How to build fitness conditioning into your rugby coaching sessions

Tips and drills for improving your rugby players' skills and fitness at the same time.

Do you almost never have enough training time to cover all the rugby skills and strategy that you want to, and yet include a full-on fitness programme? In which case, you have to build fitness conditioning into all of your rugby coaching sessions. Here's some advice about how you can do this.

Games for core rugby fitness

You should use games for fitness and conditioning as much as possible. It will make players work harder yet keep the enjoyment levels up. Design the games to make sure you cover the skills work you want to do, as well as improve your players' fitness levels. Here are some examples:

Footwork games: Use obstacle races, for instance over bags or through ladders and around posts.

Collision games: Set up tackle games, where there is intense work for a short space of time and then rest. Here's an example:

Mark out a diamond shape and place two players in the middle, sitting on the ground, back to back. Give each player a name, for instance "lion" and "tiger". When you shout one of the names, the players get up and run to the cone they're facing. The named player picks up a ball and attacks one side of the diamond, whilst the other player tries to tackle them. You can alter the pressure and the speed of the collision by changing the depth and width of the diamond.

Strength games: Make use of wrestling and pulling games, like tug of war.

Handling games: Play a game of three on three touch rugby.

Ten pass keep ball game: Arrange a small box and small number of players, say 3 v 3, with the aim of making ten passes. Play with high intensity for a minute and then change groups.

Rugby warm-up drills, conditioning and skills

Why start a rugby coaching session with a run around the pitch? Get straight into ball work, easing the pace up. Over a ten metre stretch of the pitch, players can pass and dynamically stretch.

And why accept anything but total accuracy? If the players are moving more slowly than in a game, then they should pass more effectively.

Once dynamically stretched, move onto more challenging work on the lungs and muscles. For instance, to build "anaerobic fitness" (that is, the ability to produce short bursts of energy) work in a small square. Each time a player performs a skill, like passing, they exit the box and perform an exercise, like a press up to get their chest on the floor.

Conditioning coverage

Think of the specifics of the game and then work out your conditioning programme. There is a danger that you regard your players as "athletes" and not "rugby players".

Yes, most athletes share the same attributes, but a sprinter and a winger are very different. It is no good being extremely fast over 50 metres if you can't get past the first player to give yourself that space to run.

Work, rest and work again

The average amount of continuous play in a game of rugby is just over 20 seconds, with the maximum around three minutes. In fact, the majority of play is between five seconds and one minute.

Try using these timings as the basis for your rugby skills workouts to replicate the activity on the pitch during a game.

If you're looking for more warm-up ideas, then try my Ultimate Rugby Warm-Ups Manual. Containing more than 100 quick, easy and fun ways to start your sessions, the manual will cover all your warm-up requirements for seasons to come. Click here for more details.