My Rugby season ends in a few weeks, as I mentioned in another thread, and I am working on what my routine will be in the offseason. I need to pack on a few pounds but also I need the explosive power, as I have yet to learn and use Oly lifts. I was thinking a routine something like:
Mon-ME Upper body
Tue-Explosive lower body
Thu-ME Lower Body
Fri- Explosive Upper body
My question concerns the actual excercises, as the explosive lower body lifts, Oly lifts, also work the back. Thus, I don’t know what to put in on upper body days as far as back excercises.
The thing is that I know what excercises are good for backs, its just I don’t want to overtrain the back by working it on upper body days AND lower body…
Oh by the way,a little background…
As I said Im a skinny guy which is why I need the weight for Rugby. I’m 6’1" 175. Just started really training this summer. I was trying to gain weight all summer, I trained hard, was reading all the crap on t-mag, but I just didn’t dial my diet in right, so I gained a few lbs, then lost some at the end. This off-season im gonna do my best, using college food, to really get the diet working, and if I can to hit 185 lbs. As I still need to keep speed, I don’t think I should shoot for anything above that.
i wouldnt worry too much about overtraining the back… experiencew has shown me that contrary to popular belief, its a hard bodypart to overtrain.
many of the national caliber olympic lifters that i coach use a 4 day split where they do squats and overhead work on mondays and thursdays, and pulling work on wednesdays and saturdays… including the snatch and clean. if you do t his, you can safely throw in any leg “assistance” work you want to on the squat days (though i dont know why you would…) and do your rows and/or chins on the pulling days.
this is a good, proven plan that is also used by mike stone, director of exercise physiology at the united states olympic training center with a lot of athletes who are in sports other than olympic lifting. it should work very well for you.
Sturats looks good but then so does the basic Westside one that Landon suggest. i doubt it matters that much, just get into it, do one for 6 weeks then switch.
as far as weight gain goes you should be about 7-10lb over you playing weight going into preseason, as the weight will come off so goddam fast when you start doing all the cariod HIIT etc.
what postion are you going for and what grade?
Im a center, both inside and outside. Though due to my lack of size, if I ever end up starting Ill prob be outside. Im on the B-side team for my College Club team, U. Pennsylvania.
power should be a primary focus so that good you are sorting that out early.
i would say you are a bit on the slight side for a center but there is quite a few emerging players here in NZ that would be considered small for centers and they are playing excent rugby. They however have excellent ball distributuon skills and are incredibly agile.
still if you are small you dont have tha ability to “crash it up” to set 2nd phase play.
I am currently training with a guy i believe could go pro (he is an inside center) and he is 6 foot and about 215 lbs going for 220lb so he can play at 215.
he is brutal strong on the field but lack the ball skills so maybe he will move into the forwards.
what are your strengths and weakness, be honest… this could help you decide where is best to play(?)
Im pretty much set at center for now on the B side team, depending on who is around next season/next year, I may try to move to wing so that I have a better chance in starting. If I put on enough size/power, I could prob move to lock. I think I have the head and working on the knowledge for fly, but I am definitely not the size of a fly, so who knows. I can boot the ball though and have decent hands. I have not been tackling well this season, but I really think ive improved in looking for holes and running low to make/break the gain line. I really think that my weakness at this point is my size. I just dont have enough size to use momentum to break tackles and such. My weight would be fine if I were shorter, but at 6’1" I really think its whats keeping me back. So in the off-season I am really gonna eat a crapload and work on lifting hard for power and strength.
the problem with the routines that have only one explosive lower body workout, is that i assume that means your only doing snatch and/or clean once a week. its almost impossible to get anything out of those exercises if you perform them only once a week… you simply have to practice them more than that to be good enough at them to get anything out of them. pulling (OL lifts) twice a week is about the minimum you can go and get good progress…
also, as a practical matter, it looks good on paper to simply seperate things into explosive and heavy, but it doesnt always carry over to the real world… as im sure you know, speed is the most important training variable to be specific on… and you need to train at a variety of speeds, not just fast and slow. most people put squats in a s a heavy exercise, and cleans as explosive, however, if you know how to clean, a max clean is going to be pulled slower than all but the heaviest squat! so, your not really getting what you think your getting. better to include RDL’s, snatches or power snatches, powercleans or cleans, clean pulls, etc., over a couple of training days, and train all speeds from slowest to fastest…
Thats interesting Glenn, especially since Im so new to the Oly lifts, I really could use more than 1 a week to learn it. Hmmm. If I were to use the 4 day split 2 max/2 explosive, has anyone seen a routine like this that I could read for suggestions?
hey sack, you have the same stats as me mate, except I play fullback or wing for my b-side here at Ohio University. Also, what division are you guys in?
Anyways, I was looking at doing Ian King’s 12 week series for legs and upper body, cos we have a 6 week break for thanksgiving and then a 11 week quarter before our season actually starts (bar a few games in maybe the last 2/3 weekends of our winter quarter). So I figured I could use that to bulk up and then once I reach the later stages closer to season I can choose the explosive options instead of hypertrophy.
Once I finish that I estimate about 4-5 weeks before my season so I’ll switch to a fairly explosive-focused workout till the season. Once the season starts I’ll probably use Coach Davies in-season for rugby that I was on until I sprained my wrist (really can’t move much weight w/ that injury).
But yeah, diet is key, I got up to just over 180 during the summer and once I started rugby I am dropped to 172
(as of today), although not being able to lift for a few weeks didn’t help much either.
Let me know what you come up with, as I pretty much have the same goal as you.