Yes. What is going on everybody? Welcome back to the Rugby Muscle Podcast. Welcome to the March Live q and a edition up on YouTube. I'm also live on the Rugby Muscle Athletes Facebook page, which you if you are not a member of, you can join by clicking the link in the description of the podcast or the YouTube video. How of which way you are consuming this podcast. It's great to have you here, and I thank you so much for joining. I am tj, I'm the guy behind Rugby Muscle. I am a strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutritionist who works with, uh, mostly amateur rugby athletes and has been specializing in, in that specific population. For nearly a bloody decade at this point. It is, it is pretty much a decade. I've been working with, uh, amateur rugby athletes and so we do these Q oh, so rugby muscle was born from that. And we do these live q and as once a month for the general public. We do them once a month for members only as well. And the idea here is that we can get into nuances, um, for your particular circumstance. We can get into, um, You know, questions that apply to you and your situation, but we can also get into specific, uh, deeper questions, I guess, like get into deeper answers of, uh, simplistic questions and run through a different scenarios. I like doing these because they really can help you with whatever you are specifically struggling with rather than given just general answers. Um, particularly when we've, you know, with the questions that we're getting in. Um, Let's actually, before I get into the questions, um, give the video a thumbs up if you're watching on the live feed. As always, uh, if you ask a question, um, in the comments, you'll get that answered here on the live q and a. If you are watching this past, you know, or in the future, if you're watching me in the past, from the future, you will be. No, it's confused how I phrased that, but you also have the opportunity to ask a question in the comments below. As I've endeavored to do this year, every uh, comment, uh, in the YouTube will be responded to. And if there is a, it is a good question. I will answer it in the next live q and a or Indeed with its own video. If you would just be willing to comment and just say hi. That also does obviously help us out, and if you're listening on a podcast, Five star reviews are huge. Please, um, I, I know we've got quite a few new listeners into this podcast recently. So you guys, if you're enjoying this content, if this, um, if these podcasts are helping you with your rugby strength and conditioning, with your nutrition, with your overall mindset, with what you're doing in the gym and with your life, As it pertains to rugby muscle or to rugby training, to training, to nutrition, to eat and all of that stuff. If I'm helping in any way five star reviews, um, both on Spotify and on Apple Podcast, if you do it on Apple Podcast, leave a, uh, type up a quick paragraph or just two sentences and tell us what you enjoy about the podcast. That stuff really does help and it takes two seconds and, and, uh, yeah, that's it. Let's get into the questions. Um, first question we have here is from Guillem, from Barcelona. He says, hi Guillem. Hi, Guillem from Barcelona. I would like to do, you like my Barcelona accent there? Barcelona, I would like to know about. Uh, so-called robustness circuits and when to perform them, how to perform them, which exercises have to incorporate in this kind of circuits. Um, also, I'd like to know if you think that is correct, that it is correct to incorporate prehab or rehab exercises during rest periods? All right. I'll answer the first question. So, robustness circuits is kind of, I don't think I've used this terminology before, but it's a good way to phrase basic hypertro hypertrophy work along with a little bit of, I'd say aerobic endurance because you're gonna keep the timber high when you're doing robustness circuits. and it's, it's funny, it's interesting how names are really important when you are, when you're doing this stuff because what could have been just called hypertrophy work is now called robustness circuits. And so now you are, you are, you are framing the intention behind what you're doing a little bit differently right now. That's circuits and now it's robustness circuits. You're thinking, okay, I've gotta keep the temp up. I've gotta get through quite a lot of work and, and I'm, I'm trying to do this to really, IM like, improve my. my, my robustness and my ability on the rugby pitch to withstand lots of collisions. Um, whether lifting weights is actually gonna do that is like, It could be debated, but I do think so. And it's done th it's done so through hypertrophy. So basically it's just consistent hypertrophy work. So whatever you know, you wanna work on, uh, hypertrophy wise, I would just combine them in a circuit with minimal rest, and I would do those at the end of a session. I, I, like I say, I'm not really familiar with this terminology, so I'm. You know, I'm not the guy probably to ask about this, but if you were to ask me how I would incorporate this with the rugby muscle method and how I, how I program things, I would do them at the end of a weights strength session. I'd incorporate, uh, probably some shoulders because, you know, getting lots of quality hypertrophy work on the shoulders is, is bloody important. Maybe some arm work, um, maybe some type. Uh, lower body work, but the thing is with lower body work is that it gets extra taxing. So that lower body work would probably single leg work. So you could do lunges, you could, you could even do isolation, but it's not overly important. Um, you could obviously do some isolation as far as arms go. You could also do upper body push and pull, but. You don't want it to be heavy barbell work where it's overly systemically fatiguing. Because the idea here is that you just getting, getting through a lot of volume in order to elicit some hypertrophy response without, uh, pushing you too far, as far as, uh, fatigue goes. So fatigue goes as, as in overall fatigue. You're gonna be tied during the circuit. Um, you're gonna get a bit of a, a, a heavy breathing going, but you are not going like, as a result of the whole circuit, not as a result of each individual exercise. Each individual exercise on their own can be fairly simple, but then you combine, um, you know, three to six exercises in a circuit and all of a sudden it gets a little bit more taxing, it gets a little bit more tough, and it becomes, um, what I would call a robustness circuit. So there is, there is, you know, what type of exercises. Limitless, you know, um, really limitless. I just would avoid, um, really heavy barbell work. Um, I would avoid explosive work. Um, and that's about it. So yeah, the world is your oyster for that stuff, um, whether you really need it. Um, oh yeah, the last thing to, yeah, whether you really need it goes in line of how to perform them. And saying, me, saying that, that comes at the end of some heavy strength work. Don't add it in for the sake of it. I would add it in to the end of real specific strength work. But like you don't want your training to last more than an hour, so be really mindful of your time doing this stuff. Don't just feel like you need to add in stuff. Do this. If you really are training in a way and you want to gain muscle and you are lacking some level of volume in order to build up some hyper. second part of the question. Also, I'd like to know if you think that it is correct to incorporate prehab or rehab exercises during rest periods. For example, body weight, strength exercise sets. Cheers. Uh, no, I wouldn't do that. Um, like this is the thing with rest periods, you, you like people always talk about like, uh, a new hot thing is to stretch. In your rest periods as well, right? There is no, and this is an overall mentality you need to understand with strength and conditioning in general, there is no free lunch except maybe for zone two work. Outside of that, actually, even zone two work, you've gotta sacrifice time, right? So there is no free lunch. Everything is on a spectrum. So if you are doing stuff during your rest period from heavy strength work, guess what? You're not. You're not resting and therefore you are, you are going to either increase the amount of rest that you are gonna need in order to, you know, perform better or perform the, you know, the next set, uh, adequately. Or you are going to not perform the next set adequately enough. And you're going to, you know, your, your quality of work will diminish as time goes on, as more sets go on because you are doing other stuff during your arrest period. I'm a big fan of incorporating like, strength work with other things. So like I like doing squats mixed with some sort of, uh, core work. I like doing, um, a heavy lower body stuff mixed with jumps. I like doing upper body stuff mixed together, you know, like a push and a pull. But I wouldn't say that they're done during their rest periods. I would just say that they're super set. I love super sets. I love incorporating super sets, giant sets as well, giant sets. Super sets, but with more than one, more than two exercises or alternating sets. Now again, naming is kind of important. So alternating sets are not, uh, are different from supersets because you are going back and forth between two different exercises, yet you are resting between those exercises, right? So one, one upper body example I love to do is do some heavy bench work along with some heavy rows or pull-ups, right? But are not going straight from one to the other, to the other, to the back and forth, back and forth. Because that will compromise to an. uh, the quality and the strength of the work that you can do. So what I would do is I would do the push I'd wait, I'd rest 30 seconds to a minute. Coincidentally, probably a little bit longer than any, you know, the time it takes just to get your breath back, but you know, systemically. But muscular wise, you're fine to go on the road, on the pool, and then you go for the pool and then you rest another 30 seconds to a. Maybe up to two minutes, right? But then you go back to the bench and you've had five minutes rest from the bench, but you also have got some other quality working and you are not systemically fatigued. You're, you're good to go, right? So normally, you know, when you are doing heavy strength work, particularly with the upper body, the system, the overall, you know, your, your respiratory system, your um, CNS recovers much faster than the muscle because the muscle will, will need. That full three to five minutes to recover from really heavy work whereas, and, and perform again. Whereas systemically, if you are in shape, you don't need that long and therefore you can utilize that by going back and forth between different exercises. And that's how I would do that. You could also do that exact same thing with prehab or rehab, but it's not, it's not done necessarily in the rest sets or. Alternating sets. So that's how I would do it. Um, hopefully that makes sense. We have a question coming in on the live feed. Uh, he said, oh, we got two. One from the Facebook, one from the YouTube. So, um, First one. I'll go for the, the Facebook. Uh, it's Hamilton. What's up mate? Um, he says, here's one. I know you're a big fan of zone two conditioning. Yes, I am. Does it help with Fat Burn two? Yes. Uh, would zone three or four be better? No. Zone two. Zone two is the best. Again, because it's the same reason that it's really good foot conditioning. actually. It's really, it's better for conditioning, but it's the same thing here. The more zone two work you do does not fatigue you to do your extra strength work, right? And your extra rugby training and all that other stuff. Zone two like allows you to be nice and, and, and relax. Uh, not relax, but not fatigue when you're going into do that other stuff. So you could. Theoretically, hours and hours and hours of zone two work across the week, and it doesn't impact your performance. You cannot do the same with zone 3 0 4 in the moment. Zone 3 0 4, yes, you're going to burn a few more calories, but it's going to impact the quality of what you're doing throughout the rest of your training. Not, I mean actually not just throughout the rest of your training, but also throughout the rest of your day, right? If you are doing good zone two work, you're not gonna be tired for the rest of the day. You should be okay. Whereas if you're doing zone three or four, you might be knackered and, and lie down and throughout the day. Uh, exp expend spend burn more calories, um, doing day-to-day stuff than you would do if you were doing. zone two, zone two work and you'll be fine the next, you know, you'll be fine within the, the rest of the day and the rest of the week. Um, also, I hate exercising to burn fat. That's not the way you do it. The, it never works. You get the, the worst of both cuz you don't, you can't burn fat as efficiently by exercising as you can by really focusing on your nutrition. Like how long does it take to burn 500 calories versus how long does it take to eat 500 calories? You could eat 500 calories in less than five minutes. that's as simple as it get. So do so. Use your training to improve your performance. Use your nutrition to ooh, your body composition. Quick pause for coffee and we'll keep rattling through. Uh, Annie on YouTube says, Hey, man, it's a bit different topic. What do you think about England's number 10 choices? Oh, ooh. I like to get into some rugby nerd discussions every now and again. I think it's tough. Um, I think Owen Farrell is clearly a ridiculously good leader for England. He's been, uh, on three lions tours at this point. He's, um, got to the World Cup final. Yes, they lost that game obviously. He's been proven time and time again as a, as a massive leader, and therefore Steve Borthwick has gone for him as captain. That doesn't, it's tough when you pick a 10 as a captain because it's, it's, you know, there's one, there's one position on the team sheet for that, and it's, and they're already gonna be a leader. Um, I'm not sure how wise it is to pick a 10 as a captain, in fact, but obviously they've done that and I, I do think Owen Farrell, because. Like personality and, and just greenness seems to be hated a lot by the rugby community. He is an unbelievably good player. If you watch some, even his highlights from Sara's this season, there are some passes. There are some running lines that he takes that he puts people in space. There are some kick passes that he does. He's unreal. Now, the only thing that I think, or one of the things that Marcus Smith has against him or over, uh, Owen, is, um, his app out and out speed and how he can play on the fly. I also still think Iron Farrell can do that, but probably not as good as Smith. I think what's happening, I, I've seen that, um, Marcus Smith has been picked for 10, for England, um, for this game coming up tomorrow, um, against France, and I've seen specifically that it's done to exploit his speed. That's obviously why he's in there. I do think at international level you do like, although Ireland don't really change their team too much. I, I just think you, you have to have the freedom and the flexibility, especially when you've got a squad as big as England to somewhat change your lineups, depend on your opposition. And I think especially with a team, um, especially with a team like England where you've got so much depth and you've got a. Um, squad depth, but not an out and out. Obvious, clear and obvious start in 15 that you need to tailor how you play to your opposition. I think especially when you've got the time and access that England do to their players when they're playing. Um, like I think you need to change. You, you do need to go with different approaches for different teams, and I think that can help. Now, George Ford is also an X factor in there. Like the thing is, what do you do? You've just got three world class tens. Um, and they're all good at slightly different things in slightly different ways. I always hesitate to like, name, oh, this, this player should be my starting, uh, fullback or this player should be my starting 10. Cuz the reality is right. All we watch from these players is what they do for 80 minutes or so on a Saturday, once a week at. Right. The coaches, not only are they more knowledgeable on, on the game of rugby than, than all of us watching, right? They're more knowledgeable on the players themselves. They're more knowledgeable on the squads themselves, and they get to see them every day in training, right? So they're making these decisions for a reason. Um, so like whatever we are making our decisions on is. Not only are we probably not as smart as these people, but we're we're, we're certainly, certainly less informed. Right? So obviously he's, Steve Warks seen something at training and obviously Marcus Smith had an amazing game last week for Quinns that he said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with my guy here and, and that's what he's done. Now. I still think Farrell is, if you look at the body of work over the last, say, 10 years, maybe. I can't, I can't think of another fly half that maybe like if you say 10 to 15 years, you can't think of a fly half that can get close to him other than Johnny Sexton and Johnny Sexton is still the absolute boy in Ireland and he's like so protected in, in like as far as he's their guy to start 10 and they've got like no one else. Whereas at least with England, Farrell has been there and he's like been consistently at the top level, but he's got someone who is challenging him and that's why it's. Um, so, yeah, I dunno. Sorry. I've just taught myself in circles at that point. And, um, and that's the reality of like top level selection. It's fun to, to figure out, like, or to try and think about what we are trying to do or what we would do in their position, but we're not in their position. And if we're in their position, we might have actually made different choices because of the access and in like how well they're informed because they're training with them day in, day out and they know, um, If you look at the other members of the squad, like I do think like same. There's an issue I do see with with Marcus Smith and Alex Don Brandt, and it's that if these players are being picked on their harlequins form, clearly Tess match Rugby is a slight step above, and so clearly the space that's afforded to Alex doAnd and Marcus Smith. In the premiership is not the same as a space that's afforded to them in international level, and I think that that is why. those two players in particular who thrive off just that little bit of extra space and time that they get in the premiership and look amazing are not getting that international level and are not performing as well. Now, may, maybe they take, they're gonna take some weeks and some, some games to like to get more accustomed to that, to that little less time that they have or maybe dish their abilities undated when it comes to that level who. we'll find out in the next few weeks. Um, but I think that's, that's a big reason as to why, um, those two players in particular are not quite performing at international level as you'd hope for based off of their club form. Um, yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. Oh, and the other thing is, like we judge players so much and it's worse in the Southern hemisphere, particularly in like New Zealand, Australia. Players are so much judged on their attacking prowess, but you forget that attacking is about 50% of the game. You know, defending is the other 50% and that is just as important, right? So if you are, uh, 80% better at attacking, but a hundred percent worse at defending, that's a trade off that your team has to make and, and accept that they're gonna be worse at defending to take that little bit better attacking edge. that comes into it as well. And that's something that not a lot of people think about. So, uh, I'm gonna sit firmly on the fence, not make any decisions, but also say that no one else knows either. All right. We all don't know. Another pause for coffee and we'll go to the YouTube community tab for the next questions. Uh, Luca Bell asks, struggle to be dominant in tackles, particularly on the left shoulder repetition. That's repetition. Um, Remember when you're tackling on a shoulder, it's not necessarily the shoulder that's making the tackle, it's the shoulder that's making the impact. So you're always gonna do, um, in general, you're always gonna be, I'm assuming you're right-handed. You are gonna be pre, you're gonna prefer to grab things with your dominant side. And so you're just gonna get more reps in that side when you tackle. Um, and therefore, Like you're gonna be better and you're gonna have learned the footwork pattern that it needs to, to, that it takes to tackle with the right shoulder more and more and more. And therefore, you're gonna tackle with that right shoulder better and better. But rally is, you just need to get reps in on that left shoulder and getting low reps, getting reps in like low intensity. Before training is a massive way of being able to, um, just get some confidence in tackling with the left shoulder. But if you don't have confidence in that left shoulder, you are not just going to instinct. You want to be at the point where you're instinctively tackling, uh, whichever is the best way to make that tackle. Whereas if you are hesitant on one side or one. you are, you are going to have to, there's gonna be a level where you think about it and then you're like, oh crap, I'm gonna go with the other shoulder cause I'm not quite confident with this shoulder and all goes tits up. What you need to be is instinctive with your skills, so get. Practicing with your left shoulder. So to the point where it becomes instinctive, start to introduce it into training. Start to build up the intensity so that you're confident in it, that you know that it's gonna give you the same outcome. The same happens for people with their passing, right? But you see people who, they'll turn their back to the opposition to pass off their right hand so they don't have to pass off their left, or they throw differently off their. It's just because they don't get in the reps. Um, and like even to the point where particularly with passing, right, when people just stand in a circle, people will avoid working on their left hand pass. And all that means is you're just, you're just avoiding the work that it takes to get better at your left hand whilst also actually getting better at, you're right because you're practicing more and more passes with your right. So I'd work on, um, just strictly left shoulder tackling or left side tackling. Like, uh, low intensity before training so that when it comes to training and your impact work, your, your tackle work, that you are confident with it and you work on that, you work on that, and by the time you get to games, and this is a long process, this takes weeks, if not months, to get fully confident, but it's the only way to do it. The big emphasis here though, would be on the foot worth that it takes, it's, it's not about, Getting a stronger left shoulder or a stronger left side. It's about getting the footwork to cut down your opposition so that you are right on top of them by the time you're making that tackle. And then it doesn't really matter, you know, which shoulder it is, it's just about completing the work That's already done, been done by the footwork. Matt s asks, actually let me check for the live feed comment so far. Um, if we have any more questions, Uh, well said about Michael Smith versus Iron Farrell. I'm not sure if it was well said. Um, just the way I think about this stuff. Um, and yeah, if ten's become captains, it can kind of get to the head. I don't think it's got to ion Farrell's head. I just think he's a great leader. Um, he's clearly still, and from what I read about B Hook's comments, he's still leading off the field. It's just. Tactically it's not the right decision for England to make, uh, ahead of this game. It's gonna be very interesting to see if, if Borthwicks right about that Matt esque asks, oh, if you are watching on this live, please give it a thumbs up. It just helps, it, um, helps us live for you. Get into more people's, uh, feeds and ask any more questions because we're on our last two questions. Uh, of our, of our preloaded questions. I think I have a couple more on Instagram, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna get to them. I don't like questions on Instagram. Matt asked, asked how to balance schedule, strength training, sprint training on top of building aerobic capacity? Great question, Matt. Um, and that's essentially what we do here at Red Muscle is that's, that's the name of the game and, and that's like if, if I was. like describe the, the, the real problem with, particularly amateur, but all rugby specific strength and conditioning, I would say is that question. It's balancing and schedule. And, and particularly when we go talking about amateur, then we're talking about the schedule as well, right. Uh, strength training, sprint training, and aerobic work. Like you've gotta figure out how to fit all of those pieces in together. And the, the difficult thing with this, as you've. uh, no. By asking this question is that you can't just do them all back to back to back and, and expect to get good results. Because if you are going to do quality speed work, especially, you need to be fresh to do those. If you're gonna recover from your strength training, you need to like have some rest the next day. If you're gonna build a robot capacity, you need time. You can't just do all of this stuff and expect to get better at all this stuff because you're just gonna put, you know, push yourself into the ground, uh, with a huge amount of fatigue. We don't do that. We don't do that at all. Here at robos, we, we, we, firstly, we figure out our priorities. Um, so I think we've, we've done videos on this before, but let me give you the cliff notes. First and foremost, you've gotta figure out your schedule, right? That's the most important thing, right? If you don't have your schedule at hand, it like, then, Like, what are we doing here? We, we, we are just talking theoretical, so you have to figure out your personal schedule for your week. That's, that's absolutely vital if you're gonna do this stuff right, once you figured out your schedule. So when, how many times you can train a week. Okay, now we've, now we are gonna look into our priorities, right? Um, what is your number one thing that you need to do, make sure that gets scheduled in? So is it that you are like, if, like so many rugby players are already, um, definitely at least strong enough. Of course we can always be stronger, but they're strong enough. But where they lack is their, their aerobic capacity, their fitness, their ability to perform for 80 minutes. And so many rugby players could do with, you know, a period of at least a couple months. Where strength isn't the priority, it's still done once a week, maybe twice a week. But the priority becomes, and, and actually twice a week, you can still make huge improvements, but the priority becomes your aerobic capacity, your aerobic work. Then that goes in first, and then you figure out, okay, I'm gonna get my, um, sprint, I mean, Weight, weight training on top of that. And then we're looking at sprint training and we're making sure that we're not doing anything overly fatiguing before sprint training day. The other thing that we've gotta, um, consider here is your rugby training particularly, uh, obviously if you're in season, that's something we've got. Consider, if you're an off season, it's not as big of a consideration. Um, but we do have to figure out your rugby training. So what I like to do, Incorporate the, like, you've got all these different factors now, and now you've actually got like a, a, a slate to work with, right? You've got a schedule where, okay, now I've got my high fatigue sessions, I've got my, um, low fatigue sessions, your aerobic work, and I've got the time that I can fit this all in. You can't do it all. You have to accept that. You have to accept that there's always going to be more work that you could theoretically do, and that's okay because you are still gonna make improve. And therefore, you know, it's impossible to give you, Matt, your specific schedule, but that's how you would go about creating your own schedule. The only other things I would add, add to consider is you could do some one strength training session before a sprint day. Potentially. I've, I've changed my mind on this. Usually I would say, um, like sprint training must be done. Um, completely fresh. It must be done without any weight training the day before. It must be done without like any high intensity that you train in the day before at all. You can only do, maybe do some aerobic work, otherwise it could be completely rested before spring training. The reality is that's. Makes sprint training practically impossible for a lot of people. Um, it also means that you don't get to take advantage of the Tuesday rugby session where you're already at a field. I like to do the Tuesday session because most in-season athletes, particularly rugby players, are doing Tuesday, Thursday rugby sessions, um, throughout the week. So if you're already going to field on a Tuesday, then I like to do that sprint training on that. Thursday's a little bit too close. You, you're, you're then having to sacrifice a lot of work throughout the week, um, in order to get that session. But Thursday could be an option as well. I just like to do it. I like to do a, a strength training session on a Monday, a sprint session on the Tuesday if you need it. And then Wednesday you can rest before doing a wait session on Thursday. And then you've got, uh, another rest day before your game on Saturday. That schedule is, is. probably the easiest and simplest way you can do in season. Um, but there is a big thing I've missed here, which is the aerobic training. Luckily the aerobic training almost goes hand in hand with rest, um, because it is so low fatiguing and it's particularly if you're just doing stuff like, you know, elliptical. Or if you are, I mean, that's it. Elliptical or bike, it's really not fatiguing. Um, and you'll be fine even if you, if you're good enough at running slow enough, which most people aren't. So that's something to bear in mind. You are going to be fine to, to do low, low intensity zone to aerobic work. On any of those other days that I've called rest days, yes you can do a low intensity zone two, um, training session the day before a rugby game and you would be absolutely fine. Um, you can do it between two heavy strength training sessions. You were gonna be absolutely fine. You could do it the day after a rugby game and you'd be absolutely fine. In fact, they do this quite often and what do they call it? They call it recovery sessions. Not the way I see it, cuz you're not really enhancing recovery. I mean, yes, you're getting a little bit of blood flow work, but really what you're doing is you're working on your aerobic system. So that's how I would do it. If you, you know, depends on your schedule because if you are someone that has two hours on a Monday, but has no time on the Tuesday, or, or, you know, you'd have to approach this differently. You'd have to do your aerobics. You could easily do your aerobic work, um, uh, before or after your weight session. You could also do your. Before your sprint, your your, uh, weight session. You could also just do your, uh, you could do an aerobic work on Monday, um, like just to, to shake off the cobwebs and if you had time, you could wait training in the morning on Tuesday and then do your sprints before your, uh, rugby session on Tuesday as well. And then take all of Wednesday off to recover from that real intense session or do aerobic work. So many different ways to plan this, but I would just make sure that you are not. Planning high fatigue sessions back to back to back. You're prioritizing that aerobic work, so you're not seeing that as a resting and sacking it off time and time again, which is what most people do. You're prioritizing what your week and, and you're going through that schedule. Um, or you are, you are, you are being realistic with your schedule is how far as it comes to doing, like as it fits you and your life, right? Really bloody important. Final thing I'd mention on this, I do have something coming out, um, that will really focus on this, um, and it will be for free. Um, so you'll get access to this if you are on the newsletter@rugby-muscle.com. Um, It is something that I do think is the, probably the biggest struggle for rugby players is, is finding the time to work on all of this stuff. So there'll be a two week program coming out, just introducing you to the rugby muscle method and how I planned on doing things and how you can make it fit your life. So yeah, give that a go. Um, last question. I will answer from the YouTube. Yeah. I'm not gonna get to the Instagram questions today. Is Alex, oh, it's cut off this question. There we go. Alex Arthur Atkinson asks, hi mate. Just discovered your pod and channel and loving it so far, so thanks. Thank you Again, if you like, if you do like these videos, you like this podcast, five star reviews, thumbs up and comments and subscriptions are massive and. share it with a teammate because you want to have a better, you want to have a better team, and therefore they want to buy into this stuff. Um, I was wondering about your video addressing the Bronco and fitness tests. Being that rugby and game performance should be the only important yardstick. How do you measure a successful performance and progression? I've had games where I did my job and played well, but we as a team lost the game and adversely had a shock. Butrin off because we got a w Yeah, that's like, that is a first off. That is a fucking fantastic question. Really well thought out. Um, and, and nuanced And, um, Alex, that is like, that is the reality of sport, or that is, you know, you can still do everything in your power to prepare for a game, do everything right, and still lose just because someone's better. You could also beat someone that's better. By no fault of your own, just cuz they completely cocked it up. Uh, you know, but at the end of the day, that's, that's what sport is about. It's about getting as many ws as you can. And that's the only important thing. Now, how do you grade that? Well, you grade it with nuance, right? You grade your own, like you want to separate your performance and what you are using to improve your, your specific performance and your training in order to achieve that performance. On one on one side, and you also want to look at the team and getting the Ws on the other side really is when you are one of 30 players on the field, there's only so much that you can do, um, in order to influence a result. Yeah, we spoke a little bit about Six Nations talk already on this podcast. Look at Sergio Pariso for more than a decade. He was like one of the best eights in the world and he was trying to carry his Italy team. Is he gonna just say, oh, I'm, I'm a crap rugby player? No, he's gonna say, I'm still doing my work. Is he still gonna look for errors to improve? Improve, absolutely. Um, is he gonna look at W'S as the end of the game? No. Uh, as the end of the, the process? No. He's gonna still continue to improve and that's why he's like, guy must be like 40 at this point. And he's still playing at the top level in, uh, France. it's, it's, it's really nuanced. And, and so you, you just have to judge it in a nuanced fashion. So, uh, obviously, you know, whether you're winning or losing, but you wanna look back on your game. Like the only reason you test is not to say, right. Um, I've won, or I've lost you test in order to figure out the next steps and what's working and what's not working, and what you can improve. So if you are, if you are having. If you are doing a fitness program with the goal in mind that you are trying to really improve your aerobic capacity, and even though your team starts winning game after the game, after the game, you're still feeling tired at the end or your team starts winning game off the game and you know you are slightly less tired at the end of the games, but you are not sure if that's because. The fact that you've got fitter or the fact that your team is just smashing it and therefore the games are easier and therefore you don't have to push yourself aside. This is the like why you have to assess and why you have to really figure this stuff out. You would look back in this si in this specific situation, you would then look back over at your overall aerobic training performance. So you know, have you been able. uh, if you're doing runs, have you covered more ground in your 40 minute low intensity runs, uh, that low heart rate? Have you covered the same ground at a lower heart rate? You then, like, if the answer is yes and you have improved you, you then know that you're aerobic what you are getting fitter and you already know. You don't need to test for this. You know that aerobic fitness is going to improve your rugby performance, so you don't need to worry about that, right? same thing for weight on the bar, right? You don't need to do a one rep max test to know if you're getting stronger, right? You can just look back over your previous weeks of training and maybe you were doing, uh, you know, front squats for sets of five at a hundred kilos two months ago, and now you're doing front squats for sets of five at 115 kilos. Potentially even at an easier rpe, you know, you're getting stronger, right? So, you know, your game's improving. It is really difficult to. to put the, you know, to really tease out these nuances and, and figure out like how you're getting better. But that's why I say there's no point, like, formal testing doesn't actually do that either, right? Um, the only test that matters is how much better you play. It's also the same thing for like, for sprints particularly, right? I find that most people. like it's know when they're getting faster. You feel it on the pitch, you feel yourself improving. You feel yourself like beating defenders or just having a little bit more pace when you're carrying or, or being able to catch someone up that's gonna tell you more than, um, you know, a someone holding a stop watching pressing a button. And the difference in a a 40 yard sprint that you're probably never gonna do on a rugby pitch. Shows you, because that difference is probably only gonna be dictated by when the guy says start and how you react to the start and him pressing the button and when he actually presses the stock button by the time you finish that sprint. Um, unless you've got speed gates, in which case, yeah, you can see measurable improvement. But again, that's, that's measurable, proven in an exact straight line in controlled condit. What you want to be doing is improving your, your game speed and how you feel when you're playing the game of rugby. And that's why it's nuanced, but that's why you need to have faith in what you are doing. That's why you need to construct a plan whereby, you know, you know, as, as with as much faith as possible, what you are doing is going to improve your rugby performance. And so you need to just to improve at what you are doing rather than say yes over time. You want to get more and more and more wins, but you can't control that. What you can control is your own performance to an extent and how you improve that performance. But then even then, right, you, you can't really control your own performance. You can control, you can control how your, your performance potential, your physical conditioning. You can control yourself getting faster and faster and faster, getting stronger, getting fit. You can control that. How that culminates and manifests itself on a Saturday. Maybe you can't control because you can't control the other 29 dudes and how well they play or how much talent the opposition has, all that sort of stuff. But it's a constant process. It's a constant, like each Saturday is your, is your measuring stick. Not necessarily just for the win or the loss, but ultimately that's the most important thing, but also for how you perform, how you prepare mentally, physically, and how you go. Improving. And the reality is, and the cool thing about it is every single week, every single month, every single year, you aim to continually, continually improve as you get older. Physically, a lot of people will see a decline. Maybe are like after like 35 or depending on how much cumulative injuries you, you, you pick up, but. you should be able to read the game better and better and better and make tactically better and better decisions. Plus, you've got more repetition of the skills that you are doing, so therefore you should be getting better at those things. And therefore, all you have to do is make sure that you are treading water physically and being okay, and your games should improve. But you know, it depends. It all depends upon the other 29 dudes. So it's, it's hard, but it's fun and it's a process that never finishes. So without really answering that question, I've answered that question that leads me. We have no more questions. Thank you guys. Thank you. Everyone that's watched on this live feed, I will pull the audio and get it posted on the podcasts. If you've made it to the end and you haven't given us a thumbs up or left a comment, please do so now on the YouTube channel. And if you have made it all the way to the end of the podcast, please rate the podcast. It does help out so much. Other than that, thank you guys so much for watching and listen. I'll see you in the next one.