Rugby coaching tips to vary fitness training drills
Use these rugby coaching tips to make fitness drills more interesting for your players. Boredom is a very real problem with repetitious exercise programmes so vary your options.
Tips to vary endurance rugby drills
- Change the length of the intervals, either time, distance or repetitions.
- Alter the number of efforts you do in a session.
- Change the intensity of the interval.
- Alter the recovery times between intervals.
- Change the type of equipment you are working on.
- Run on the beach and in the sandhills.
- Just remember that rugby is a stop-start game. Your training should mimic this pattern.
Balancing endurance and speed fitness
This is a simple way to distinguish between endurance fitness and speed fitness training for running:
- Endurance: 30-40 seconds of running with three to four times that in rest time between each set.
- Speed: 5-20 seconds of running with six to eight times that in rest time between each set.
Hill running – add some variety to drills
Hill running has the following benefits:
- You need a shorter session than normal. A 30-minute hill run is equivalent to a one and half hour "flat" run.
- It increases strength endurance, while enhancing co-ordination.
- Downhill strides help increase speed and promote a more relaxed style of running.
Since rugby training facilities vary from club to club, here are some ideas that might suit your circumstances.
On a very small hill, such as a bank at the side of the pitch:
- Players run 10m on the flat then accelerate up slope, before jumping off the last step on to the top of slope. They jog down.
- Players run on the flat at an angle to the slope and turn at a certain point to accelerate up the slope.
On a longer hill:
- Players run sets of five 100m runs, with jog down in between to recover.
- Stand at the bottom of the hill with a whistle. Run the players flat out for 20, then 25, then 30 seconds, with jog back recovery between each run. Give them three minutes to recover between each set.
- Divide the hill into three sections and have a relay up the hill, with the last player jogging back to the beginning to restart the next stage.
Technique tips
Uphill, your rugby players should:
- Shorten the stride length as the hill gets steeper.
Downhill, players should:
- Keep lead leg step low to reduce the impact.
- Avoid running on the heels, instead land on the front of the feet.
- Lift the elbows outwards to maintain balance
Talk the walk
If you're running/working with someone else, then a good check on your work level is to maintain conversation.
If you can still talk, you haven't gone over the aerobic threshold – using only immediately available oxygen – into anaerobic and that's good.
If you’re the organiser of the activity you might actually set topics of conversation!
Click the link to order a copy of Rocket Rugby and get fitness training plans, warm-ups, as well as speed, strength and endurance assessment programmes to inspire your coaching.
Click the link for rugby coaching tips to help you tailor fitness sessions to players' needs.
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