All right, let's take a look at what the teams are doing in the gym with their strength and conditioning to prepare for the world cup What's going on everyone? It's tj here from rugby muscle I've done these style of videos before but now it's time for the world cup and this is a video I would have absolutely loved as a youngster. I remember scouring, the internet I can't remember if it was youtube if that even existed that much back then But there was a few videos of All Blacks training and I lapped that up and I thought that was training that way was exactly what I needed to become a professional rugby player myself. Wasn't the case and it's not going to be the case for you but there's still stuff that we can learn and we can react to and we can enjoy so let's do that. First we're going to look at Ireland and then we'll see what else we've got here too. Just to react to, just to see what they've got going on. I'm still a pre season personality. I wanna see what you've been up to. to get to this point. Oh yeah, I should point out, this is only week one of pre season. So this is like a couple months ago. This isn't something, like, they haven't released much else since then, so. Just doing what we can. A lot of hard work has gone into it. How has the first week gone for you? Yeah, it's been a really good effort by the players to buy into what we've been encouraging. We've been looking for high performance habits from the get go. And this is really building in the last 18 months, two years, both. I think something that's unique, maybe not with Ireland, like, maybe it's the same as what, like, probably the All Blacks are the only other team that are in a similar boat. Where they can basically can control everything with their national team. They can control the strength and conditioning. And they can control it like year round. Whereas, you know, England players are contracted to premiership teams. Australia has a mix of everything. Most other teams have a mix of everything. Yeah, pretty much all of them. Maybe Wales. Correct me if I'm wrong but for the most part, teams don't have the luxury to, to do that. So they, Ireland really take advantage of that. On and off the pitch. So truly collaborative effort behind the scenes to try and make this week work. And it's been great to see the players really buy into that. Ooh, we've got some med ball rotation throws. This isn't a rugby pass. Make no mistake. This isn't, they're not trying to pass this like a rugby ball. They're just rotating and learning that rotation. Yes, it can make you a better, a better passer in the long term, but it's not. It's not a direct pass a heavy ball and then you and then a rubber ball seem lighter and you can pass it. No, passing the ball is about technique, but if you've got good rotational power, it's going to help. I also really like this look here on first week of pre season done. It's been a long time coming. A lot of planning has gone into this. Block week one. What's the focus? So the focus for week one, there's many different things to work on, but it's started with a lot of work around movement, health, strength, power, speed see how there's not just one focus? See how there's quite a few focuses within that? Yes. I think movement health would be the most important one because if you are in, if you. start moving. If you're, if you are in week one, this is your time to the way you're going to get stimulus from everything. It's why when you first start in the gym, it's always better to learn really, really good technique because if you, if you have bad technique, it's a lot harder to unlearn bad technique than it is to relearn or to, yeah, to unlearn bad technique than it is just to learn good technique from the get go. So if you just come in conditioning week one and learn to And just practice really quality movement when you start to load that up It's also going to give you the best chance of avoiding any Injuries because you're moving better when you go heavy when you do all this stuff So yeah trying to work on various different elements and trying to build gradually through the week Building gradually through the week is also important. But also he said Speed and power as well. Is it also important? In a traditional approach you would save speed and power to like the end of a preseason block getting ready But the reality is there's so much to be gained from quality speed work that you need to be Like doing it basically year round because there's so much to improve With the different elements that there are of speed in a game like rugby Pre season isn't just about working the players hard on the pitch and in the gym It's it's about as you say that collaborative approach. So it's multifunctional across all aspects it isn't this is something probably that you don't get the luxury of as a as an amateur player, especially where You know, in an ideal world, you know, as an amateur, you would have specific weeks where you've gone up, you're gonna work hard with your job, your family's gonna potentially stress you out those weeks and they can be a bit more stressful those weeks and then as they get less stressful, you can then ramp up your training intensity and not just training intensity in the gym, but you're going to talk with your coach and they're going to scale their intensity up as you get stronger and stronger as well, stronger as well. Yeah. Rally doesn't work like that. Your, your coach is going to throw at you whatever he thinks is appropriate for that week. You know, you could be slowly building yourself up, but you came into a new team four weeks into the season. And then after two weeks, they got smashed by 50 points. And now the coach wants to run them through the grinder. And they want, he wants to have a really hard week. This is where you've got to scale back on yourself. So the only thing that you can control are the things that you can control, whereas they have the luxury of controlling a lot more. Indeed, so we've been using the the Brain's Trust within the organization so we can be truly collaborative, and it really feels that way, working with Performance Nutrition, the AP guys as well, medical, physio, but also operations and rugby. And through all of that, we've been able to put together a program that we believe is quite innovative, but also... So he, the operations and rugby is a really good point. Like that's them doing or being sure that, you know, they're not asked to do heavy media and stressful media or anything like that's going to. Mess up their plans on days that they need to recover, you know that like sometimes I remember before where you'd be like, oh, okay You've you know, you've got your afternoon off Let's hammer all the media then but actually that book then becomes more stressful and you're not recovering from your training appropriately And this is this is a team that are really aiming to peak for this World Cup Stimulating for the players and it's allowed us to build our international networks and allow us to look at the likes of periodized recovery, which is really individualized and tailored towards the work of each day. There we go. So they all have to do different stuff. They have to recover differently. Let's have a look at this real quick. For the players. And it's allowed us to build Rotation and lateral network. Put together a program. It feels that way. We're using the Performance rugby. Lots of movement prep as well. And through all of that, we've been able to put together a program that we believe is quite. I'm not the biggest fan of all this movement prep for, I mean, for these guys, 100% they need to do it. But a lot of people, that don't have the time, like you've gotta be in and out of the gym in an hour. Is, is it really worth doing all this stuff? We're not sure. Ah, that's a nice neck, lateral neck isometric as well. Lots of neck work. Like, they've got the time to do it. They absolutely can help them potentially minimize the risk of a concussion, but also dominate in contact situations. I think neck is probably more important than arm isolation for rugby players, particularly if you're doing any other upper body lifts. Ah, we've got some lateral oblique work here. Which is really good for the call, really good for contact situations as well. James Lloyd getting that in. A few days off for the players now at the weekend. They're back in on Monday to hit the ground running. Presumably that plan is to make incremental gains as pre season goes on. Exactly, yeah. I am loving what these boys are saying. Incremental gains. Gradually build through the weeks and every day is an opportunity to get better. Probably a bit late for a lot of people that have just... Nearly finished up their preseason, but like smashing week one of preseason is not the way to go. It's always the week one of any program basically should always be easy because you've got a low barrier to entry to get gains. And then you like gains is in in your performance and then you can continue to improve like on top of that. Whereas if you go 10 out of 10 week one, what do you do week to 10 and a half? Like just stay 10 eventually you're gonna have to get better if you can just start and improve on like a four Start on a four and improve on a four and then build up five, six, and now you're nowhere near as fatigued and you can get a lot more productive weeks out of your body. Personally, you've got so much experience across World Cups and different competitions. How excited are you for this block? Yeah, it's not the first real deal for many of us and actually from that perspective, each one is a little bit. Ah, Jefferson deadlift. Different, and I think this collaboration, the sort of excitement that is being built from the coaches and from Gary as well, has allowed us really to prepare well, and I am really excited about what this group can do. Lots of core work. This is cool, and I also like that, like, people, and I've also in my predictions video, have pegged them to lose in the quarterfinal game, but people harp on the fact that they lost in the quarterfinal. But they, like, Like they're gonna learn from it like they're not the same player It was definitely not the same players, but even the same stuff they're learning from the mistakes that they made and Like are going to put themselves the best chance to to progress from there. So really good stuff, right? I think there's one more video from We had a nice fitness session this morning and had a really good hit out against portugal yesterday just basic All in all it's been a been a really good week. The sun and the heat has been definitely challenging on the body and on the head as well. Just when you're training in the environment warmer, warmer climate, everything is tougher. So yeah, hopefully we'll be better for it by the end of the week. What, what is the content of the week? Is it, is it much different to it? I'm seeing all these teams going for warm weather training. I'm not buying that it's like that physiologically better as far as like mental, like preparing you for France. Like, doesn't make any sense. Where it does make sense to me would have been like preparing for Japan when it's all that the humidity, but also just being in a nice warm environment, you don't have to warm up as much, right? Literally because your body is already a lot looser because it's warmer. It's just that much more enjoyable, right? Whereas if you're stuck in a camp for three weeks where it's raining every day, That's just not going to be as an enjoyable experience and literally enjoying yourself is going to allow you to improve better. The usual training week back home. No, it's quite similar in terms of we, we just, we arrived out a day earlier. So, yeah. So they're just doing the same sort of stuff or a day later. So we started our usual Monday on Tuesday and then, but in a warmer environment, like they're doing that, it's like a working vacation for these guys, you know, it's, it's, it's cool. We kicked into the week. So yeah, three days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Speaking of enjoying themselves. This is the last one I can find of Ireland in the gym These are the sessions you'd like to see What we got squats our banded squats nice Minimize the risk at the bottom the lift, but really get through a lot of work. I'm not a huge fan of banded squats Belt squats really good single arm dumbbell snatches. I can't believe he's doing that with a techno gym dumbbell. They are disgusting Good enough Big Bar Belt Squat Belt Squats are great, and if you have access to them in your gym, like, great, because they do put, like, you can load them up heavy, but without putting extra pressure through your spine. There is something to be said about being able to brace strong and use your spine, like, and lift strongly, but, for contact situations and stuff. But, You know, like if you can, if the more, if you can get a lot more volume, then that's going to help as well, particularly if you're going for a brutal training, particularly if you're going for a brutal training week, like these Irish lads would have been like getting the leg volume in without straining your back or putting any strain through your back and like fatigue in the system as back squats do as why you don't see very many deadlifts in, in high level strength and condition as well because of that stuff, but really good stuff from Ireland was really impressed. Yeah. People got offended that I said that I was nice to Ireland in the other video, so hopefully, hopefully I can be nice to Ireland still. All right, this video from Scotland looks like it's going to be even more informative what training sessions are like inside the Scotland camp. Let's have a lookie. Ha! Epic! That was a hundred and fifty kilos. Hamish Watson smashing the bench. That's a hundred and sixty kilos for those keeping count. Of course, P. S. Schumann is doing that. A hundred and sixty. Full range of motion. Ah! weighted pull ups fantastic probably the best one of the best upper body moves that you can do for rugby and we've got a pillar here as well full range of motion enough. Is that still Piers Schoonveld? No it's not. I forgot who that was. weighted pull ups Looking good, really good. Weighted pull ups are so good because, like, it just allows you, like, pull ups are such a great movement, but you're often limited by, like, if you can do reps of, or sets of 15 reps, you know, like, it's tax, it's hard to work, like, to get that in a rep range, you know, 3 to 5 reps, or, or maybe even 3 to 6 to 7 reps, you know, where you're trying to go heavy. It's not a good, it's not good doing that with Like lat pulldowns because you end up swinging and using momentum. It doesn't work really well It's really difficult to do like heavier lat pulldown work And then maybe you could potentially use barbell rows, but it doesn't hit it the same And barbell rows also you're putting pressure through the lower back. Whereas this Really good for contact situations when you're pulling and you're tackling someone you're trying to manipulate your opponent to where you want to go These are great The cameraman is just loving these guys on the bench press. See how the vast majority of these reps are also really fast. Apart from that one pull up. So you're all good barspeed. They could all, for most of these, they can, apart from that one pull up, they could all knock out like a few more reps. They're doing this at RPEA. So they're pushing out some heavy weight, getting stronger, but they're not massively taxing the system. Let's go. Yes. Yeah. And again. Come on. Good. Duan smashing the the dumbbell bench. I'm not a big fan of dumbbell bench press for lower reps. I just think you, you waste so much energy trying to stabilize. After a while you get good at it. But I think if you do good technique with the barbell, it shouldn't put too much pressure through the shoulders. Maybe Duan is just a meathead that's bugging his shoulders a bit too much and now has to use the dumbbells. That wouldn't overly surprise me. He doesn't need to get any bigger at this stage anyway, he's not doing this He's just doing this to maintain his strength at this point all of his physical preparation work will be Maybe even getting even faster being more agile, but and then maintaining like the dude's a beast And then they go straight so that an hour in the gym Knock out some heavy work and then into the contact skills I love all this contact skill work as well because it's just basic skills. I think like as amateur rugby players That's all stuff that you should be doing like if you've got 15 minutes before a game before a game before training like People just stand around and pass balls if you could do this Like this is going to improve your tackling way more than like Added two extra sets of bench press or squats or whatever in the gym is going to do this is working on the skill of You know of contact situations, which is really really important They're doing it look they're doing it blinded so they have to turn and react and get their feet in the right position It's all about the footwork. See the foot is in the position here to make this to make this hit See how his foot's on the outside won't be as good a outcome foot in into their units. Alright, four forwards unit sessions are boring and repetitive. So let's go look at the backs. Speed work. It looks like, oh no, this is a little bit light change of direction stuff just to go through the motions. Just to reinforce that technique. Working on acceleration mechanics and then just basic skills. Again, same thing, you know, if you're a back, you've got time before training. This is what you should be doing, this sort of stuff. Haha, just diving score. Oh, and then just player evasion. Oh, full work. Oh, I like this. Obsessing as they go, learning to This, this is agility stuff. No ladders bullshit. Actually beating players, reacting to that, to situations around you. Yep, loving all this stuff. But let's keep skipping. Rugby session now. Just a team session. Just basic stuff. Man, man, I'm impressed by this. You know what? Scotland could get out of their group, you know? They could definitely get out of their group. Now a team that, unfortunately, aren't as playing as well as Scotland, but are more likely to get out of their group, probably. England. Turn this down a little bit. They've always done a good job of documenting their training. This, the inside line series are really good. Unfortunately, they're just playing rubbish on the pitch. The environmental conditions supplement your training, like altitude which is popular. We prefer the heat and humidity because of an array of physiological adaptations you can get from using the heat and also the minimal impact it has when you return home to resume training and it's got a really good amount of transfer with regards to performing even in temperate or non temperate climates. This is again, again where my feeling is. Like, it's good training in the heat because it's nice, it's nice training, nice weather. It's nice being in nice weather. Maybe it presents a little bit more of a challenge. I'm not sure how much of an adaptation it really does make. Altitude definitely does. That's like proven as beneficial. Give yourself a bit of under a lot of pressure. I love that Owen Farrell even says, you know, Stay deeper. That's like the one piece of coaching advice that I always say when I'm coaching teams. Get deeper. Tactically, with regards to the decision making process and learning. Technical pressure as well. And the oppressive heat is a distraction. It's hard not to be consumed with how you're feeling, physically, in the heat. It's hard not to be very aware that your head's pumping with blood, you're trying to cool down in the moment. But you've also got decisions to make on the field. Which means when you take those pressures away, it's just that degree a little bit easier you feel Then again, this is where you question about why england have been performing so poorly like when like if if that if these are the benefits like Have they missed the forest through the trees where they put so much pressure on their decision making? That they've then gotten used to making poor decision making this is something that this is where Like the idea of wearing a training mask isn't a good idea or even doing like fatigued sprints isn't a good idea because then you, if you're wearing a training mask, you learn to like lower your intensity. You cap the intensity that you can train at and you don't really get any extra physical benefit. All you're doing is making it harder for you to train. It's like doing squats on a balance board. If you're doing, if you're always doing squats on the balance board, yeah, you might have better balance and you might be better at balance board squats, but it's not going to make you stronger because you can't put the amount of weight that is adequate enough to get you stronger because you're so focused on balancing. And now I ask the question of, is this England team so consumed by their heat training and all this other extra pressures that they're putting on us? So they're not just executing basic game plans because It seems like that's the case. A little bit more prepared. We profiled the individuals before the camp with regards to how they dealt with the heat, with regards to their rates of sweat loss, how they control their core body temperature, and what the composition is of their sweat. Spoil English people, right? With regards to how much salt's lost. Each player has a bespoke routine in place for, what, you know, what you might call pre cooling or pre acclimation prior training. I do really like this, but it is so spoiled. It's how... Pre cooling so bringing down their core temperature before we train things like using cold water or cooling packs Paracetamol to bring down core temperature. Some players might be using a fluid strategy like and I think you think this is potentially why England are Playing sometimes the way they are because they just they don't feel like that. There's any urgency or any Like big will to win like you see with the Wales team when they play really well like that. They're all getting together. Scotland as well. Like they, they, and they go to be better than the sum of their parts. Whereas you look at the sum of England's parts and you think this should be performing way better than where they're loading on electrolytes and fluids prior to training as an argument. It's sensible. We train and afterwards again to make sure that the next training session is not being affected. Anyway, I don't want to just complain about this. Steve said to us early on the week that for to get better at it. Our wingers have probably sprinted a long distance, or tracked back, or something which has required a big high intensity effort. So they need to get themselves back again as quickly as they can. This is a big part of England's game plan, and all international teams game plan with these box kickers is the kick chase. For the next time, which could be, you know, ten. Which is a whole new fitness element. 20 seconds. You know, we don't have water breaks every stoppage. It's a challenge, that's why we're here. Because when we take that away, and go back to England and compete in France. That stressor won't be there, so they should feel like there's a rebound effect. So, yeah, so the argument against this, like, I get his point, but the argument against this would be that because they, they've got this extra stress in place, they're not just getting good at the basics. Like, although England are doing a good job of kick chase, but they, I don't know, and they have also, no, they haven't, they haven't really, I mean, they scored at the end of the Ireland game as well, so maybe. Maybe he's worth point. But if you, if you, if you put too much stress in the first place, then you, you, you, like, you don't make the adaptations that you would've done. Have you just not trained with that extra stress? You know, you too old to wear a cat backwards. That is the question. It's a little chip that, it's a little, it's a little. Don't comment about Berlioz and Farrell, please. Halid Waters is a very knowledgeable, very well sought after in this place. So, England did a really good job to get him. So, I wonder what he's making of all this, but we'll see some other stuff that they're all doing. He's humble. Humble. We're looking at some extra recovery work lads work out of hours. And the commitment to their craft and their bodies that they've got. This is a big thing for intense camps like this. There's a lot of recovery that is needed to be done to supplement the amount of training that they've got to get through. It's just, like, that's why... When people say you should train like pros, it just doesn't work because while these guys are, like, they're not just recovering by doing nothing, which is also a really important recovery point, they're also, like, you know, most people are working or they're in school, so they're adding stress, whereas these guys are actively trying to remove it. Physically, I think I'm the best shape I've ever been. I've worked hard in the summer to get myself into this position. Your biceps. My diet, my training, trying to do extra bits. You need to be as physically dominant as someone can be. Henry Allen. If he lays on the rugby expertise and studentship to that, he can do anything. Not the most perfect form but a lot of weight and this guy is a physical specimen. I'm gifted by my parents and I've got pretty good genetics. The Arundels have quite big legs, across the whole family. I don't know, when I was 16, I was probably squatting around 150 kilos. Think about that for a second. When he was 16. Most people aren't even in the gym when they're 16. And if they are, they're doing really well to squat maybe 100 kilos. And then from there, it's kind of developed gradually. I hadn't... That's why, like, that's the level of genetics we're looking at when you're looking at some of these ridiculous pro international level rugby players. Injury early this season, and as I was coming back, I managed to get back into that weightlifting kind of mode where I, you know, I'm not playing, so I can actually put a bit of weight... And there you go. So he's also had extra time to specifically work on the squat. 220 kilos before. And that was kind of my best squat I've had and now it's kind of just maintaining that not necessarily not quite andrew porter numbers, but More than enough that you need to be a winger and obviously because of his injury He didn't have time like he only ever needs to maintain that squat and he would be The absolute peak rugby player that he could be he doesn't need to get any stronger with the squat Trying to become a world's strongest man or anything. But you've got to remember that over time, he might still end up developing that squat, but like 5 10 kilos over the next 5 10 years. Just by maintaining that that he'll accumulate enough volume to slowly increase it or he doesn't and that's also fine because this is what he does Anyway, that's what you can do with really good Conditioning. No, not really That's what you can do with really good genetics and what it also looks like in strength and condition now We'll wrap this video up because it's nearly it's well over 25 minutes at this point. I've got other videos that I wanted to react to from France Some old New Zealand ones, but if there's any current New Zealand ones, pop them in the comments below, let me know. South Africa, I couldn't find any videos of South Africans in the gym. If you've got another team or another video you want me to react to, pop it in the comments below. Let me know any of your thoughts. Around strength and conditioning training for the World Cup or around your own strength and conditioning or anything you want to react to Let me know in the comments below or just say hi and help out the algorithm Of course give the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it And if you haven't already hit subscribe check out all the ways that you can work with rugby muscle conditioning Strength training stuff in the gym nutrition. All of that is found in the links in the description below Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one