The Gloucester Pre-Season: Dissecting their Methods
Back to Rugby nuts and bolts.
This post takes an inside look at English Rugby club Gloucester RFC and the training inputs which go into building their pre-season programme. The clip is from a couple of seasons ago but I'd hazard a guess that 85%+ of what they cover here, they're most likely to still be doing.
Enjoy the clip and then read below for a breakdown on what takeaways you can learn and any questions you need to ask before applying ideas to your training.
Just remember this clip focuses on Pre-Season so depending on your local competition you'll need to determine the length (e.g. in weeks) of Off-Season, Pre-Season and In-Season time periods so your routine can be organised accordingly.
Strength & Power: 5-8 weight sessions a week
Are your physical goals aligned for your position? (Size? Maximal Strength? Power? or a Metabolic focus?)
What is your current schedule like? (5-8 sessions in a week won't be practical for a lot of people who work during the day but for those of you who are students, you may find a split-body workout on some days manageable)
Where does recovery fit in? If you fit in 2x gym sessions on some days how does your following day's routine account for recovery?
How do we juggle gym sessions with speed work and conditioning (i.e. which to do first on a given day? How much rest between?)
Upper/Lower or Full body workouts? How can you programme to maximise all aspects while allowing for recovery and your day-to-day schedule?
Nutrition: Pre/Post workout + Supplements
A subject dear to my heart. I haven't tackled (excuse the pun) nutrition yet so there will be some in depth discussion to be had on the subject as this blog rolls on. If there's any other industry with more BS (bullsh*t) floating about then please let me know.
Questions and thoughts from the clip:
General Multi-Vitamin:Ask yourself, what does a multi-vitamin cover that a varied real food diet cannot give you? What fillers are used in these pills that can potentially trigger unknown allergies or reactions (e.g. gluten, soy etc)
Fish oil: Can you tell the difference in quality? Why are some more expensive than others? Is a pill better than liquid form? Which absorbs better? How much EPA and DHA does the fish oil brand I choose need to have?
Pre-workout (Protein): Whey vs Casein vs Egg vs Vegan powder? What's the amino acid profile? Is it just protein consumed pre-workout (i.e. no carbs or creatine?) and what's the reason? Is it the same pre-workout nutrition for gym, speed and cardio sessions alike?
Post-workout (Protein + Carb + Creatine): Protein questions are the same as Q4. Carbohydrate post workout is essentially to replenish glycogen stores used during training (what type of carbohydrate is used in your drink?) and creatine included for increasing ATP production (think of it as the body's energy currency). In a future post I'll look at timings for creatine supplementation, traditionally, it's taken in one of three ways so we'll look to find what works for you and why this substance has the successful reputation it does.
Speed (Acceleration work)
Sled pulls - Resistance training for speed work has long been a tool in the toolbox of track and field coaches. How heavy should the resistance be? How heavy is too heavy? What are some tips on maintaining good running mechanics when using resistance. Remember that the body adapts to how it is trained always - so don't train yourself to be slower!
Hurdle jumps - the idea behind its use is fast force production on contact. In order to become faster players we need to understand that speed is a skill and your programme needs to run from 'short to long' that is, there's no point training your speed over 30,40 or 50m when you haven't mastered acceleration and basic running mechanics over the shorter distances.
What if I don't have the quipment you may ask? In future posts I'll look at alternative methods and share some of the legendary homemade equipment designed and refined by the fantastic Ross Enamait.
Ice bath recovery - an now infamous method of recovery, but how much does it REALLY help? Many amateur players won't have access to such things so what else is out there that can do the job just as well? Think: compression skins, Pilates/Yoga, meditation and the big kicker: Sleep. I'll go over recovery methods in a separate post but you can start to think about what you can access and/or afford in the meantime.Â
HR monitoring, GPS systems, etc - rugby at the top level has well and truly joined the professional sports party. While the Gloucester trainer in the clip proclaims that it's a way to ensure "there's nowhere to hide" it's not the only reason for using this technology. Monitoring workloads, quantifying improvements and measuring performance data is now an ever-expanding bible used by conditioning trainers. I recently posted about Under Armour's E39 training shirt which may help change the face of amateur sports performance as we know it.
First thing that comes to mind when I think skinfolds is Rupeni Caucaunibuca :-) obviously there are outliers to every situation and he probably isn't the best example of someone to base your training methods on. Rugby skill-wise absolutely but nutrition wise my guess is that the majority won't get away with everything he does.
Skinfolds relates directly to nutrition. Get that right and skinfolds will take care of itself. There's a great saying I live by which you may find useful day-to-day: "Treat yourself, don't cheat yourself"
Hopefully this blog-post 'breakdown' sets the scene for future posts to help you see beyond what is shown when looking behind the scenes of professional rugby clubs.
Every now and then I'll dive into more detail about an aspect of training, nutrition or a related subject and why it may have been addressed the way it's presented.
I fundamentally believe that if you (amateur rugby player) are empowered through an understanding of what these professional trainers and coaches are trying to achieve then you can self-educate and work on small things yourself and over time get to a level where you could potentially fit into this environment (or at least a semi-professional one) seamlessly.
I'm not here to tell you how to train, I'm more interested in analysing and learning from past and current methods then breaking this down to give every man, woman and child the tools to achieve their rugby career goals.
