Heyo gang, I’m new here and was wondering if you fine folks could lend me a hand.
First, a quick bit of background info. I’ve lifted (badly) off and on for the past four years or so, no real regularity to what I did and I never stuck with it long enough to see any real gains. This past May, I took a weightlifting course in college and have been lifting more seriously since. The course had me doing a push/pull and leg 4 day split for six weeks. The plan had me doing between 6-8 exercises for push/pull/leg, at 1x10. So, I was getting in probably 30 reps total per muscle group, but across different exercises.
After the course, I started doing a 3 day a week total body routine with cardio on the off days. This brought my mile time down to 7 minutes (great for me) and also saw some nice gains. I mean, my lifts are still very, very low (145 max bench anyone?) but for me the gains are good.
Fast forward a bit to today, I’m taking a week off to recover, as I was starting to feel sluggish at the gym, before I start a new program in preparation for rugby. This won’t be my first time playing it, but I really want to give it my all this time around hence my weight/cardio work. Next week I was thinking of starting the Strength Focus Mesocycle by Waterbury while doing HIIT on two of the off days.
How does this sound to you? Do you have any specific recomendations for rugby or just for a weak noob? How should I do the HIIT? What supplements would do me good, considering I don’t take any at the moment? Honestly, any help would be wonderful.
I’m not by any means an expert, but for a sport like rugby you should be doing all explosive and compound lifts with your main focus developing strength and power. Your exercises should include (but not limited to) squats(all variations), bench press(all variations), olympic lifts, lunges, deadlifts, pullups/chinups, rowing variations, core work, overhead pressing, and of course high rep assistance work for all body parts to pack on some size with the strength gained.
I’m guessing you should be working on your running too so you’re not winded. Good luck with your training and sport, if you have any further questions be sure to ask.
Legs, core (including abs, low back, glutes and hips), neck, shoulders and traps. These are the important muscles you need to worry about. You also need to work your upper/middle back and chest as well as arms. However, you will need your legs to break and make tackles and to run to make plays.
You will need your core, traps and neck to be solid enough take a hit and also to deliver one. Shoulders are needed for that as well. Think about what qualities you need for your position.
A fullback needs to run his ass off and break tackles and make plays. A flanker need to be the all-around athlete and be able to run sideline to sideline to make tackles. A prop will obviously need to be strong enough to pick a guy up on a throw in as well as have the leg drive to help in a scrum and the neck/core/traps and shoulders for that impact; he will also need to be strong for tackling. Etcetera.
I don’t know what position you play but I play loose head prop. My training focuses mainly on what these guys have been saying which are olympics, deads, lots of legs meaning deep power squats, step ups, lunges, lots of shoulders any military press and push press, also if you have a ladder for footwork they work extremely well in getting you quick also dragging tires or pushing cars has seemed to help me alot with my speed and endurance.
Good multivitamins while training and Spike before games work for me. Just make sure not to overtrain, I know I was during the season.