Rugby, rugby, rugby

I've just started Crossfit to train for rugby and I'm very excited about how it will improve my play. I'm 23 yrs old and have been playing rugby for 7 yrs now. I just got off tour with the collegiate all-americans and am training for the up coming season in New Zealand. I heard about the Crossfit program from some Cal Poly ruggers and was pleased to find out there was a headquarters close to where I lived (Santa Cruz). So far I've gone through two workouts, the first of which laid me up for a couple of days (100 pullups are not easy on the biceps). The way the program gives you a different workout every day will have great carry-over to the rugby pitch, where you can never predict what type of running you will have to do in a game. Well, enough for now. This is sure to be an interesting ride. Aaron

[Mike Minium]

Aaron,

Welcome to CrossFit! You are in very good company, as it relates to training for rugby. A number of rugby coaches are having great success using CrossFit as the strength and conditioning program for their athletes.

Keep us posted on your progress and let us know if you have any questions.

Mike

Aaron

Congratulations on the All-American selection!

I'm starting to incorporate some of the fitness concepts with our ruggers here at Arkansas State U (#2 in DII last year - before crossfit, though!), mainly using the tabata protocol (burpees, bodyweight squats, pushups, sprints, situps) and the progress is discernable and quite nice to see. Georgia Tech is doing crossfit as well (see testimonials) with similar benefits.

Personally, I've been doing crossfit for about 2-3 months, and I'm sold. the journal and DVD are well worth the price.

Good luck in New Zealand!

Patrick

Patrick- I just graduated from UC Davis and am trying to get my coach to take on the crossfit program. Did you modify the crossfit program in a way that you best felt it would impact rugby? Do you employ any of the weightlifting aspects? Also, what type of sprints did you add? I am going to start having a sprint day on top of crossfit after I get about 3 wks in. Perhaps you could contact my coach and tell him some of your methods and successes. His email is graysw@csus.edu and tell him that I referred you to him. The more I do this crossfit stuff, the more I see how it applies to rugby. Thanks for the info. Aaron

Hey Aaron

Congrats! And I am jealous - UC-Davis is supposed to be quite pretty. The modifications that we're doing here is basically incorporating tabata into defensive drills (i.e., the 10 seconds recovery is when you find the ball, jog there and put yourself into position).

As to sprints, I believe that some of the more knowledgeable posters suggest you can do skill work later in the day (and sprinting is a skill) - so you can do speed and agility work (Lee Brown put out a book on Speed Agility and Quickness that has some nice drills in it - he's a good guy too) later in the day. For the team, though, I have them do tabata sprints and try to get them sprinting next to guys that will challenge them.

Anyhow, I hope that helps - cheers!

Patrick

ps - if you want to email me off-list, I'll send you the workout program Tom Billups put his All-Americans on when we had a flanker on the team (Matt Huckaby, now a grad student here... and he's working on setting up crossfit for firemen here). Oh yeah - pstewart@astate.edu

[Andrew Gray]

Hello, I just got my message board account activated. I'm Andrew Gray, the new president of the UC Davis Rugby Club (Hey Aaron). I have been doing the WODs for about 5 days now and I think it's great, I definitely want to incorporate at least part of it into our teams training. We are also working on trying to convince the school to buy some rubber weights for us so we can do olympic lifts. Right now they only have them in the gym for the NCAA athletes, us poor club sports guys can't use them.

Patrick, if you could send me some details on what you did I would really appreciate it. How often did you do it and for how long, that sort of thing. my e-mail is acgray22@yahoo.com. Oh, also, I can’t remember if this was you are Salisbury, but one of the teams in the DII championship game had Pepsi logos on their jerseys. Our team is always struggling for money and if you have any tips on how to get a corporate sponsor it would help us out immensely.

Since this is my first post I will put a little about myself also. I’m 22 years old and I’ve been playing rugby 7 years now, plus a season in New Zealand and another in Australia. I missed most of last season after I broke my fibula, but ever since then I have been devoted to getting myself back 150%, right now I am at about 120%. I think Cross Fit can get me that next 30% and maybe even a little more.

-Andrew

Well I'm about 3 wks into it now and have been sore ever since. From starting out on the first day with 100 pullups that didn't allow me to use my arms for 7 days, to over-stressing my quads so that I couldn't walk down stairs for 5 days, its been a tough beginning. But I love every minute of it. Finally, it looks as though my body is getting broken in and able to keep up with the workouts. All the smart people said to start slow and ease my body into the workouts, but I never have claimed to be to bright and decided to find out the consequences on my own. The way I look at it, the soreness and over-stresses that I have experienced is just a testament to the intensity and effectiveness of the workouts. So far I have gained about 5 lbs of muscle in my legs and don't look as though I'm going to slow down any time soon. This stuff is awesome.

Aaron

Ruggers,

Question: Apart from various sprints (obviously) do you have any recommended rugby specific quickness drills? I am a definite newbie to the game, but I love it. I spent most of 2 seasons as a strong side flank. The problem is, I am way too slow for this position. I have been working on GPP, general leg strength, and sprints. Any other suggestions would be great.

I wish we had Crossfit around when I was playing in NZ...I played at openside breakaway for 15 years and considering around 40% of the game is open play (the other 60% is telling the your teamate on the other side of the scrum what a lazy $%#$% he is.:biggrin:)you should be working hard on your sprints to close down the opposition first-five....or at least put the fear of god into him:wink:....sled work is good, chutes, sand sprints, plyo's...set up 6-8 tackle bags 15 feet apart and do many sets of sprint/tackle/get up/sprint tackle as you can handle...over and over.

Also around 16% is scrums and 13% is lineouts, so this is where your Olympic lifts will come in handy ala Crossfit style...I'd think wall ball would be well suited to line-out lifting. Leg strength is important as you mentioned.

Cheers

Dave

[Nick Massman]

it is great to see the Rugby community is finally getting the message.good luck to all of you in your careers here and abroad.as for speed training.build a base with 800's and 400's early in the pre-season. go to 200's and 100's right before the season starts. then 20's to 100's depending on position in the season.high intensity circuits with those distances included. good luck
Rgs,
Nick Massman
CrossfitSLO/Cal Poly Rugby