Okay. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to run through a full no fluff rugby gym session, maybe kind of aimed at in season, but what you should be training in the gym as a rugby player. Let's get into it. What's going on everyone. It's TJ here from Rugby Muscle and yeah, we're going to go through what you should be doing in the gym as a rugby player, what a session should look like and why. And hopefully you guys are going to find some insights into this. If you've got a pen and paper ready, or if you've got the screenshot buttons on your phone ready, or the screenshot buttons on your laptop ready. We're all good to go. Let's give you some information. What should your rugby training session look like? Actually, before we go, give it a thumbs up right now because then it's done. I'm sure you're going to enjoy this video. You can always take away the thumbs up if you don't enjoy it by the end, but I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure you're going to find this information very valuable. And then let me know in the comments below if you have any questions or if you have any variances on the way I do things here. So we're going to give it all away here. So. Before we do, what you've got to understand is this, I'm making this video because the biggest problem I see with most people's training in the gym when it comes to playing rugby and being a better rugby player, like the amount of people that reach out to me and they, you know, they want to know what they should be doing different or what else they could be doing or what more they could be doing or what they should be doing in general. This is the biggest problem is if this method of training is your hammer Every sort of answer to every question becomes a nail. So everything is looked through this lens and it's, and it's just not what you need as a rugby player, right? So for example, if you're a bodybuilder or a physique athlete and lots of general fitness is basically just bodybuilder, physique athlete, sort of watered down to not seem so extreme as to put on a pair of pants and step on stage. But it's the same thing. It's growing bigger muscles, it's looking better, it's losing fat and essentially though the main goal when you're looking at training through this lens is to gain bigger muscles is to grow your muscles and Yes, you're going to do compound movements as well, but isolating them, doing what it takes to grow the muscles is 99% of the goal when it comes to being a bodybuilder or physique athlete. Yes, you can get stronger, but you're getting stronger with the idea that this is growing muscle. Likewise on the flip side of the coin. When you're looking at powerlifters or strength athletes, these, I mean, this could be strongman. This could be Olympic lifters, like you're seeing these people in the gym again. And these are the guys that are, or you're seeing their information online because these guys are the strongest, but. When it comes to powerlifting or any specific strength sort, their focus is on getting stronger at specific lifts. I've had interactions with people, a lot of people actually, particularly forwards, but People in general that train for rugby and they, they get their training based off of powerlifting programs and they say they're doing quote unquote accessory lifts, right? But that accessory by definition is powerlifting, right? Because it's accessory to the main lifts. The main lifts being squat, bench and deadlift. And so that accessory work is accessories in order to improve Your squat bench and deadlift. Whereas in rugby, basically everything in the gym is accessory, right? None of it is is necessarily fundamental if you look at it from an extreme lens, right? Crossfit same thing, right? Yes, now we're stepping into looking at like now we're looking at some level of fitness We're looking at some level of athleticism. But again, there's specific skills to that athleticism. So it's not Like the specific skill in rugby is like stepping an opposition or making a tackle in Behind the gain line or or clearing out an opponent in the ruck In CrossFit, their specific strength or their specific skills are double unders or their butterfly pull ups. They're things that aren't overly necessary, even snatches or overhead squats, things like that. And there's strength components to that, but there's also big skill components. So again, everything goes through that lens. That's not how you want to see it training for rugby. You want to see it through your own, what do I need to improve as a rugby player? We'll get into what that looks like in a second. And then finally, we've got bootcamp people. I guess that like a lot of that is just to try and be fun and find a way to burn calories Which then will have people lose weight and then you know kind of look better, but there's no real specific goal here It's that's kind of it and then kettlebell people I I don't know Sometimes they give advice on what you should be doing as an athlete. I don't really understand kettlebell people So we'll just we'll just skip over that Okay, so I understand what we are trying to actually improve as a rugby player. What we're trying to produce are physical outcomes. We're trying to You know, we are being specific for rugby, but we're being specific with the outcomes that we're looking for. So, what that specific outcome looks like, or what those specific outcomes look like, is this rugby physical preparation pyramid. I'm not going to go into it, into greater detail. I've done other videos. I'll link them in the cards here somewhere. And I will put a link in the description below. So one thing I want you to understand and come away from this pyramid is a lot of amateur athletes. We'll just spend no time whatsoever at the top of this pyramid. They will just spend their whole career just working the level one and level two. And that's just fine. They will like, they will experience significant benefits, significant increases in their performance just by increasing their strength, hypertrophy, aerobic capacity and movement control, just working on that base. And then over time doing some speed note and power output work or control work footwork, that stuff will help. And that's all they could do. You could spend 10, 15 years just doing that stuff and you will continually see improvements in your performance as a rugby player as a result of those physical outcomes. So, that's what you're looking to improve. Okay? There's no, that's, that's as specific really as it needs to be. These outcomes. And then there will be specific like, how these outcomes mesh into how you want to perform. But we'll, but... Like you'll deal with that as it comes. We can't really specify that in a generic This is what a gym session looks like speaking of which let's get into it. So We're going to fit these into a session We're going to fit all these different training modalities and everything that we need to do as a rugby player Into the session by looking at first of all, we're going to look at our specific physical outcomes to target So we're going to spot what we need. We're looking for what we need to improve and make us a better player. Then we're going to divvy that stuff up as best we can. So we should have specific physical outcomes. There should be one, two, two, maybe three, maybe three, but usually you just want to big focuses in each block, in each week, in each mezzo cycle of training. And then the other stuff is still needs to be there, but it has to be in the back on the back burner. So we'll divvy that up between our schedules, we key allocation of training. So from there, we're going to bring in the squat, the SWAT team. So we've spotted what's going on, what we need to improve. We're sending in the SWAT team and sort of this, this works. But if you visualize it as when a SWAT team come in, they surround that building, right? This is you surrounding your training through the week. So you've got things that you want to improve or eight different working styles of focus action blocks that you want to do, then you're going to distribute that over the week. There's no point trying to do a five day a week training program. If you've only got three days that you've got available. And one of those are like You know is 30 minutes or if you've got two sessions or if you've got those three sessions and one of them you're going to be Tired because it's a day after a game or if it's a day after a tough rugby training session So you've got to really understand what your schedules weekly allocation of training can be if you don't Then this is all just noise because you this has to be applied to exactly what you need to do So you have to have your specifical physical outcomes that you want to target Then you have to have your schedules, weekly allocation of training, your spot, and then your SWOT. Then you're good. Once you're good, everything is fab. So you're looking at your focused action blocks. That is all you need to focus on. That's it. Everything else, right? Just noise. Get rid of it. Get rid of everything else. We said no fluff in this session. So get rid of everything else. That's how you're going to be able to manage to do everything and make really big progress in short periods of time and in minimal sessions and this is key for in season as well because maybe in season you've only got two or three sessions that you can make. All right, so now we've identified like why we're training and what we're trying to train and what we're trying to do here. Let's actually get into the session. That session will always start with a warm up. Yes, I know a lot of you want to start by just, you know, call your warm up just one set of the bar and a couple of these and then you're good to go. Nah, like do a proper warm up. You will notice a difference. Our specific physical outcome that we're trying to target here is just getting the body ready to train, right? And the more ready you are, the better you're going to train, the better you're going to train, the more you're going to progress, right? Cause better quality, more progress, more progress over the long run. So it does make a big difference. Now we're not saying that you have to spend 20 minutes foam rolling and doing all these activation drills that you might be being sold at the minute. I don't buy into that whatsoever. In fact, five to 10 minutes of maximum of warming up should do the trick Five minutes for a lot of people can be fine, right? what that would be is if you just spent five minutes like like I know it's not as sexy anymore, but Five minutes of like low intensity cardio. I said cardio, right? So that could be on the elliptical, that could be on the air bike. That could be on the rowing machine, just five minutes at a low steady state makes a world of difference that like, I know a lot of people will come in and they'll do like different stretches and. Like stretch out any parts that are tight and get that moving. If you just get your whole body moving and get that blood flow, you'll feel so much better that you won't need to do any of that stuff. That like that makes a big difference in your range of motion, how good you feel, how good you'll be able to perform your exercises. Just five minutes of like cardio work. Like really does work now. You don't have to do it specifically on a machine or five minutes that you could just spend it Doing like a flow a flow type movement So, you know lunges and reaches and whatever whatever movements you you need to do. You could also do it keeping moving and doing like whatever specific lift prep you need and then you're good to go if anything like Like the short of this is probably the better because then you've got time for everything else to go and as you'll see Like we're not going straight from this into heavy lifts necessarily. So get it done. Don't worry too much. Just make sure that you're preparing you're prepared to train after the end of this five minutes of warming up and then you're good. Next stage is priming. So specific physical outcome that we're targeting here is whilst we're already fresh, because it's the only time we can do it, train nice and dynamically so that we can move fast and efficiently on the rugby pitch. So, we're not just looking at jumps and bounds and explosive movements but that is a really important thing that we, like, that's, this is the time to train that stuff. So, jumps, bounds, hops, medicine ball throws, slams Olympic lifts can go here as well. Really good time to train that stuff. Now you're all what I think about this prime time here, like five to 10 minutes, like at the end of the warmup is a really good time to do your core work. I know most guys don't do their core work, particularly if they've done it at the end calf work as well. Sometimes can go here if you've got any hip or shoulder or mobility. Type movements that you want to do mobility drills stability drills. I found putting them here works really well So like time and time again there are movements like Cossack squats or banded shoulder Rotations that we can do that if I put them at the end, they're just not going to be done But they're also like if they're done at the beginning they're not going to interfere with anything that you've got to do after if anything they're gonna make you move well and feel better to for your For your bigger lifts that are to come core work and that, that can be the same thing too. I don't, I've never seen anyone that's tied their core out so much that they then can't squat later. So get it in now, right? And you can superset this or do this as like a three or four set little mini circuit and just keep moving. And then by the time it's on to stage three, you're really good to 10 minutes max. Keep moving. You don't have to take 10 minutes between each sets of jumps. Just keep moving. Or move on to a different movement and superset them. You know that that's a really good way to do it. You could also do a lactic conditioner here, which is like 5 to 8 seconds for rugby players of all out workers as aggressively and as hard as you can. It's difficult to get into what the nuances of that can be, but that can, it can be targeted here because it's again, not necessarily going to massively negatively affect your training to come. And it's. Nice to do it whilst fresh. You can also combine this with stage 3 that we'll talk about in a second. And the other thing that you must bear in mind here, five to 10 minutes max. Don't spend your whole session doing this, right? You're not a sprinter. You're not an Olympic weightlifter. You don't have to spend your time in the more than five, 10 minutes targeting this stuff. You can be able to get real productive session done just with that. And then you can sort of move on. Or like I say, you can combine this with stage three, which is going to be your heavy lifts. So your specific physical outcome targeted here is just getting strong. Now, these can be in a number of different movements. And again 10 to 15 minutes max here. So a decent minimum chunk of time, but again, not too long. We're not spending 30 minutes you know, or, or an hour and a half just doing bench and then decline bench and an incline bench, you're not a power lifter or different squat variations. I think you just get in, get some heavy movement done for. Whatever movements you've got for that day and then move on. So my specific idea here is you're looking at squat variations one, an upper body push movement, an upper body pull movement some type of hinge. Now the lunge can replace the hinge or the squat for that day. Or it can be I don't like to do all three that would just unless we're in the off season That'd be quite a tiring day You can do this with like an isometric emphasis where you're doing holes at the bottom You can do it slow eccentrics. You can do it really fast. Concentrics and aggressive concentric. You just do normal heavy lifts And really like you only need one of each of these per session maximum. You don't even need to do it. If you're doing an upper body, lower body split, obviously then you don't do the upper body push and the pull. But really one of these each session per max. Don't do, you know, a bunch of front squats and then a bunch of back squats and then a bunch of split squats. It's just not necessary, right? What we're trying to do here is be as efficient as possible. Get strong. And then move on to whatever other outcomes that we're looking for. That's going to take, when you're as a repper, now I've heard Andy Galpin say 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps, 3 to 5 times a week. I don't mind that, but again, if your, if your objective here is getting strong. All right, and we're doing other stuff as well outside of that. We don't need more than two sets, right? We don't like two sets is a fine minimum to have and two to five reps again fine minimum to have there Overall week to week to week you want to try and add weight whether that means that you drop sets or that you drop reps Reps as you go That's also fine, but you want to be pushing it You don't really want to be pushing to failure You don't have someone spotting you and needing that spot every single week Maybe at the end of a block maybe push it to sort of test yourself and to really push yourself before taking a deload Not overly necessary to stay in that zone where you're working hard enough And if you're on the lower end of If you're on the lower end of those sets there, then you are looking at using your warmup sets as a little, you're still going to get some level of stimulus, but you're just using them to prepare for it. So say if you're working up to a hundred kilo bench for sets of one set of heavy set of five, and it may be a back offset, you know, you're still going to go bar 40, 60, 80, 90, 95, a hundred, maybe, and that 80, 90, 95 is still going to give you some level of stimulus, even if it's just. You know, a set of two reps or whatever that's gonna you're gonna be fine, right? You're not you're gonna still be able to get plenty strong with that little of volume as long as you are using lots of intent When you are at your top sets You could you could also superset these this stuff together You don't necessarily have to have like I like using like emoms here. So where you're taking You know, you're setting a clock and every minute you're doing a new lift and that especially when you're warming up Stops you from just fucking around on your phone Go checking instagram checking texts and stuff like don't do that Like you should be fit enough, especially as a rugby player playing a really demanding aerobic sport like rugby You should be fit enough that you don't need to take three to five minutes per between sets And even if like you're doing that with your, your upper body potentially you can still be super set in it. And as I say, you can super set this stuff with the stuff in stage two as well, so you can get more time or more done in less time and you will be fine. Maybe if you're doing real heavy sets you know, and you're doing a few, few sets of those heavy sets, maybe then you can take a little bit longer. But again, We're looking at 10 to 15 minutes maximum spent on this. Maybe if we're doing like upper body and lower body We're doing a full body session that could potentially be 10 minutes of squatting 10 minutes of upper body That would also be fine as well Remember that the less sets you do the less signal you're going to give to your body to get stronger But you're still going to give it like most of the signal. It's just a less overall signal you'll get, but you'll also get less fatigue that goes along with that. So that's, you know, it's got its pros and its cons. You decide to depend on your SWOT, depend on how much you've got for the week, depend on your phase you know, how long you spend. But you would still touch on some heavy weights for vast majority of your, your sessions. Then stage four, we're looking at lifting to build. So... The spot here is you're going to build muscle and strengthen the areas needed. We're not looking at it as if we're a bodybuilder where we're really specifically targeting specific muscles of the upper chest or of the, you know, this head of the, the bicep or whatever. No, we're looking just to build like, like the properties that we want to build to become better rugby players. So whatever's needed for you, whether that's like some level of hypertrophy for prehab, maybe you're going to build your upper trap so that your shoulders aren't hunching forward, or maybe you're going to build your trap so that you're. Strong in ruck areas. Maybe you're gonna build your neck. Maybe you are going to, yeah, maybe you are gonna build some biceps and triceps just to get stronger arms so that you can feel a little bit stronger in contact. That would also be fine. And again, one movement per focus. So whatever you've not done previously is a good idea to touch upon. And one movement per focus. So we're not doing five different bicep exercises. We're not doing six different chest variations, we're just doing one. We're getting enough getting good working and then we're moving on and if we do want to do another movement Maybe we do it another day or maybe we don't maybe we just do it in the next spot because we realize that we've already Got enough on our plate here to handle Once or three sets usually is going to be enough Sometimes you can up it to four or five depending on if you're doing like a circuit format Lots of ways to go here as long as you're progressing weight as long as you're progressing Volume slowly, but over time, like talking about over weeks and weeks and weeks and months, and that volume is increasing via the weight. Mostly, right? And then you just wash and repeat this. I like to do super circuits, super sets and circuits with this stuff just again, so you're not wasting time. If you're in a busy commercial gym, that might not be viable for you. Potentially doing MyReps would then be a viable option, so MyReps are where, instead of resting for, you know, one to two minutes between sets, you just rest 10 to 20 seconds, and then you go again. And then you rest 10 to 20 seconds, and then you go again. That's, you've almost got three sets of It doesn't quite work like that, but you will get a good deal of work in a short period of time. If you do that, especially with this stuff, you're not going to do it with your heavy work. You're not going to be dead lifts or your squats but when you are looking at just, you know, your isolation movements where you're lifting just to build or not even necessarily isolation, but you're lifting to build movements, nothing overly taxing or heavy. Yeah, it can be a good idea and a really time economical way of doing things by doing my reps. And remember, you're not a bodybuilder, you're not just trying to lift as. grow the muscle perfectly or, or, you know, target anything like that. Just getting work done, just get out of there and improve. Whilst I'm on this, I, I, I've just remembered that I didn't include a single leg stuff. As part of the overall rhetoric here, but it is, that is important. Single leg work or, or unilateral work. So like your lunges, your reverse lunges, split squats, and the like, they can be done here. A lot of people say, Oh, you've got to do your, your, your heavy lifts with bilateral and then your, your lighter stuff should be unilateral. Don't necessarily agree with that. Just make sure that you are including it somewhere. So if it is here, great. If you're doing heavy split squats, great. It doesn't really matter if you're doing heavy split stance deadlift, great. All those things can work. They have their pros and cons. It, that's where we're getting bogged down in the details. But I would make sure that we are including some unilateral work across the upper and lower body throughout. And then finally we're on to our accessories. We have no really physical outcome to target here because it depends on what you need. For the most part, this is stuff that usually ends up getting sacked off. So that's why I like to put that stuff at the beginning. But there is time to get some grip work here. Maybe some isolatory or sorry, some isolation hypertrophy work. Maybe some cool work here if there's extra conditioning can also go here, but remember, right, like what is the physical outcome that we're trying to look for in these sessions? If we're looking for conditioning, Right. Maybe that should be done in a complete separate session. Maybe if we're looking at a lactic that can be done here, it can be done at the beginning or the end. I don't mind. Or maybe we're looking at some tempo work or some high intensity, continuous training that could also be done here. But we're not looking at doing just a finisher for the sake of it because that feeling the gym or leaving the gym feeling tired makes us feel good. That's That's not what this is, this is about, right? We're not looking for a finisher just for the fucking sake of it. We're looking for specific outcomes that we must do. So maybe you're spending no minutes on accessories. And that would be absolutely fine. Don't put stuff that you're just going to sack off. Don't put stuff that you don't really need. Don't put stuff because you think you just kind of need it. If you needed it, you probably put it earlier in the session. So maybe, maybe we just sack off stage five, okay? The other stuff is really, really important, but then maybe there's stuff that we must have. That's what goes here. Okay? All right. That's the end of my rant. That's the end of your training session. You've got, you get in, you get out, you get better. There's no need for any more than two to three sessions a week of this stuff. And then if you have other sessions, if you have other time to train five times a week. Do a speed session, do a conditioning session, do low and low, slow, steady zone two conditioning work. Maybe do some really high intensity speed work or do some tempo work, whatever, whatever it is that you need, right? You don't go in and just do stuff for the sake of it. If you are having, if you do have the availability to do four and you're off season, up or lower can work. But again, it's not 100% necessary. This is the framework we use for, I'd say 90% Plus of the rugby sessions that we program here at rugby muscle. If you want to find out more again, don't just copy someone else. Don't copy someone else's session. Don't just copy what you see online, but also at the same time, don't overthink it. Use this structure, fill in what works for you, progress and get better. If you want to have a specific training program designed for you, or if you want to use one of our training programs so that you don't overthink it so that you don't just. Like question whether you're whatever you're doing is working or not. You'll find links for all of it in the description below other than that if you found this video useful, please give it a thumbs up Please comment on whatever you found surprising or you found interesting That really helps out because then maybe I can explain that even further in the further of the video. Your support on this channel is really helpful and useful. It makes the world of difference. We are growing this channel. We are growing Rugby Muscle. We've got some really exciting projects to come and I'm excited to share those with you. So with all that said, make sure you join us. Make sure you have you are subscribed to the YouTube if you're not already. Because I see on my analytics that I think it's like 80% or 90% of the viewers aren't subscribed. So hit subscribe to make sure that you're always informed. It costs you nothing. The thumbs up button and the comments also cost you nothing. But hit and subscribe really is for you so that you're always staying informed. So you make sure that you can catch all the latest videos and you're supporting us as we grow and we've got some exciting projects to come. All right with that all said Hope you found that video useful. I'll see you guys in the next one