IN SEASON PROGRAM (19th March – 1st June)

Welcome to the “IN SEASON” fitness training program for the Warriors, this is the baseline training and fitness program for all Warriors players (additional targets and activities may be specified in your individual pages depending on your performance and training activity).  This phase is broken into two elements; POWER and FITNESS, and is coordinated with the Warriors weekly training program.  A detailed copy of the full weekly program is located here: In Season Detailed Program

MONDAY

Mondays are a POWER day, with a focus on developing Rugby specific “upper body” strength, power and explosiveness.

TUESDAY

Tuesdays are a training day, at the end of each training session a cardio/fitness circuit will be completed by players at training.  Depending on their weekly volume (taking into account the previous game day) players will either undertake a high or low volume activity.

WEDNESDAY

Mondays are a POWER day, with a focus on developing Rugby specific “lower body” strength, power and explosiveness.

THURSDAY

Thursdays are a training day, at the end of each training session a cardio/fitness circuit will be completed by players at training.  Depending on their weekly volume (taking into account the previous game day) players will either undertake a high or low volume activity.

FRIDAY

Fridays are a POWER day, with a focus on developing Rugby specific “overall body” strength, power and explosiveness.  Caution should be exercised by players not to leave training on a Friday until late in the evening or this may undermine their match preparation for Saturday.  It is recommended to conduct this exercise on Friday AM if at all possible.  If not possible then players are recommended to reduce weights to avoid exhaustion.

SATURDAY

Game day… no specific training today; focus on recovery and pre-game preparation by stretching and low intensity plyometric activity

SUNDAY

As part of overall recovery undertake a basic cardio/fitness activity (at a lower speed than during the normal week); players may wish to mix this with the conduct of a recovery circuit top maximize their speed of recovery.

Its been a busy couple of weeks for the team as we get towards the back end of the Strength phase of our pre-season training, and following a hard month of work the squad is moving on to more complex and high impact skills in the coming weeks.

Next week sees us move into the Power phase of the program and the mass return of the Football players from their respective squads…. looking forward to seeing them all again!!

Great work by the guys so far, be it in the gym hammering out reps, in the pool fighting for the ball or on the pitch working on your personal skills!!

As we remember the challenge which WARRIORfit 17.1 posed us…. we can quickly see those activities which we are comfortable with, and those which challenge us a bit more… one of the most challenging for everyone was the completion of the 25 strict pull ups.

You might have asked yourself during the course of that workout… how can I improve my pull up performance, how can I knock out that many pull ups?  Its not impossible and there are many resources to help you get to your target.

Even the Marines (not known for their lack of willingness to take on a challenge!!) have struggle to help their recruits develop their upper body power and use the pull up as a means to achieve this…. and this is the new way they do it…

Zero to Twenty-plus: Marine develops program to improve pull-ups

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — “I haven’t met someone yet who I haven’t been able to train to do a pull-up.”  Major Misty Posey, the plans officer for Manpower Integration, developed a pull-up training program to help all Marines improve their pull-ups no matter their starting point, and says she has yet to find a Marine she has not been able to help.

Posey, who teaches a pull-up class at the James Wesley Marsh Center at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, says it does not take a great deal of time to get a Marine from zero pull-ups to many.“It does not take months and months and months to learn a pull-up; it does not take a year or two to learn a pull-up. It’s nonsense,” Posey said.

When Posey was a Midshipman in Navy ROTC, she trained on the obstacle course at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. The Midshipmen would navigate the course in preparation for Officer Candidate School.

“I’m four feet, 10 inches. I couldn’t reach the top of many of the obstacles let alone pull myself over them,” she said. “My [physical training] instructor didn’t care that I was short. He said, ‘Figure it out, Posey.’ So I had the need to do a pull-up and I had the expectation to get myself over the obstacles. That’s what started me on my pull-up journey.”

Posey’s class ‘on how to learn a pull-up’ features four main exercises: partner-assisted, negative, jumping, and partial-range-of-motion pull-ups. Alongside these exercises, Posey explains how to engage certain muscles to help perform a pull-up.

For Marines who can already do pull-ups, she recommends doing a lot of pull-ups several days a week and stopping short of failure.

“If you can’t do a pull-up, do pull-up progressions, vertical pull-type exercises on a pull-up bar without any equipment,” said Posey. “Ditch the pull-up assist machines and the bands. Not to say they are useless, but they don’t train the motor-pattern of the pull-up as well as your own body-weight and gravity. Exercises like ring-rows and push-ups are similar.  They help, but the Marine is horizontal instead of vertical. Also, any time you spend on them is time you could spend on a pull-up bar.”

The tips might seem overly simple and you might doubt that they work because it seems too easy, but just because a problem may seem big or impossible it doesn’t mean that the solution has to be complex.”

Posey’s pull-up plan was highlighted during Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller’s most recent town hall event in the National Capital Region, Feb. 12.

Her advice to all Marines, no matter their age, rank or gender is everyone can be successful at pull-ups.

“If you are struggling with either learning or improving your pull-ups, the main take-a-way would be that you are stronger than you think,” Posey said. “You can absolutely learn to do and improve pull-ups in a relatively short amount of time; you just need the right tools to develop and access your strength.”

To view Posey’s full pull-up plan, visit the links below.

The secret to pull-ups: How to go from 0 to 20

Pull-up training program novice

Pull-up Workouts

Pull-up Training Guide

Week four of Pre-Season hits this week as we continue to develop our Strength & Conditioning performance while increasing our basic skills… This week our sessions include:

Wednesday 11th October: 

Strength & Conditioning Session 4 – West Potomac High School Gym, from 6.45pm – 8.30pm 

Sunday 15th October:

Skills Session 4 – West Potomac High School Main Field, from 5.30pm – 7pm with volume training available from 7pm – 7.20pm

Remember warm up begins immediately on your arrival at the field!

Pre Season week 2 draws to a close with the team turning in some good performances both in the gym and on the field.  This week saw the completion of the first Warriorzfit event… the Murph (lite)  with the top finishers being…

WARRIORZfit Top 5 for Week 2

1. Conor  – 7min 12 sec
2. Travis  – 9min 21 sec
3. Aaron  –  9min 30sec
4. George – 9min 40sec
5. Nathaniel – 11min 31 sec

Good work by the rest of the squad with all remaining participants coming in just under the 15 minute time limit.  Check out the weeks training below…. see you again next week

We didnt just come here to take part!!!

Week one of pre-season has passed and we have had both a good turnout, and a lot of hard work put into the sessions… Wednesday night saw a few new faces and some old friends battle it out against the weight room and challenged our heart rates, while Sunday evening allowed us to shake off the rust and get back on the pitch again!

Training continues tonight (Wednesday 27th September)….. see you there

In order to support the personal development of every Warriors player, this week will see the publishing of “Individual Player Development Pages” within the Warriors Team Management App.

These individual pages will provide each player with specific guidance, information and direction to assist them in their development as a rugby player; the information will be specific to the individual as well as their playing position.  Each player on the squad as they are formally CIPP’ed will receive a link to their personal page (which is password protected for each player) and which they can access either online, or directly via the Warriorfit link on the App.

A quick screen shot of a player page is shown below….

Each page includes videos, documents and other training aides to assist players as they improve their Technical, Tactical, Physical and Mental skills.  Following games and/or practices in the future you will also find specific media (video) of yourself playing, so that you can get a feel for how you are personally playing; also you will find this site provides you with detailed information on your performance metrics (tackles, yards run, carries etc.) so that you can get a feel for your work rate and on field performance.

Make sure you CIPP as soon as possible to gain access to your Personal Development Page

As we kick of the 2018 campaign (and we did so last night with a great turnout for the Wednesday night conditioning sessions…. although some of the singing was a little suspect!!) it is good to look at how other teams and squads operate and judge the quality of our own approaches against them.

One of the most popular books about Rugby at the moment is “Legacy” by James Kerr; and it does a deep dive into the approach, culture and psychology of the All Blacks, looking at how they have achieved such a high success rate, and maintained it over a long duration.  A quick summary of the book is shown below in the video; but please find here a pdf. copy of the full document for your enjoyment and reading.  See everyone again Sunday for the Skills session.

  Legacy Lessons in Leadership from the All Blacks – James Kerr

Jobs not done….

Warriors

Stay connected with the Warriors this pre-season through the Team Management App, Website and Social Media….. remember to check out these sites…

Warriors on Facebook…

  Forthuntwarriorsrugby

Warriors on Twitter…

 @Forthuntwarrior