College Rugby Training

Training Training Logs
181

[quote]Bellmar wrote:

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]panzerfaust wrote:
Good training man. I come from the land of rugby, and I am always surprised to see how many americans are into it. Do you guys also know of/watch the variation to Rugby Union known as Rugby League? [/quote]

I was surprised at how popular it was when I started playing. They do a huge national survey every 5 years for how many people are playing what sports, and in the last 5 years, rugby grew almost 40%. For comparision, football grew like 6% or something.

I know of rugby league, but I’ve never seen anyone play it. Rugby is never on TV here. I believe it is shown twice a year, the college 1A national championship, and the college 7s national tournament. We have to watch it on satellite tv or over the internet.[/quote]

I’m referring to the survey you mentioned here btw. My apologies.

I’m surprised you dont do more front squats. Taller people tend to take to them better.
[/quote]

I can’t for the life of me remember where it was. A friend of mine shared it on facebook. It may have been on yahoo. If you can figure out the name of the survey (it’s the only one like that) then I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find.

I agree about football, everyone plays, so it’s not going to grow that much. But 40% in 5 years is rediculous. Hopefully it continues.

I’ve dabbled with front squats before. I suck horribly at them. They don’t really feel natural to me at all for whatever reason.

182

[quote]Bellmar wrote:

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]frontrow12 wrote:
About $600 - $700 per month I’d say. Some teams pay more, some pay less.

[/quote]

Nice. I wish americans would get on board with the rest of the world. Over here, rugby isn’t a NCAA sport (the governing body for college athletics). So universities classify it as a “club sport”. They give us a field to play on (though we have to share it with every other damn thing at the school, even soriority flag football), some equipment (balls and water bottles), jerseys, and if we travel out of the state, they give us 2 or 3 vans and gas.

Coaches aren’t paid, no scholarships, we have to drive ourselves to in state games, we have to buy our own cleats, we have to pay dues twice a year to play, as a team we all chip in and buy team shorts, socks, and duffle bags.[/quote]

Where did you see that survey? That would be interesting to see, and compare it to various other sports. I’m not surprised about football, as it is so saturated that it really doesnt have anywhere to go. Plus there is a HUGE financial investment to play it with all the gear required.

And man, I wouldn’t complain. Clubs at my school get a field to play on and maybe $100 to spend on what ever. We raise/pay in dues for everything else.

[/quote]

That’s basically how all the other clubs are treated, but then again, you have to understand what kind of clubs we’re talking about.

The vast majority of club sports here are just things people do for fun in their spare time. Stuff like flag football and ultimate frisbee. There are some more “traditional” teams like the club football team, but it seems the people who play them have about 1% commitment. A friend of mine played on the club football team, so I went to watch a game, and for 2 entire offensive posesstions, they only had 8 guys on the field because people weren’t paying attentions. At their practices, the quarterbacks and receivers would play catch while smoking black and milds. It is a huge contrast from what we do.

183

First day of practice

The weather was horrible, so we met in a classroom and went. over paperwork and the coaches addressed the new guys. I think they did a great job of letting the freshman know that we have a winning tradition and we expect no less. We had 17 freahman come last night, probably 2/3rds of them played in high school, and several look vert good.

After about 30 mins of that, we hit the field for an hour and a half. Dynamic warmup, cobditioning, ball drills, and sevens. It was a pretty basic practice, but everyone really brought the intensity. The feel at practice was much different than last year. Everyone was focused on the task at hand, and there was no joking around, which is refreshing since I felt we had way too many guys lacking in thay department last year. I have good feelings about this season.

Something new were doing now is we will have a coach go over strength and speed training with all of the guys so they know where they stand, where they need to be, and how tp get there. The coach doing this graduated last year, he was selected to the all south side that was the first to ever beat the all west side. He played prop for us and is very strong. Idk his numbers, but last year he said he was doing walking lunges with 225 on his back, in season. This is great news, since I would estimate that half the team doesn’t lift or doesn’t take lifting seriously.

184

Cool log man, like the way you structure lifting and practice. How long is y’all’s season?

185

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Cool log man, like the way you structure lifting and practice. How long is y’all’s season?[/quote]

Thanks for checking it out.

We actually have 2 seasons per year, fall and spring. The fall schedule is entirely up to the team about who we play, so we play a lot of teams from our state and neighboring ones. We also have the annual state tournament during the fall. The fall season starts on the first day of school and ends right before winter break.

After winter break we have the spring season. During the spring we play our conference opponents, then they have the conference championships and national playoffs. This season is generally a bit shorter, but all the games mean a lot more. If we were to make the conference championships and national playoffs, then this season could end up being just as long as the fall. The spring season starts the week we come back from winter break and will end in may or june, depending on how far into the postseason a team goes.

Last year, we played 9 games in the fall, 3 of these were in the state tournament. We played 6 games in the spring. We didn’t make any kind of postseason play, so 6 is the bare minimum that the spring could be. If we were to win the conference championships and national playoffs, the spring season could go up to 12 games.

186

Training:

Squat (deload percentages)
115, 145, 175 x5

Bench
175x5
205x3
225x1

Chins: 8, 7, 6

3 sets of side bends

My legs are sore as hell. Just walking around hurts, so I was concerned that the squatting today was going to kill me. I actually felt better after I got it done. 225 was quick and easy.

187

whos the new strength and conditioning coach, Toomey? Is Leif still involved in that? I know he got busy with spring valley hs.

188

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Cool log man, like the way you structure lifting and practice. How long is y’all’s season?[/quote]

Thanks for checking it out.

We actually have 2 seasons per year, fall and spring. The fall schedule is entirely up to the team about who we play, so we play a lot of teams from our state and neighboring ones. We also have the annual state tournament during the fall. The fall season starts on the first day of school and ends right before winter break.

After winter break we have the spring season. During the spring we play our conference opponents, then they have the conference championships and national playoffs. This season is generally a bit shorter, but all the games mean a lot more. If we were to make the conference championships and national playoffs, then this season could end up being just as long as the fall. The spring season starts the week we come back from winter break and will end in may or june, depending on how far into the postseason a team goes.

Last year, we played 9 games in the fall, 3 of these were in the state tournament. We played 6 games in the spring. We didn’t make any kind of postseason play, so 6 is the bare minimum that the spring could be. If we were to win the conference championships and national playoffs, the spring season could go up to 12 games.[/quote]

That’s awesome. I imagine you take a pretty serious beating through practice and games. Kill it out there bud

189

[quote]orourkei wrote:
whos the new strength and conditioning coach, Toomey? Is Leif still involved in that? I know he got busy with spring valley hs. [/quote]

Yep, Toomey. I’m not sure who leif is, so probably not

190

ah cool hes a great guy

191

[quote]orourkei wrote:
pms: post monster striker. first guy to the break down moves in as the “post” right next to the ruck, one open one blind . normally a prop or who ever is the biggest man close by. he plugs the hole for the inside run. then the monster stands out side him (open side) and stop the pick and drive, and spys the fly half if the ball comes out. striker stands outside the monster and attacks the ball one it leaves the ruck and goes to the backs .
they also call it pillar post key[/quote]

Don’t you mean the post stops the pick and go and the monster stops the inside ball…othwise the monster would have to cut across the post to stop the pick.

192

oh yea duh! This is what happens when a back tries to talk about rucking techniques

193

Haha yeah you boys stick too looking pretty!

194

Training

Squat
195x5
225x5
255x5

Bench
155x5
185x5
205x5

50 chins, this took 8 sets

From now on, I’m only doing one big lift per day. Doing 2 lifts like this kills me, for 2 hours after training I felt like I was going to fall asleep at any second. Usually just after training I’m a bit tired but not anything like this.

So the new plan will be:

week 1: Squat assistance, Bench assistance

week 2: Deadlift assistance, Press assistance

195

[quote]frontrow12 wrote:
Haha yeah you boys stick too looking pretty! [/quote]

some ones gotta get the girls!

Though I’m probably going to have to learn how to play flanker for the alumni match if I keep getting bigger. I was 177 on the wing now I’m 210. I’m not sure I have that inside step any more and don’t ask me the last time I kicked a ball haha

196

[quote]orourkei wrote:

[quote]frontrow12 wrote:
Haha yeah you boys stick too looking pretty! [/quote]

some ones gotta get the girls!

Though I’m probably going to have to learn how to play flanker for the alumni match if I keep getting bigger. I was 177 on the wing now I’m 210. I’m not sure I have that inside step any more and don’t ask me the last time I kicked a ball haha [/quote]

210 on the wings a good size! Inside step? It’s all about the outside bro!! If you can keep your speed up with your weight you’ll be fine. Where are you playing?

197

I was playing down at the University of South Carolina( which is why I keep writing on Chris’s log) yea 210’s not bad but I am not used to being this size . I gained all the mass after I graduated. I would love to get on the pitch at this new weight though and test every thing out. I was very aggressive at the breakdowns and often beat out the forwards that I came up against. 30 extra lbs should help a lot! the wings in our division usually run a bit small. I was fairly typical at my old weight and often times I weighed more than some 6’3" string beans. Chris has that changed in the past few years? I remember our centers being closer to 210 andour wings right around 180… we had a few that were 160!

also I was referring to a good inside step to get away from the touch line when I run out of space . what do you mean?

198

I had to get 3 cavities filled yesterday, so I coouldn’t do any contact at last night’s practice. It went down like this:

Warm up/stretching/etc
Conditioning (this was a lot more challenging than last week)
Relay Runs
Rucking drill (couldn’t do)
Worked on setting up the scrums (couldn’t do)

It rained all damn day so the field was soaked. It also poured for the first half hour of practice, so we were all soaked to the bone. Like I said, conditioning was hard. The contact stuff wasn’t too hard, but my face was still numb and the dentist said to sit that out. She said there’s a big problem with people biting through their tongues and cheeks when they’re still numb, since you can’t feel it and all.

We have another practice tonight, and thursday off. The coaches made the adjustment for 2 reasons. 1-thursday night is the first football game of the year, and the less committed among us will most likely not show up, and 2-the first scrimmage is friday night, this way we won’t practice the night before we play.

Good news, when the coaches called out the A and B side scrums, I was called as a starting flanker for the B side, which was my goal this year. Now I just have to prove that I’m deserving of the spot.

199

[quote]orourkei wrote:
I was playing down at the University of South Carolina( which is why I keep writing on Chris’s log) yea 210’s not bad but I am not used to being this size . I gained all the mass after I graduated. I would love to get on the pitch at this new weight though and test every thing out. I was very aggressive at the breakdowns and often beat out the forwards that I came up against. 30 extra lbs should help a lot! the wings in our division usually run a bit small. I was fairly typical at my old weight and often times I weighed more than some 6’3" string beans. Chris has that changed in the past few years? I remember our centers being closer to 210 andour wings right around 180… we had a few that were 160!

also I was referring to a good inside step to get away from the touch line when I run out of space . what do you mean?[/quote]

That’s still generally how it is. The wings are always scrawny. 160-180 sounds about right

200

Practice from last night

warmup/stretching
conditioning
relay runs
fowards passing drill
line out work
scrimmage

Practice went well other than tweaking my shoulder. It only hurt for about 5 mins after it happened, but when I work up this morning it was horrible. It’s been getting better throughout the day, so hopefully it will be fine by tomorrow, if not I’ll have to go see a trainer about it.