I am a 24-year old college senior about to start my last rugby season. I am almost 6’5", 242 lbs. and I do everything possible to stay fit, fast, big, strong, explosive, and durable. My skills are also developing nicely through experience and drills.
But I can’t help but think that there is more I could do to give myself and my team better chances for a championship season. Perhaps intensive stretching would increase my performance? Besides eating like a behemoth, this is what I do for fitness:
I have lifted 10 years now, having learned sound technique from BiggerFasterStronger instructors & NCAA strength coaches. Offseason, I lift 3-4 days/wk, mostly compound lifts with some isolation work, always in 6-12 rep range (I feel that higher reps of heavy weight is the only way to ever go, unless a few week switch up).
However, with cleans and snatches, I generally stay in 3-8 rep range.
Anyway, once the season starts should I shoot for 2 or 3 lifts/week, perhaps 1 upper-body day and 1 lower? There will be 3 practices, 1 game and 1 conditioning session each week. This schedule–along w/school itself–will be very demanding and I will prob eat 5,000 cal/day! I don’t want to diminish my recent strength and power gains, but it seems inevitable.
One friend suggested I increase my reps to 20-30 and perform very explosively (maybe jump squats instead of back squats??); another told me to switch to something resembling Waterbury’s method of 10x3. But would that even help me maintain/increase functional strength? Would I get slower? Any thoughts?
Beyond the weightroom, I run uphill and random-interval sprints, jump rope religiously, perform “DOTS” agility drills, try to swim when possible, train MMA such as boxing and wrestling, and at least one day/wk I try to do varying sets of pushups/trunk curls/jacknifes/calisthenics, etc.
Am I missing anything? Many thanks…