Sand dunes? All for show

Strength and conditioning coaches have improved our rugby lives.

I don’t say that because most of the ones I know are bigger and fitter than I am. While there is still plenty of poor practice, the general direction has led players to be better prepared than ever before.

However, most of us don’t have the time, or coaching resources, to spend building up our players’ strength and conditioning in the same manner as the professionals. 

Unless you have access to your players more than once a week above and beyond matches, your fitness programmes are done on trust. You trust the players will follow your advice and drive their own fitness forward.

During pre-season, any team who resides near a beach posts pictures of players in training. It’s only the top of the head we see as they power up a sand dune, or complete a press up on the beach. 

Sometimes, we might see them carrying a ball up the dunes. Not particularly innovative, but at least a nod to the sport they’re playing.

Then you watch them in a match where they suddenly find it hard to put the ball in front of the next runner, or fail to support a line break, and you wonder whether all that extra lung capacity built up was really worth it.

There’s no doubt there should be a balance, and we can’t ignore physical training. 

But, whether pre-season or in-season, the more the players are playing, making decisions under pressure and testing their skills, the better. More so if they are doing this when they are fatigued – the session then becomes more game-like.

In this issue, we have two sessions which aim to mix up training and fitness. 

In this session, we put pressure on the players to perform in a no-mistake culture. One team stays on to defend for five minutes. The two attacking teams swap every time they make a mistake. The team off the pitch does press-ups or sit-ups.

The idea of punishing mistakes in this manner heightens the intensity. 

Does this mean the attacking team on the pitch should play safe to avoid being punished? Actually, quite the reverse. If they don’t push the boundaries, they will find themselves making errors in other ways, because the defence is on the front foot.

If you run this session with younger players, the exercises on the sideline shouldn’t be too arduous. 

You could give a player a number, and that’s the number of the exercise they are expected to complete. A higher number should be seen as a badge of honour – though some might not see it that way.