Hooker pre-season training?

I am a 19 year old going into my second season of competitive University rugby and I play hooker for my universities 1st team, i am quite short at 5 ft 9and 90 kg’s. Due to my size i am reasonably quick as i used to play backrow and have good aerobic ability scoring around 13.4-7 on the beep test.

I have been following an off season programme that involved periods of hypertrophy, strength and power. My training week has been four weight training sessions two upper body, two lower body focusing on the three different aspects of training, i also included some fartlek and interval training twice a week.

i would cycle the aims of the training every 4 weeks and used supersets for hypetrophy with rep ranges of (10/8/6 and 8/6/4), with strength i used (5/5/3/3/) and power (6/6/4/4/2) and (5/5/3/3/1)

I was wondering as the season here in England starts in September what i should be doing in july-august different from what i have already been doing? Should i now be focusing less on weight training and more on specific anaerobic/aerobic training? any ideas would be a real help.

thanks

Daniel

Hi Daniel, due to your good aerobic scores I would put you into a speed focus group if you were being trained by me, I would focus on more power strength work in the gym as well, if you can get a few mates together and play the anaerobic games your team will be way ahead of the rest as I believe that this is a major point of difference in training, if not do 2 repeated speed sessions:

Speed Group

2 x Speed (do different for each session)

Dynamic warm up drills for 10 – 15 minutes

Ladders: forward & lateral series

Hurdles: lateral series, march, skip, run + 10m accelerate out

Plyometric

Select 2 drills and do 75 foot contacts

1. Bounding x 40m

2. Power Skip x 40m

3. Single leg hop L to 22m R to 50m repeat with reverse distances

4. Power Jumps

5. Vertical Tuck jumps

6. Single leg rebound vertical jumps

Agility 

Select 3 drills from the sheet and do 10 minutes of these walk back recoveries between each repetition

Acceleration

Accelerations from different starts 20 metres maximum distance for 10 minutes:

3 point stance

lying on chest

lying on back

lying on back roll to left and roll to right

hurdle jump & go

standing facing opposite direction

chip kick regather then go

grubber kick regather and go

Maximal Velocity

Select 2 drills from this list and do for 15 minutes

Flying 28’s – build for 22m and then sprint maximally to the half way line

In & Outs – hard for 20m easy for 10m hard for 20 easy for 10

Change of direction cut – sprint hard for 30m hard cut diagonal for 10m then hard cut off other foot to straighten for another 30m

Straight sprints – 40m, 50m, 60m, 78m or 5m, 10m, 15m, 22m, 30m, 35m

Static Stretch for 15 minutes to conclude workout

1 x Anaerobic Games

3 x 15 minute games

One Touch

Best played across the field 50m line to try line being sidelines, both teams start on the sidelines (now try lines) one in possession the other being defenders, normal touch rules apply attackers only get one play when touched they all have to sprint back to their respective try line before they can push up in D, the new attacking team must pass once from the breakdown and then play continues in same fashion. Upon a try being scored the scoring team stays in possession and both teams swap side and restart from the try lines.

Drop Off Touch

Normal touch rules apply, other than when a person makes a touch he has to sprint around his own goal posts before being eligible to be on D again, attacking team gets 6 touches, no kicking is allowed.

Cone Ball

Field set up with cones on the junction of the 22m both ends and the 50m lines with the 5 m lines, this is when you are playing on the full field playing across the field. Scoring is as follows if you run the ball in and put it down on a cone 5 points, if you score other than putting the ball on a cone 3 points and if you receive a grubber kick in the scoring area you get 1 point. Ball must be passed backwards at all times, you get 2 touches and then have to hand the ball over, you can grubber to yourself and to another players once per possession.

2 x Repeated Speed

Session 1: Sprint 50m then slow down and walk to other end of the field, turn and go again x 20; 10 x ½ Gasser every 60 seconds try and keep each run under 30 seconds(start lying face down chin on sideline get up sprint to the other side of the field, go down to ground get up and sprint back to start)

Session 2 : 200m in 40 seconds rest 20 seconds then 100m in 20 seconds rest 40 seconds x 10

I will post the strength power workout later today, cheers, ash

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Hi Daniel, here is the weights I would have you doing if you were under my program hope this helps you out, all the very best AShley

Power Group
3 sessions per week

2 x Full Body Power

Select different exercises for each session

(1a) Power Snatch or Power Clean

(1b) Repeat Hurdle Jumps or Knees to feet Jumps or Box Jump ups or Band Jump Outs

(2a) ¼ Explosive Squat or Band Box Squat or Jump Squat

(2b) Repeat Hurdle Jumps or Knees to feet Jumps or Box Jump ups or Band Jump Outs

(3a) Push Press or Band Bench or Split Jerk

(3b) Clap Push ups or Plyo Rebounds or MB Cross-Over Push ups

Workout 1: 3 sets x 3 reps @ 60 – 80%/Contrasts 3 sets x 6 reps
Workout 2: 3 sets x 6 reps @ 30 – 40%/Contrasts 3 sets x 3 reps

1 x Full Body Strength

Select exercises from each of the following categories, use the same exercise for 3 weeks then change the exercise and repeat the 3 week progression

3 sets each exercises with the following reps: 
Week 1 – 4 x 6 Week 2 – 2 x 5, 3 x 3 Week 3 – 3 x (5,1) waves

1 x Full Body exercise

1 x Squat exercise

1 x Hamstring/Lower Back

2 x Upper Body Push super set with Upper Body Pull

Core Training:
After each workout out, select from the following options and do a core circuit, for 10 minutes total time: Suit case Dead Lifts, Rollouts, Swiss Ball Leg Raises, Turkish Get Ups, Full Body Twist, Bicycle, Sprinter’s Sit Up, Boxer’s Sit Up, Rainbows, Swiss Ball Sit Up & Throw Med Ball, Russian Twist on Back Extension, Cable Wood Chops

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thanks for the help, greatly appreciated ash!

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Cheers for that hope some of the material is of use to you, I am working with a coporation team in Japan at present, and a few of the ideas I put on paper for you I am curently trialling, they seem to be having a good effect, so will keep you all posted, ash

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just a quick question ash…i heard of an exercise from an old coach of mine and he said it was very specific to rugby. the best way to describe it is a one arm standing barbell push, you stand the barbell up on one end in a corner and load plates on to the other end and then basically push the bar in front of you for a certain number of reps and then alternate hands. do you have any opinion on the exercise and do you think it would be beneficial to put it in a training programme? cheers!

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Cheers for that yes it is an excellent movement, similar to the use of the Jammer made by Hammer Strength, good for full body strength/power development, with the force generated from the lower body through into the uper body finishing with full body extension, well worth including as a power option or without the leg drive as an upper body push option, go well, ashley