Periodization of Training for Amateur Rugby Coaches
I am writing this article for the benefit of the Amateur Rugby Coach who may be well versed in the tactics and skill training of their Rugby Team but not as up to date on the Conditioning Element of training. This will give you a simple idea of how a team coach should put together a pre-season schedule and how to maintain the gains made throughout the playing season.
Rugby is a tricky sport when it comes to conditioning. It is neither an endurance sport nor a pure power sport. If you were to draw a straight line and put Sprinting at one end of the line and a marathon at the other end of the line and call it a continuum then Rugby would fit somewhere in the middle, perhaps approaching the power end.
Before implementing any training program, it is important to carry out what is known as a needs analysis. This means looking at the physical demands of the player and the team doing the sport. A short list would go something like this.
- skills
- Speed
- Energy
- Strength
- Endurance
- Flexibility and Mobility
Each of the above subheadings shows what the demands of the sport are, however some positions will require more of one aspect than another. That is to say, an outside fullback would need to concentrate more on Speed work than a front prop, this is because the front prop requires a lot of strength and good stamina unlike the outside fullback who needs great speed and power. and not so much the Stamina as his continuous participation in the game is less than that of the props.
At the professional level, where the team has conditioning coaches, each playing position can be conditioned individually, however this is not usually possible for the amateur coach, as there is a lack of coaches trained to offer position-based programs, not just that, but also the The amount of time the amateur coach is exposed to the team is much less than in the professional game. So the Amateur coach has to adopt a plan that gets the most out of his team with the time, tools and coaches available, for this, using Training Periodization will be the most effective way.
Training periodization is a fancy name for time management. It was first used in the Eastern Block back in the 1960s. It means that each stage of training is assigned a particular time frame.
Pre-season training will normally last around 12 weeks and the playing season, taking weather and game postponements into account, will last between 30 and 36 weeks. This means that the coach has to prepare the team in 12 weeks and then keep them at a good level of conditioning for another 30-36 weeks, no easy task.
The first is the first.
Before starting and making any plans, the coach should do some kind of basic testing to find out the current fitness level of the team. From the results of these tests, he will be able to decide where he should direct the main effort of the conditioning training.
I’m going to assume that these days; most amateur clubs have access to a gym that has free weights and also a field on which they can train.
Common tests that can be used and are simple to administer are as follows
- Speed. 10 and 30 meter speed tests
- Agility. The Agility T Test or the 5-10-5 Pro Agility Test
- Energy. The vertical jump test and the 5-stop wide jump test
- Strength. The 1-rep max bench press. The 1 repetition max squat test. The 1-rep pull-up test
- Endurance. The 5 minute run test
After the testing phase and the trainer has decided what you need to train the most, you can sit down and come up with your basic periodization plan.
I’ve laid out a hypothetical pre-season training schedule below. I decided that the team needed to focus on all aspects of their training equally after seeing the test results. During the pre-season and competition phase, some weeks should have less volume than others; I would suggest every four weeks is good for this.
We have established that 12 weeks are available for Pre-Season Training. Now we have to divide these 12 weeks into smaller training phases. Each Training phase will last 4 weeks (We will call these Mesocycles) and each week in each training phase is called Micro cycle. The entire season will be called Macro Cycle. So Periodization has Macro Cycles (the entire training period), Meso Cycles (Phases of the training period) and Micro Cycles (weeks within the training phases).
Now, to break up the preseason, you can have macro cycle 1 = 4 weeks. Macrocycle 2= 4 weeks. Macro Cycle 3 = 4 weeks. The competition period (when you have your games) is divided in a similar way.
Now you will have to assign the type of training that you want to be the main effort of each of the Macro cycles. At the beginning of the preseason, physical training is very important and so is strength training. These two items are called General Setup. Then Macro Cycle 1 will be called; The General Preparation Period (GPP)
During this period it is suggested that you work on basic strength work, primarily muscle growth (hypertrophy), which means your strength training should revolve around 8 – 12 reps at 65-80% of your 1 rep max. uprisings.
Running should be based on longer distance interval training. For example, 2 x 5 x 400m runs at 80% effort, with 120 seconds of recovery between runs and 5 minutes of recovery between sets.
I would increase the training volume on the GPP.
Next up is Macro Cycle 2. That will be known as the Sport Specific Preparation Period. At this stage you would start to put your most effort into developing Skills and Equipment, physically you would now have a shift towards Basic Strength training, this means your lift would be 3-6 reps at 75-90% of 1 rep of maximum weight. His conditioning work would still be based on execution, but now is the time to close the gap. You should now be looking for more intense interval work. Distances should be 100 to 200 meter sprints. Up to 5 x 200 and 6 – 8 100. Rest times should be 2 to 3 minutes between repetitions. And they should be run at 85-90% of top speed. You should also start incorporating some form of Agility training at the beginning of your conditioning sessions; these can be skill based and can last anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. This phase is abbreviated as SSPP.
The final phase of the pre-season training program is known as the pre-competition phase (PCP), since as a coach, you should now focus much more on team exercises and get all the set pieces in order. Physically, it’s now all about the team peaking for optimal first-game performance; most of the physical work should be power related, high intensity speed drills with longer rest periods and much more skill base agility work. Simply by keeping your fitness gains to the max. In the last week before the season opener, your training should be intense, but probably only a third of the volume you’ve been doing during preseason.
Now that you are in the competition phase of the season, you should break the season into more Meso cycles where you can focus on improving your fitness, power, speed and agility, etc. Throughout the season, these Meso cycles can be 4 -6 weeks long.
Please note that the above explanation and examples are exactly that, examples! The model has been written solely so that you, as a trainer, have a basic understanding of a Basic Periodization Model. I hope you found the article informative. For more information on periodization, please visit my website listed in the resource box below.