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Training a union prop.

I played left wing. Unfortunately since coming to Australia I've not played because for some reason no-one plays it in South Australia.

I have taken up AFL instead, tonight is my first training practice!
 
Serious. thats what most rugby players on other forums run.

5x5, which SS is based on was written for football (state football albeit but the exercises do not need to be specific to game play, more being strong and able to pancake the opposition).
 
Lets ask a better question here: how would improving someone's strength base not make them stronger, faster and less easily pushed around on the football field?
 
Lets ask a better question here: how would improving someone's strength base not make them stronger, faster and less easily pushed around on the football field?

it's not a bad thing....until it starts negatively impacting on, or taking valuable training time away from, the other attributes necessary to be a good footballer.
 
there are those who have trained athletes and those who have never trained anybody.

this is the difference.
 
You're confusing people thinking that Starting Strength is a bad program for a weight trained individual with people saying that strength training is bad
 
strength + athlete = better athlete. Enough said.

Carry on with the training, Scott. Keep us up to date :)
 
Sticky,

I'm a professional rugby coach (ie I do it for my living) and have done my MSc in S&C, so kinda have both backgrounds covered. Feel free to shoot me any questions if you have any.
 
Lets ask a better question here: how would improving someone's strength base not make them stronger, faster and less easily pushed around on the football field?

There's alot of evidence to suggest that maximum strength and power is a discriminator in the rugby codes eg between club and professional, HOWEVER the numbers out of professional codes suggest that once a particular level has been achieved, other factors come into play. For Super rugby forwards that is about 1.4-1.5 x BW in bench and 1.7-1.8x bw in squat.

The kiwis did a massive study looking at just about every physical performance measure you could think of and looked for correlations between them and on field performance. Strength wasn't a winner.

In no way saying it isn't important, but you only really need to be "strong enough".

I'ts also important to consider the impact of a weekly game and 2-3 practice sessions per week (not to mention a powerful aerobic system) have on strength (esp lower body).
 
What if a guy 10kg heavier than you, lifts the same as you and is as fast as you goes to tackle you. You'd run into him and he would come out on top. What if you squatted 50% more than him? You'd probably be the one to run through the other

You can never be strong enough
 
study please. It goes to figure that once we push over 180/140/220 carryover won't be as significant, that doesn't mean we need to throw basic strength training out the window.

Oh wait, this guy doesn't even have a 1.8 BW squat? your arguments retarded.

I never said anything should be thrown out the window. MxS should be trained at all times (to varying degrees obviously) But the load/time required to go from a 200kg squat to 250kg wouldn't be worth the return.

Being an athlete is about optimization not maximization.

If his RSA is poor, what is another 10kg going to do on his squat? Likewise if he's deficient in a particular energy system? Heck, if he can't catch and pass or track and tackle, no amount of strength work (even at 1.4x bw) is going to get him into Premier grade.

Strength is massively important, and it seems his numbers are low, but he is an athlete first and foremost. If he passes those benchmarks, can run a sub 3s 20, has a yo-yo or such over 20 and has a good measure of RSA, then he can chase a massive squat but his goal is to play premier grade, and regardless of how strong or weak he is, that may have absolutely nothing to do with why he isn't.
 
What if a guy 10kg heavier than you, lifts the same as you and is as fast as you goes to tackle you. You'd run into him and he would come out on top. What if you squatted 50% more than him? You'd probably be the one to run through the other

This scenario rarely happens in rugby, a little more often league, but even so it holds water for the first time in the game. What if that same guy has a mean RSS score of say 3.5s and you are 3.2s. After but 20 mins into the game you are substantially faster than he is. The collision idea is good but is assumes that all players fatigue at the same rate and are in the same place at the same time. Very rarely is strength expressed purely on a rugby field, scrummaging is what most would think of but it is also heavily influenced by technique and the 7 guys pushing behind you. Big guys don't always beat little guys in the front row. The best technicians always win.

If you do want to remove all the technical stuff and over simplify collisions, the other guy is bigger and moving at the same speed. He wins period. If he jumped up on your shoulders for you to squat him, then your strength might come into account.
 
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This thread is about strength and conditioning though so for the sake of argument technical work and sport specific work is irrelevant.

Sticky's job isn't to train him as a rugby player it's to get him stronger, faster and more conditioned. If strength is less important, train less days a week. If it's a big importance, strength train more times a week. The goal is to keep the goal the goal... the whole reason Sticky is training him is to get him as fast, strong and conditioned as possible without having a negative effect in skills training for the sport
 
I never said anything should be thrown out the window. MxS should be trained at all times (to varying degrees obviously) But the load/time required to go from a 200kg squat to 250kg wouldn't be worth the return.

Being an athlete is about optimization not maximization.

If his RSA is poor, what is another 10kg going to do on his squat? Likewise if he's deficient in a particular energy system? Heck, if he can't catch and pass or track and tackle, no amount of strength work (even at 1.4x bw) is going to get him into Premier grade.

Strength is massively important, and it seems his numbers are low, but he is an athlete first and foremost. If he passes those benchmarks, can run a sub 3s 20, has a yo-yo or such over 20 and has a good measure of RSA, then he can chase a massive squat but his goal is to play premier grade, and regardless of how strong or weak he is, that may have absolutely nothing to do with why he isn't.

Again where's the study?

I suggested a basic strength program - everyone attacked me for it.

Another energy system? its well known that weightlifting increases a cardiovascular base by itself (something cardio alone doesn't do)

He can't pass those benchmarks, thats the whole fucking point. He's a strength athlete who trains more specifically than me.
 
Again where's the study?

Don't have them in front of me but one was

Appleby, Gesh Hori and I forgot the other names. Done with the western force and ECU. about 2009. Published in JASC.

The other was a phd by a guy named Smart. Very recent, not sure if been published anywhere. Done with waikato players as most NZ research papers are.
 
Another energy system? its well known that weightlifting increases a cardiovascular base by itself (something cardio alone doesn't do)

So most powerlifters in Oz could run a >20 yo-yo?

There is a massive difference between research done on elderly people or college frat kids showing that weight training increases the aerobic system and the requirements for an athlete, in this case a rugby union player wishing to play premier grade. Of the 6+ adaptations to the aerobic system, pure strength work would only really hit one, and it wouldn't be the main one required in this particular sport.
 
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