It is my intention, in this and future articles, to address those elements of conditioning that will have practical application to the rugby player, thereby increasing performance level in a game. I'd like the information that I give you, to be a combination of what you need to know, and, based on any feedback that I get, what you like to know!

Rugby requires various elements of conditioning . Strength, strength endurance, power, power endurance, cardiorespiratory and anerobic endurance, reactive response, coordination, and balance. If I missed anything I apologize.

I will deal firstly with strength. Strength can be defined as the amount of force applied to a resistance in order to overcome that resisitance. We develop strength on the premise of overload. As we progressively overload the muscle, certain physiological adaptions occur that result in the the fibers being strengthened, as they are consistently recruited for a particular task.

As a rugby player, though, you need to have the ability to reapply your strength repeatedly during the course of an eighty minute game. This is strength endurance. Distinct from pure strength (i.e. your max single effort on any given lift). (In future articles when we deal with power, merely think of power as the ability to apply strength in the shortest amount of time. And because the game dictates you do that many times during an eighty minute game, we will deal also with power endurance.)

Some of you may find the training I am going to outline a little severe and probably far removed from the more conventional methods you are familiar with. Most of you may think of 3 to 4 sets of 15 repetitions, sufficient to develop muscular endurance, but this is not realistic, and only pays lips service to cultivating the type of output necessary for a game. Remember, the nueromuscular system will adapt to anything, but it will only adapt to what it is exposed to.

In following this routine, not only will you develop a high level of muscular endurance, but you will also cultivate a tolerance to the massive amounts of lactic acid that this type of training generates. Lactic acid is a residue effect of anerobic output (actions of high intensity/short duration like weights, sprinting) it accumulates in the muscle, puts pressure on nerve endings, and translates itself to you as, for instance, a feeling of 'dead' legs.

The better conditioned you become, the easier you will metabolize lactic acid, and from a psychological standpoint, you will be familiar with the feeling it evokes, and more able to push through the fatigue involved.

Give priority to multi joint lifts using the prime movers (muscles involved primarily in a skilled movement). This is an example of the combination of lifts you can use, and the order to do them in: We will keep them in groups of 3, as your endurance increases, not only will the amount of weight you use increase, but also your rest interval will decrease, and eventually you can string 2 or 3 groups together without resting in between groups.

Grp 1. Upright Row....Push Press...Deadlift
Grp 2. Lat Pull Down...Squats.....Seated Dumbell Shoulder Press
Grp 2. Step ups(on a bench holding dumbells)...Bench Press......Standing Cheat Curls

Find your max 1 rep max then use 50 to 60% of that number. (Obviuosly that will differ in each lift; its a pain to find this for all lifts and you don't actually need to do you 1 rep max to find it..if you get close, you should be able to estimate it with reasonable accuracy.)