Ashley Jones Q&A Archives Page 18

[sthompson@getstrength.com]

Hey Ash! you’ve been a great guide of my training. A few questions, on the max sets, How much should I increase every set (by percentage) and how many sets total would be ideal?.How do you handle injury adjustment to restart the programs, by progresions?
or low % of the max rep? What I mean is if I can’t do Squats for example, how do I start the first session and on until you get your strength back?.
And the last one, If I don’t have chains or bands or even a steel log at my gym, what are the adjustments you recomend? (I’m doing the off season program)
Thanks again Ash, You’ve been awsome keep up the work.
Cheers,
Nick.
Cheers Nick, thanks for your kind words, to your questions:

As to maximum sets, if you are working say a rule of 24 and you are doing the 8 x 3 at around 90 % then you will stay around that weight for the entire 8 sets after a couple of warm ups, I would say start the first week at 90% then go up by 2.5% per week for 3 weeks then re-assess and maybe change the exercises or the focus of the program for the next
block of training.

In regards to injury the first and most important concept is to keep training the uninjured limb, there is evidence to state that by training the uninjured limb as hard as you can you will send a neural stimulus to the damaged limb as well and you will find that you will recover faster
than if you did nothing at all other than specific rehab. When returning I prefer to hasten slowly and have no set percentages to work with whatever feels good and does not set you back.

It does not matter that you do not have access to bands and chains just perform the exercises without and increase the loading to make up for this and I am sure you will get some impressive results, thanks for your questions and go well, ash
Hey ashley,my name is scott mayhew and i am a winger from north otago. i have been playing for north otago for 5 years and 2 tours with new zealand
div team so am kinda serious about my rugby without being a huge superstar, i just love to train and play hard. i just signed on to getstrength which
is where i found your contact details. was just wondering if you could have a look at my basic skeleton for a training week,obvious depends on injuries and so on,im about 80 kilos with a standing 40m of 4.9

monday:upperbody strength in am
push and pull exercises
1 olympic lift (heavy)
core
monday: straight speed in pm
long 40-60m
technique
tuesday: team training
wednesday: lowerbody strength am
1 olympic lift (fast)
squats
1 hamstring
single leg movement
wednesday pm: speed power
plyos
sled work
thursday am: strength/flexibility
push exercise
lateral exercise
static stretching
thursday:team training
friday:rest
saturday:game
sunday;rest

without going to deep thats about me every week, i realise your a very busy man so no rush or pressure,feel free to post it on the web page. thanks so much for your time and keep up the good work

scotty mayhew
G’day Scotty, thanks for your question, your basic plan looks very goodand I can not find too much in it that needs a review, just some ordering for you to consider:

Monday – ensure that your heavy Olympic is done first after a warm up then any push/pull are after this main movement, this should be done from the floor and can be performed “cluster style” where you have a 5 – 15 seconds within set/between rep pause recovery to ensure you are using perfect technique and also you can lift a heavier weight, think of a set of 5 as 5 sets of 1. I would probably add some gym based plyo exercises like knees to feet jumps or seated to box jumps in between each set of
the heavy Olympic.

Also try and include some basic acceleration/power speed work as well,maybe a partner tow and release with a step and go pattern as well.

I like to use a power workout on the Thursday prior to a Saturday game,usually light and fast with probably 3 exercises, on this day I would do
the movements from blocks or from the hang position, say hang clean push press would be a good one for your position, 3 x 3 at 60 – 80% of
max.

I hope that helps, good luck in your coming season with North Otago, gowell, Ash
Hi just a few questions.

What changes would you make to your training recommendations for inseason training?
Would you changes would you make to the recommendations for a 17 year old?
When I squat i am able to maintain good form until i reach parallel, where by lower back starts to curve, What would you say the problem is and what can i do to fix it?

Thanks

Jon
Hi Jon, as to question 1, inseason is dictated by injury, I attempt to cycle strength over a 3 week block starting with 6,5,4 then 5,4,3 and finally 4,3,2 with either an upper and lower split on mon and tues or a full body on one of those days later in the week is a power session light and fast on a thurs leading to a sat game, weights are in the 60 – 80% region and players do 3 – 5 sets of 3 – 5 reps in 3 or 4 exercises, usually an Olympic a lower body and an upper body exercise.

2. For a youth player I would do a full body early and a power based later I think it is important to get 2 workouts in a week to continue on from the off season, in fact I have had players set PB’s in the week of Super 14 finals, so in this regard I would not make too many changes for younger players if they can tolerate 2 sessions, then stick with it possibly alternate between 2 and 1, just ensure they are recovered going into the game.

3. Your squat question is probably one a physio should answer as there maybe a number of reasons, I would have someone check your hip flexor flexibility as this maybe a key issue why you lose your lordotic position at deeper than parallel, also potentially your stance maybe too close, I have found that most people try and squat with too narrow a stance, a great exercise and a useful warm is to do a wall squat face into the wall with your toes as close as possible to the wall and then squat down as low as you can this will quickly tell you a lot about your balance and flexibility.

Cheers, ashley jones
Hi Ashley,
I am a fitness trainer specializing in speed and agility(both SAQ and SPSS cert), ran Boot camps with Jamie Tout. Are there any good fitness software programs out there.
If so, what do you recommend?
Cheers,
Hiko Davies
Fitness Trainer
Hi Hiko,
there is a great program from the University of Nebraska, if you go to http://www.huskerpower.com you can view the details of it, personally I am not a user of fitness software, one since I am a bit of a dinosaur and more specifically I have yet to come across software that answers all my needs, I like to alternate programs and intensity based on communication with my players on a daily basis.
For example a player just wanted to do a leg workout but had not done legs for a couple of weeks with a game in 48 hours I suggested he go through the movement pattern with sets of 3 which will allow for a re-introduction to the movement without any delayed onset muscle soreness inhibiting performance,

Cheers,
Ashley Jones
Hello,
I was just wondering if overtraining is ever an issue with the rugby weights
training on this website. How it suggests 1 push excersise and 1 pull
excersise every session you have. Is it not better to do say chest and back
one session and then legs and shoulders the next?
Any help would be appreciated
Cheers
champ550
Hi there Champ,
Vern Gambetta from the US is quoted as saying and I am paraphrasing his words that you should train movements not muscles in sports conditioning. So that is the theory behind why I will organize my sessions in pushing and pulling for the upper body, rather than specific body parts like chest and back, the reality is that the workouts would be fairly similar. As to issues of overtraining, I do not believe it is common in training rugby players, but I do believe that under recovery is more prevalent, that may sound like a bit of word play but you can train like groupings of muscles on a daily basis without incurring any problems so long as you change the stimulus. Poilquin has shown that you can even train the same movements in am and pm workouts for a block of training and increase the weights used in the pm workouts. Also in your example if you were to train chest and back in one session and then legs and shoulders in the next session you are in effect training the pushing muscles two sessions in a row albeit one from a more horizontal position and one from a vertical, remember if it gets the desired results then it must be working, and that is irrespective of the type of program you are designing or using,

Cheers,
Ashley Jones
In the article titled ‘strength and conditioning for rugby’, there is no speed training included in the offseason section and I just wanted to know if I am supposed to add in the speed program from the articles section or just concentrate on speed work inseason. And also for conditioning MT1 says 3 x 30 min runs per week, then in the schedule it says for 2 x MT1 November, I’m guessing thats 2 x 30 min runs, not 6.
Rory.
In answer to your question, you work on weak links and since speed is an essential element of most professional players we will do 2 – 5 sessions per week. For the junior or club player it is probably easier just to concentrate on getting fit and strong and focus on that.
Cheers,
Ashley Jones

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