Programme Justifaction

A centre in rugby is a quick power player, who is expected to obtain a number of skills, such as tackling and throwing whilst being able to accelerate and decelerate at rapid speeds (Duthie et al., 2003; Luger & Pook, 2004). As a result of this it was essential to incorporate a large variety of elements into the athletes training programme.  A primary goal of the training programme was to establish hypertrophy (Beachle & Earle, 2008), whilst the secondary aims were to enhance stability and the transitional element of agilities drills.

The athlete was assigned 6 resistance training sessions a week throughout the off season period. Kraemer et al. (2002) suggests that in order for hypertrophy to occur, 4-6 training sessions per week should be completed (Beachle & Earle, 2008). Within these training sessions, various exercises were administered, such as core, assisted, flexibility, prehabilitation and core stability.

Exercise Selection
Core exercises recruit large muscle areas making each exercise sport specific to rugby. Dead lifts, barbell lunges, woodchops, bent over row, rear foot elevated lunge and a bench press were incorporated into the training programme. All core exercises were proven to be effective to increase hypertrophy of the muscles during off-season (Bridle, 2011; Hoff et al., 2002; Posthumus & Durandt, 2009).
The core exercises were performed prior to the assistance exercises to prevent the athlete from becoming fatigued. This ensures the athlete performs the correct technique, reducing the risk of injury during each training session (Beachle & Earle, 2008).  

Assistance exercises were implemented to condition single muscles often prone to fatigue due to their use within a rugby game. These included calf raises (Posthumus & Durandt, 2009), bicep curls (Posthumus & Durandt, 2009), lying fly’s (Wuebben & Stoppani, 2009), barbell goodmornings (Palaghita, 2010), bent over triceps extension (Wuebben & Stoppani, 2009), cable crunch on a swiss ball (Palaghita, 2010). Due to overuse of these muscles, inflexibility can occur.

Several flexibility exercises for upper and lower body were implemented in the programme such as hip flexor stretches (Kerrigan et al., 2003), pectoral stretches (Roddey et al., 2002). Literature supports the administration of flexibility exercises into a training programme.  Flexibility is an important factor in preventing injury, and can help to increase an athlete’s range of motion at a joint (Kerrigan et al., 2003). Dynamic flexibility stretches such as walking leg cradle (Fredrick & Szymanski, 2001) were prescribed to improve the elasticity of the muscles whilst improving balance, coordination and proprioception; all of which are key aspects needed during a rugby match.

Rugby is a physically demanding sport that has high injury rate, in the lower and upper body (Fuller et al., 2008; Wuebben & Stoppani, 2009). Prehabilitation was integrated into the training programme to reduce the risk of injury (Hopkins & Viljoen, 2008).  A form of prehabilitation prescribed to the athlete was proprioceptive neuromuscular training (Hübscher et al., 2010), through the use of a foam pad, literature supports the use of this exercise as it has been found to reduce ankle instability (Silvestri et al., 2002).

Core stability is an important aspect of sports performance (Willardson, 2007). Due to this the exercises prescribed were found to elicit activation of the “core” muscles and have been recommended as part of a core stability programme for athletes (Fredricson and Moore, 2005). An exercise such as the side bridge incorporates the lateral stabilisers, helping to stabilise the lumbar spine whilst passing the ball in training and competitions (Hopkins &Viljoen, 2008).

Exercise Order
The training plan consisted of various exercises and was designed to optimise the characteristics of the recommended off-season training outcomes.  In order to meet these demands, the exercises were structured in a push-pull format. Literature supports this arrangement suggesting that push-pull sets not only increase the athlete’s 1 rep max (1RM) over the off season period, but also allow the athlete to complete each session in shorter period of time (Robbins et al., 2009).

Training Load and Repetitions
In order to develop hypertrophy throughout the off-season period the athlete was prescribed 1RM exercises at 70% for assistance exercises and 75% for core exercises, with 6-12 repetitions. This is supported by the literature were it stated in order to gain significantly higher levels of hypertrophy athletes should perform 6-12 repetitions (Beachle and Earle, 2008; Campos et al., 2002).

Volume
In order for the athlete to gain substantial hypertrophy throughout the course of the off season period, the volume of the exercises prescribed was significantly higher than the intensity of the exercises. Literature supports this stating that whilst training for hypertrophy an athlete should undergo a high volume of training (Posthumus and Durandt, 2009).  

Rest and Unloading Weeks
Resting phases with rugby are genuinely short as there are several competitive periods throughout the sporting year, due to this several short periods of rest have been incorporated into the training programme. This has allowed the athlete to refocus both physically and mentally (Pankhurst, 2007).
However, whilst the athlete is performing there will be both high and low intensity intervals (RFU, 2012) due to this the athlete was provided with 30-90 seconds between sets with a resting period of 60 seconds between each exercise; this being similar to that suggested by Beachle and Earle (2008).

Periodisation and Peaking
Throughout the annual periodisation training programme, intensity was tapered to correspond to the sporting season. Intensity was increased prior to competition, decreased post competition and during rest/transitional periods; to correspond to this volume in effect did the opposite. It’s been suggested that both intensity and volume have an inverse relationship between intensity and volume, therefore as volume increases, intensity decreases (Bompa and Haff, 2009).
The reasoning behind the rise in intensity prior to the competitive period was to induce both physiological and performance adaptation (Mujuka, 2012) to allow the athlete to peak at the appropriate time. Following this, intensity and volume tapered during the competitive season, to prevent the athlete from high levels of fatigue enabling him to sustain a high performance (Tan, 1999).