Rugby fitness training - Your personal approach

It is what you do in your own time that will really make the difference on the field of play. Rugby is simple; the stronger, faster, smarter and more agile player will gain the upper hand. All of these areas can be addressed and developed.

All too often I see committed rugby players down the gym following an outdated body builder weights routine. I hear committed players tell me they never train their legs, that they do the same routine week in week out and don't know how to activate their core. This may or may not be you but the way to out pace, out muscle and out score your opponents starts with learning to train smarter not necessarily harder.

Regardless of how much time you commit to training, whether it is one gym session per week or if you train daily you must examine whether your routine is covering the key areas of training,whether you are progressing this from week to week and the support you are giving your mind and body.

An holistic fitness routine must include covering these key areas:

• Aerobic fitness - An essential base for any rugby player.
• Strength - A decisive factor in speed and contact situations.
• Speed - Critical for success and high level performance.
• Agility - The skills to change speed and direction is vital.
• Core - The absolute base upon which everything else is built.
• Flexibility - Another foundation of performance.

Each of these components can be addressed easily as part of a session or as their own individual training scheme. To do the training is not enough though. even the best designed training programme becomes obsolete after a few weeks.

Periodizaton

The key to success is how you change the training programme week by week and month to month to continue to derive training benefits.

This is done by the science of Periodization, this is the art of structuring and varying your training programme so that performance is increased year to year and without injury.

It is the underlying concept for success and enjoyment from your training programme. Read an in-depth article on Periodization.

Nutrition

Even the most successful training plan will get limited results if you are living off poor food and just sports supplements. The exercise you perform gives the stimulus for the body to get fitter but this only occurs if the nutritional state of the body is backing up your efforts.

Metabolic typing is the science of personal nutrition and examines and determines you exact nutritional requirements. It is central to all my courses and the most important thing you can learn for your performance and also your health.

The one fact you need to know is that "The same foods can be healthy for one person but unhealthy for another person." Learn more about metabolic typing.

Psychology

Some people who are in the best shape still fail to perform at match time, this is due to the psychological aspects to performance. This represents the final piece of the jig saw to fulfilling your potential.

The mind must be tuned for success. It is what separates the champions from the rest, the difference in physiques becomes smaller the higher up you go and the mind becomes the critical factor for success.

It is the power of the subconscious that determines the success in the long run. Your beliefs that you may or may not be aware of can undermine or excel your performance levels. EFT, emotional freedom technique, which is a form of energy psychology is a powerful method which can transform your game. Learn more about emotional freedom technique.

All these methods are covered in my newsletter which you must sign up for if you are serious about improving your rugby performance.

You can learn each of these powerful techniques and dramatically improve your performance by doing one of my courses.