Updates to Training Week

Busy week this week. I have been testing our Academy lads. 5 lads with plenty of promise and those who myself and Dennis Bowes can firmly say have a bright future. We are trying our best to keep them off the piss for the Summer too as it is an ingrained culture here in Ireland that beer on cornflakes is the ‘norm’.

Any way we had a look at a few of their lifts including the trap-bar deadlift, bench press, press ups, pull ups, plank and inverted row alongside more static postures.

Now bear in mind that half of these lads never hit the gym. If they do it is once a blue moon to gun and bun it with very little directed and constructive training in terms of keeping to the staples of bench, chin, deadlifts and squats.

So this will be a learning process for them in terms of what their bodies can do and also what can be done in the 12 weeks we have given them.

We are trying to install a culture in the club and it begins with people walking the walk so to speak. Hopefully from this in a couple of years gym work to add alongside their club training will be the norm.

Here is Duffo Jnr performing a few warm ups with 100kg. he found this tough but after a few technical cues he finished off with a 180kg lift at a BW of 103 which is good but we need him to be at the 200 mark.

Here is his mid point lift:

His lower back has rounded as a result of his chest falling down with the shoulders now in front of the bar (this is why I like to test beginners with the trap bar ). After instrcuting him to keep his chest up using the scrummage position as a technical cue.. tightened up his start position, he cranked out a better one and this stuck.

Plenty more to work on but alot better. What got me though was the amount of shoulder issues these boys were carrying. All scored piss poor in the inverted row score with scores ranging from 0-13.

Here is Eamoon’s tango red back after being a ponce down at the beach and paddy tanning it

He scored 0 on the pull ups with a 90kg bench press at a bodyweight of 90kg. He is a big strong and powerful lad who had played at a decent level. However, his right shoulder blade is overly pronouced.  So big bench crap shoulders. He is basically an accident waiting to happen in terms of soft-tissue. Leave his bench alone and work on his scapular stability and control. this guy tackles with his head and he gets alot of stingers so hopefully we cna regain a bit of control back here. Might teach him to tackle whilst we are at it….

Training Updates

I am in week 2 at the moment and have tightened up on the diet side of things whilst building into the training week a couple of conditioning sessions with the prowler and the sprint. Albert went mad on the prowler and stuck a 100kg on at the lowest level and pushed it. I will have to put the video up. He has lost a tonne of fat with it and balls to the wall training. Just remember there really is no substitute for hard work.

Today is bench this Am with conditioning this PM. I feel my grip coming fully back after the op. After a deadlifting session there on tuesday it felt good to hold and lift some weight. even though it was sets of 5 for 100kg it was nice to hold having been struggling to hold a pencil for weeks….

Tagged as: fitness for rugby, rugby fitness testing