinking about driving up, keeping my body upright. I'm thinking about driving my knee up as high as I can and pulling my heel into my butt and driving it in that comes from specific drills that I'm not gonna get into in this video. same thing for acceleration. I was really thinking about like leaning forward with my hips, not just allowing my body to bend at the hips. I was thinking about projecting my shin forward to propel me forward, to accelerate me at a fast speed, but I was out sprinting twice a week and I was thinking about that a little bit, but more the, the biggest effect that it had was that the fact that I was out there sprinting twice a week. And it wasn't, it didn't take anything like crazy over time. I would mix up my starting positions. I did some bounding. I did different drills to warm up to help me think, think about the positions. And then I just sprinted. And then I just kept doing it more often than not people that aren't as fast as they need to be and want to improve their speed, have never done consistent sprint work for like six to 12 weeks at a time. If you do this, you will see significant improvements in your speed. People will love to overthink this and they'll love to overcomplicate how this works. But going out and sprinting for this amount of time for, you know, on a consistent basis, these sessions don't have to last any longer than like 30 minutes, including a warmup. You just warm up. Well, you go out and you sprint and you take a significantly rest in between each sprint. That is how you get faster. If you've never done that before, do that first, then look at all the different nuances of the different drills that you can do and everything else like that. The different things that you could do in the gym. Don't even worry about it. Just go out and sprint and watch yourself get significantly faster over time. Allow yourself to have the time to get faster. Yes, you can use other people. And in fact, maybe I would suggest this because it's then given you a level of accountability, it's given you someone else to train with. It's given you more reason to take longer rest, cuz you might just chat some breeze with your partner. What, instead of like, you know, If you're listening to music, just wanted to keep going and keep that heart rate too high. No, if you are working on your sprinting, you need to take a long rest and having a partner can help. They can also help provide resistance. As you can see here, an old team I used to work with. Allowing each other to get into that forward position, to help them practice their acceleration. You can also have a partner hold you back and help you find the positions before sprinting. They can work well, you can also use a partner as competition, so you can chase each other so that you don't have to worry about. You know, when you're in a competition, you're not thinking about perfect you're competing. You are thinking about sprinting and catching up your opponent or getting away from your opponent. Or matching their body position, whatever it is, right. You're not thinking about the specific nuances of running or, or maybe you are, but you're gradually in introducing it. So that then when you come to a game, you're able to get that much faster. Partners also work really well when we're looking at agility because agility isn't working around pre patented movements around specific cones where you know exactly where you're going. No, it's, it's about reacting to what your opponent is giving you. The key thing here is that if you've got someone else and you're going out and you're sprinting twice a week, you are going out and you're sprinting, right? That's that's the secret. That's the key here. And I, and I cannot keep emphasizing this enough. That's why we don't do sled work. We don't do anything crazy. In the gym where we're talking about speed work. We actually just have simple sprint sessions that we have our athletes do at rugby muscle. If you're interested in that, you can find links into the description below. You can either sign up for team rugby muscle. You can sign up for kickoff or you could sign up for rugby muscle elite, one on one coaching. The links for that stuff will be into description below whilst you're down there. Let me know. Do you do sprint work? Do you do work in the gym to try and get faster? Have you ever. Spent six to 12 weeks consistently working at your speed. And if you have, what have you found if you haven't, why not? Or how often has it been until you drop off? Are you finding that speed is something that you do need to improve as part of your strength and conditioning routine, remember strength and conditioning is a huge thing here. Like I've got. Rugby physical preparation, pyramid speed and power output is part of that. It's only in the middle, but it can have a huge effect on your rugby performance. And as long as you're taking care of everything else, there is no reason you can't at least once or maybe twice a week, but at least once a week, get out and get some quality speed work done. If you're confused at how to do that. There'll be links, in the description below to have rugby muscle, do it, or for further videos for you to understand how we should be training in the gym as, as a strength and conditioning for our rugby performance, you've made it to the end of this video. I haven't asked anyone to give a like yet. So if you haven't done that already, if you've done it already on your. Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. If you haven't done that already, now's the time to do it. Click that thumbs up button, leave a comment below. Even if it's just for the algorithm, really does help out. If you are new here, consider subscribing because this channel is all about helping you as a rugby player, improve your performance, or you as a human improve your athletic performance. That will definitely help you on the rugby pitch. Thank you guys so much for watching or listening and I'll see you in the next one.