Rugby Training: How To Catapult Your Performance in 8 Weeks

The definitive guide (2026 update). In this guide we focus on how you should train in the gym to get the most out of your rugby on the pitch.

Most players train like bodybuilders for rugby. Not only does that waste gym time, it can even work against your performance and your injury rate.

This guide is big. Read it, take notes, and in eight weeks you'll be glad you started training properly for performance.

Introduction

Whatever your sport, strength is vital. Strength, the ability to produce force, means you can dominate your opponent more easily.

Being strong also helps protect you against injury, delays fatigue and gives your body armour in the form of muscle. When two players of equal size and skill meet, the stronger player usually wins.

Unfortunately, the business of getting strong has been muddied by bodybuilding. Bodybuilding builds bigger muscles, but those muscles aren't necessarily stronger. Bodybuilding is about "show", not "go". There's nothing wrong with it if your goal is maximum hypertrophy (muscle growth), but if you want real-world strength you can use on the pitch, there are better ways to train.

Professional teams still use plenty of touch rugby and small-sided games, partly to keep players nimble alongside their weight training. Do the same: get plenty of game-speed running in so your body stays used to being on its toes.

Hypertrophy training will increase strength, but almost as a by-product. A bigger muscle has more potential to produce force, but big muscles aren't always as strong as they look. Training for strength, on the other hand, will also build muscle, even though that isn't its primary goal.

That's not to say hypertrophy is pointless. Far from it. More muscle is very useful in a collision sport, and the bigger player often dominates the smaller one. But the muscle you gain shouldn't be purely decorative. Muscle that's as strong as it looks is often called functional hypertrophy.

Another drawback of bodybuilding training for athletes is that it treats the body as a collection of parts, each trained on a different day with a split routine: legs on Monday, chest on Tuesday, back on Thursday, shoulders and arms on Friday.

That lets a bodybuilder spend a lot of time on a small part of the body and do a high volume of exercises. It's productive for hypertrophy but less so for strength. It's a quantitative rather than a qualitative approach, and in strength training more isn't necessarily better.

Split programmes also treat the body in parts rather than as a whole. In sport, as in daily life, your legs don't work independently of your back, your arms don't work independently of your core and your chest doesn't work independently of your shoulders. Muscles work together. If you want your body to work as a whole, train it as a whole, which means focusing on movements more than individual muscles.

Hypertrophy work has its place, but strength training is not bodybuilding. Many players miss out on the benefits of strength training because they train like bodybuilders.

Chapter 1: The rugby player

This chapter covers the qualities a modern rugby player needs. It's the foundation for the rest of the guide, so don't skip it.

To be successful, rugby players need a range of fitness "weapons". The game has changed a lot. Forwards are no longer just big, slow pushing machines, and backs have to do more than wait for the ball and run in tries: everyone has to compete physically with everyone else on the pitch.

Every player has to be fit (and strong) enough to battle up and down the pitch at an often frantic pace.

Fitness is the successful adaptation to a stress, and it's specific: you're fit for what you do. So to decide how to train, start by analysing what rugby demands, then build a plan to meet those demands. Rugby players need the following qualities.

Aerobic fitness

This is the ability to take in, transport and use oxygen, also called cardiovascular fitness. Rugby is an intermittent sport: short, very hard efforts on top of a lot of lower-intensity running. Your aerobic system does much of the work between those efforts. Being aerobically fit means you recover faster from each burst. In other words, you get your breath back faster. A higher aerobic capacity also raises your lactate threshold, so you can work harder for longer before fatigue sets in.

Aerobic fitness also makes sure you last the whole game and don't "blow up" before the final whistle. It means you can train harder and more often, too, because you recover better.

Rugby players shouldn't train like bodybuilders, but they shouldn't train like marathon runners either. Lots of long, slow cardio can blunt strength and power gains. Keep your aerobic work intense enough to drive fitness but not so long that energy is wasted.

Anaerobic fitness

Rugby is full of brief, explosive efforts separated by short breaks, and your training should reflect that. Intervals, circuits, sprints and match-simulation drills will all develop anaerobic fitness. With a good aerobic base underneath, you'll recover faster between those efforts. In a match, work intervals can last just a few seconds or a minute or two, and specific training should mirror that.

Speed

Rugby rarely asks you to hit top speed over a long distance. Most sprints are short, so acceleration over the first 10 to 20 metres matters most, along with the ability to repeat it. Speed is built with short, maximal sprints and full recovery, backed up by strength and power work in the gym. Our guide to improving acceleration has four drills to start with.

Mobility and flexibility

In the early days of training for sport, lifting was said to make you "muscle-bound": slow, stiff and inflexible. That simply isn't true, but it's still worth spending some training time on mobility and flexibility. Stretching and foam rolling can both help. You don't need a gymnast's flexibility, but enough range of movement means tight muscles won't restrict how you move.

Many people only stretch as part of a cool-down, or once a muscle has become tight and painful. Instead, follow a regular mobility routine that addresses your own needs. For rugby, that usually means the hamstrings, hip flexors, chest and neck.

Agility and coordination

Straight-line speed is important, but more often players need to change direction to avoid or intercept other players. This is agility: taking in information, processing it and responding, almost instantly. Agility training often uses ladders, low hurdles, cones and marked lines, as well as running patterns against imaginary or real opponents. Changing direction quickly also needs power, the next topic in this chapter.

Coordination is the ability to control your limbs to produce smooth, accurate movements: the brain-to-muscle connection. Catching a ball, side-stepping an opponent and kicking while running hard all demand a lot of it. Like every fitness quality it can be trained, but some players have more of it naturally. Practising rugby skills regularly is the best way to improve it.

Power

Strength produced quickly is power. A slow, heavy squat is an expression of strength; an explosive vertical jump is an expression of power. Power depends on recruiting a lot of motor units (groups of muscle fibres controlled by a single nerve) at the same time, so it's as much about your nervous system as about muscle size or strength. That's why lightly muscled weightlifters and boxers can produce remarkable power for their size.

Bodybuilding, with its controlled and often slow movements, does very little for power. Power training uses explosive, short-duration work: jumps (plyometrics), throws, Olympic lifts, and compound lifts like squats and deadlifts done explosively with light to moderate weights. It should be part of every rugby player's training.

Strength

Strength is the ability to produce maximal force, and in the words of coach Mark Rippetoe, it makes everything better. Strong muscles are more resilient and more resistant to fatigue, and strength can be the difference between winning and losing possession. But training for strength alone isn't enough: it has to be part of a programme that covers all the qualities above. The aim of this guide is to introduce some of the best, most rugby-appropriate strength training methods so that your gym time is as productive as possible.

Chapter 2: How important is strength in the gym?

Whatever level you play at, whatever your position, however long you've been playing, strength (or a lack of it) will play a part in your success.

Strength is mostly built in the gym, and it's easy to measure. If you can lift more weight, or the same weight for more reps, you've got stronger. Numbers don't lie: if the weight on the bar is going up, whatever you're doing is working.

Bodybuilding, in contrast, focuses on how muscles look rather than how they perform. Results are measured in centimetres gained or body fat lost rather than weight lifted, and lifters often chase the "pump", soreness or simple fatigue instead of anything measurable.

So if strength is your goal, start thinking about your performance in a few key movements, and stop thinking about your biceps, traps or calves in isolation. Those muscles won't be neglected, and you can still target them with accessory exercises. But when it comes to building strength, four exercises need to become your bread and butter.

Squats

Often called the king of exercises, the squat builds leg strength and power. Unlike leg presses, leg extensions and leg curls, squats also demand and develop core strength. Heavy squats work almost every muscle in your body directly or indirectly. Jumping, sprinting, scrummaging: all of them improve if you squat hard and often.

There are several squat variations. Choose one, work it hard for several weeks or months, and switch to another if progress stalls. Choose your squat based on your build, any old injuries and what feels best.

Barbell back squat, high bar. The bar rests high on the traps, usually with a shoulder-width stance. High bar squats keep the torso upright, which suits taller lifters. They're best done in weightlifting shoes with a solid, raised heel.

Barbell back squat, low bar. The bar sits lower on the back, across the rear of the shoulders. This shortens the lever between the bar and the hips. Low bar squats involve more forward lean and often suit shorter lifters. They're usually done with a wider-than-shoulder stance and flat shoes. They can be hard on the shoulders, so they may not be the best option if you have a history of shoulder problems or limited shoulder mobility.

Front squats. With the bar resting on the front of the shoulders, the front squat keeps your torso upright and puts less load through the lower back. It needs good upper-body mobility and tends to emphasise the quads over the hamstrings. Stance can vary, and weightlifting shoes help. Big arms can make the rack position awkward for some lifters.

Safety bar squats. A safety squat bar is cambered and has a built-in yoke. It's much easier on the shoulders than a straight bar. The camber puts the weight slightly forward, so you have to work hard to stay upright, which strengthens your upper back. You'll use less weight, which can help players working around injuries.

Zercher squats. This oddly named exercise means squatting with the bar held in the crook of your elbows. Holding the weight in front makes your back work overtime to keep your torso upright. The main limit is comfort, as heavy weights hurt the arms; a bar pad or towel helps. Because you can't lift as much as in other squats, Zerchers make a good lighter variation for deload weeks.

Deadlifts

Bending down and picking a heavy weight up off the floor is one of the best strength exercises there is. Working the whole back of your body from your heels to your neck, deadlifts will do more for your strength than almost any other exercise. Whether they're a leg exercise (they hammer the hamstrings and glutes) or a back exercise (they work the spinal erectors, lats and traps) is debatable. How good they are for strength isn't. Unlike squats, which need spotters or a rack, you can deadlift on your own and simply put the bar down if you can't finish a rep.

Conventional deadlift. Done with a hip-width stance, the conventional deadlift often suits lifters with shorter legs and good hamstring flexibility. Use an overhand or mixed grip. Keep your back flat and braced in this and every deadlift variation.

Sumo deadlift. A wide stance with your hands inside your feet shortens the distance the bar travels, which can suit taller lifters. It's more hip-dominant than the conventional deadlift and needs good hip mobility. If you normally pull conventional, pulling sumo now and then makes a good variation.

Deficit deadlift. Standing on a platform 5 to 10 cm high increases the range of movement and makes the lift harder without adding load. That's useful when you want to train hard but keep the weight down, for example during the season or on the way back from injury.

Rack or block pulls. Raising the bar to around knee height shortens the range of movement and lets you handle heavier weights. It also suits tall lifters who struggle to keep a flat back from the floor. A block of heavy rack pulls should carry over to your full deadlift.

Bench press

If squats are the king of gym exercises, the bench press is the most popular. It develops your chest, shoulders and triceps, your main pushing muscles, and a strong bench should help you fend players off.

Most people like benching; it's less tiring than squats and deadlifts because you're lying down. That doesn't make it any less valuable. Bench strength is a useful marker of upper-body strength, which is why the NFL uses a bench test at its scouting combine.

Barbell bench press. Set your hands so your forearms are vertical at the bottom of the press: the strongest position for most lifters. A slight arch with your feet planted helps. Lower the bar to your lower chest to take stress off the shoulders, and touch the chest lightly. Never bounce the bar.

Dumbbell bench press. Dumbbells train each arm independently, so both sides work equally hard. They allow a greater range of movement and demand control and balance. The downside is getting heavy dumbbells into position on your own. Some lifters find dumbbells easier on their shoulders.

Paused bench press. With a barbell or dumbbells, pause each rep with the bar resting lightly on your chest. Don't relax. Starting each rep from a dead stop makes the lift harder and builds explosive starting strength. A good choice when you want a lighter but still productive upper-body session.

Close-grip bench press. A shoulder-width grip increases the range of movement at the shoulder and puts more emphasis on the triceps and front delts. Some lifters find it kinder on their shoulders. Combined with a pause, it can be as tough as a regular bench with much less weight.

Incline and decline bench press. Pressing on an incline shifts a little emphasis to the upper chest; a decline shifts it to the lower chest. For strength, these variations mainly add variety. Most people are slightly weaker on an incline and slightly stronger on a decline than on the flat bench.

Overhead press

The military press is the classic overhead press: done standing, legs straight, pressing a barbell from the front of the shoulders to full arm extension. Over the years the name has come to cover almost any shoulder press, seated or standing, barbell or dumbbell. Overhead pressing builds shoulder and triceps strength and keeps your pushing muscles balanced. Doing lots of bench pressing with no overhead work can leave the shoulders out of balance.

Standing barbell press. The classic upper-body lift builds strong shoulders and triceps, and a strong core too. Set your hands about shoulder-width apart so your forearms are vertical at the start. Press the bar straight up, leaning back slightly, and push your head through between your arms as the bar passes your face so the weight finishes over your base. Your legs stay straight but not locked.

Dumbbell press. Dumbbells make each arm work independently, which helps balance your strength, and many lifters find them more comfortable. You'll use less weight than with a barbell.

Seated press. Both barbell and dumbbell presses can be done seated. The back support reduces the work your core has to do, so most people can lift more seated, but it carries over less to the pitch.

Push press. Done standing with a barbell or dumbbells, the push press combines a quarter squat with a powerful press. Start the movement with a strong leg drive and finish it with your arms. It's a good total-body power exercise that lets you handle heavy weights, and it needs a strong core.

You'll need more than these four lifts, but building your training around them will increase your strength more effectively than second-tier exercises like leg presses, flyes and curls. They involve the most muscle, resemble the movements of sport and daily life, and let you lift the heaviest weights. There's a reason so many of the best strength programmes are built around them: they work.

Chapter 3: Training systems for strength, power, speed and muscle

This chapter looks at some of the best-known training programmes in detail. Skip to the ones you want, but reading them all will help you understand the plan we build in Chapter 4.

By now you'll have the idea that traditional bodybuilding programmes have no real place in training for rugby. They'll build muscle, but they won't do much for your strength and even less for your power. That's not to say bodybuilding methods are off the menu, just that they're the icing on the strength and power cake.

There are several good off-the-peg plans worth considering. None was designed with rugby players in mind, but with a few changes they can work for you.

If you choose one, commit to it for long enough to judge whether it works. Jumping from one programme to another every week or two adds too much variety and stops you progressing. Choose a plan, adapt it as needed and run it for 12 weeks or so. All the programmes below follow the principles of overload, progression, good exercise selection and recovery, and they will work if you stick with them.

A primer on periodisation

The best strength programmes have a few things in common:

• They emphasise the big exercises: squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhead press.
• They use effective set, rep and loading schemes for strength.
• They manage fatigue.
• They can be adapted to the individual.
• They use periodisation.

Periodisation is the long-term planning of training variables to keep you adapting and improving. It's vital for strength.

If you only ever lifted 100 kg, you'd only ever be 100 kg strong. Your strength would plateau, because 100 kg would stop being a reason for your body to adapt. If you lifted 105 kg and then, in a later session, 110 kg, your strength would increase. That's the essence of periodisation: a plan that grows with you so your strength slowly but surely improves.

There are many types of periodisation, some described below, but one thing is certain: if you want to keep progressing, follow a planned progression.

Linear periodisation

Linear periodisation is the simplest form of progression, yet many people don't even use this. It just means adding weight to the bar week by week until you can't any more. It works very well for beginners and early intermediates but less well for advanced lifters. Here's an example for the squat:

When you can no longer add weight, you have three options: drop to sets of three and keep adding weight; drop the weight by 10% and build back up; or start a new programme with a different scheme or exercise.

Step periodisation

Step periodisation is like linear periodisation, but with a planned step back every few weeks to keep you progressing. The lighter sessions give you a mental and physical break, so progress lasts longer.

Progress is slower because weights are repeated before you move on, but that can build confidence and consolidate gains. When progress stalls, use the same three options as above.

Block periodisation

Block periodisation focuses on one goal for a set period before moving on to the next. It can work, but much of the time you're training away from what you need most, and qualities built in earlier blocks can fade in later ones. For example:

Undulating periodisation

Most periodisation models focus on one quality at a time. Rugby needs several at once. Step periodisation, for example, can build maximal strength while power and muscle take a back seat. That's fine for powerlifters, but for a sport like rugby it makes no sense to be strong but slow, or powerful but skinny. Undulating periodisation trains several qualities in the same cycle, either week to week or session to session.

Weekly undulating periodisation rotates the set and rep scheme each week:

• Week 1: hypertrophy emphasis (6 to 12 reps, moderate weights)
• Week 2: strength emphasis (3 to 5 reps, heavy weights)
• Week 3: power emphasis (3 to 5 reps, moderate weights lifted explosively)
• Week 4: back to hypertrophy, with heavier weights than week 1

The drawback is that no single type of training comes round very often. Choosing goals that overlap helps: alternating strength and power works well, but adding a week of light, high-rep endurance work wouldn't.

Daily undulating periodisation trains each key lift with a different emphasis on different days of the week. It's a very effective way to train for sports that need a range of qualities. Here's an example using the squat, bench press and deadlift:

A fourth session keeps you balanced by covering what the big three miss: overhead pressing and pulling. For example, pull-ups, overhead press and bent-over rows for 5 sets of 6 to 8, then one or two assistance exercises for 4 sets of 10 to 12.

Example strength programmes for rugby players

There are many off-the-peg strength programmes. Some are excellent, some less so, but all will work if you stick with them and add weight to the bar. Most lean towards "powerbuilding", building both strength and size, which suits rugby players well, because pure strength training (1 to 3 reps, very heavy weights, long rests) does little for muscle size.

5/3/1 by Jim Wendler

5/3/1 is a percentage-based programme built around the squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press. Each week you work up to a target percentage for one main set, and on the last set of each lift you do as many good reps as you can (the "+" set) to try to set a rep record. After three weeks there's a lighter deload week, then the cycle repeats with slightly heavier weights. All the percentages are based on a "training max" of 90% of your true or estimated one-rep max. There are many templates, including ones with jumps and throws, and assistance exercises are added for balance.

Advantages. The rep-record sets are competitive and motivating, and they make progress easy to track. The focus on the big four means the right exercises get done, and every session is clearly prescribed.

Disadvantages. You need to know your maxes; getting them wrong throws the programme out (apps and spreadsheets make the maths easy). Each main lift is trained only once a week, which isn't ideal for lifters still learning technique. Unless you choose a template that includes jumps, throws or cleans, there's no real power work.

Verdict. A proven, flexible strength programme. For rugby, choose a template with jumps or throws, or add them yourself.

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

Starting Strength is a strength training classic: linear progression built almost entirely on the big lifts plus a few accessories. Despite its simplicity, it's hugely popular and helped bring old-school barbell training back.

It typically uses two workouts, A and B, alternated across three sessions a week:

• Workout A: squats, bench press, deadlifts or power cleans (alternated)
• Workout B: squats, overhead press, back extensions, chin-ups

Squats, bench and overhead press are done for 3 sets of 5, deadlifts for 1 set of 5 and power cleans for 5 sets of 3. Chin-ups are done for 3 sets of as many reps as possible and back extensions for 3 sets of 10.

As long as you hit your reps, you earn the right to add weight next session. Miss them, and you repeat the weight once or twice. If you still can't get them, drop the weight by 10 to 20% and build back up. After a few resets, move on to a more advanced plan.

Advantages. It's the epitome of simplicity, uses the best strength exercises and keeps working for as long as you can add weight. Three sessions a week leaves time and energy for rugby training.

Disadvantages. A handful of exercises repeated two or three times a week gets repetitive, and not everyone progresses in a straight line. Deadlifting only once a week, for one set, under-uses a key lift, and there's much more pushing than pulling, which can create imbalances.

Verdict. A good programme for novices. The focus on the big lifts and power cleans builds technique and basic strength, but more experienced lifters will outgrow linear progression.

The Cube Method by Brandon Lilly

Powerlifter Brandon Lilly's Cube Method is built around the big three, rotating heavy, rep and speed work. It runs in three-week waves, and each week every main lift gets a different style: you might do speed work for the squat in week one, rep work in week two and heavy work in week three, with the other lifts rotated so you're never going heavy on two lifts in the same week.

Each main session finishes with assistance work for the main lift; on deadlift day, for example, you might do rows, back extensions, core and grip work. A fourth session each week is a bodybuilding day for weak points such as shoulders and arms.

Advantages. Constant variety means it's never dull, which suits people who are always tempted to switch programmes.

Disadvantages. Each type of work comes round only every third week for each lift, which may not be ideal for building strength or power, and there's no specific jumping or throwing element.

Verdict. A decent general strength programme, but rugby players would do better with something more frequent and more specific.

GreySkull LP by John Sheaffer

GreySkull LP uses linear progression (the LP), with similarities to both Starting Strength and 5/3/1. A base programme can be topped up with "plug-ins" depending on your goal, such as an arms plug-in.

Upper-body pressing always comes first, and bench and overhead press alternate so each is done roughly once every five days. The last set of each exercise is an AMRAP set (as many reps as possible), where you aim for a new rep record. You add weight each week until you can't hit the minimum five reps in the AMRAP set, then reduce the weight and build back up, or switch from fives to threes.

Advantages. AMRAP sets build strength and let you adjust to how you feel on the day. Squatting twice a week is great for lower-body strength, and alternating the presses keeps the shoulders balanced. Three sessions a week is an ideal frequency for players.

Disadvantages. Early on, the AMRAP sets can run to higher reps than is ideal for strength. There's no specific power or speed work, and very little deadlift volume.

Verdict. Not a bad programme at all, and much better than what many players follow, but not specific enough for most rugby players' needs.

PH3 by Layne Norton

PH3, by Layne Norton PhD, is a 13-week programme made up of three four-week blocks and a final taper week:

• Weeks 1 to 4: accumulation phase (higher reps and lots of volume)
• Weeks 5 to 8: transition phase (slightly lower reps)
• Weeks 9 to 12: intensity phase (lower reps, heavier weights)
• Week 13: taper and test week

PH3 builds both strength and size, with a nod to power. The weekly layout stays the same throughout:

• Day 1: squat, bench press, deadlift (light day)
• Day 2: upper-body hypertrophy
• Day 3: squat, bench press, lower-body accessories
• Day 4: rest
• Day 5: deadlift, bench press (heavy rep test), upper-body accessories
• Day 6: squat (heavy rep test), lower-body accessories
• Day 7: rest

All the main lifts are based on percentages of your one-rep max. This isn't a beginner's programme: Norton recommends it only for experienced lifters with an established level of strength, such as a double-bodyweight squat and deadlift, a 1.5 times bodyweight bench press, recently tested maxes and several years of training on the big lifts.

Advantages. It's structured, follows a proven progression and builds both strength and muscle, with every session clearly laid out.

Disadvantages. It's high-volume and needs five gym sessions a week, which is a lot alongside rugby training. Heavy squats and deadlifts on back-to-back days also load the lower back twice in a row, and the upper body is trained on three of the first four days.

Verdict. PH3 will build strength and size, but it's closer to a gym-first programme than a performance plan. Athletes with rugby training to fit in may find there are simply too many sessions.

CrossFit

CrossFit has exploded in popularity over the last two decades. It does offer rugby players some benefits, but the lack of a periodised structure means it isn't ideal for strength and power.

Strength and power work comes round fairly infrequently, and because of the principle of specificity, infrequent strength and power training won't make you very strong or powerful. You might work up to a heavy single in the squat one day and not do it again for weeks.

Another issue is high reps on power exercises like cleans, snatches and box jumps. To develop maximal power you need to produce maximal power, which doesn't happen in a set of 21. High-rep sets of technical lifts can also lead to form breaking down and avoidable injuries. Many workouts are done against the clock, which tempts competitive people (rugby players, in other words) to sacrifice form for a new record.

CrossFit-style sessions are excellent for general conditioning, but for building quality strength and power it isn't the best option.

Chapter 4: The Rugby Warfare training plan template

Martial artist Bruce Lee said: "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." That's the approach here.

Each workout in the last chapter will increase your strength, build muscle and, to some degree, improve your power. None was designed for rugby players. That doesn't mean you should throw out 5/3/1, Starting Strength or PH3, but you should cherry-pick the parts that suit you.

A rugby-specific programme should:

• follow a periodised plan;
• develop strength, functional hypertrophy and power;
• be built around the big lifts and similar compound exercises;
• be balanced, to help avoid injuries;
• leave enough time for recovery and rugby training;
• give the best possible results in the least training time.

So here's the Rugby Warfare training plan template. It takes elements from the programmes in the last chapter to develop strength, power and speed, and functional muscle. It's simple, but it gets the job done.

There are three sessions a week, leaving time for recovery and rugby training. Most major lifts are trained twice a week with different set, rep and loading schemes. The exercises give the most bang for your buck, and each session is a modified full-body workout, because that's how your body has to work in rugby.

Workout 1: Monday

Workout 2: Wednesday

Workout 3: Friday

Ramped sets and back-offs

The key feature of this plan is "ramped sets plus back-offs" for the main strength lifts. Ramped sets are an underused but very effective way to warm up thoroughly, get plenty of useful volume and fire up your nervous system for maximal efforts. The back-off sets keep the intensity high while adding more quality work. The result is strength, muscle and, perhaps surprisingly, power.

Ramped sets are simple. Start with a moderate weight and increase the load over several sets until you reach the heaviest weight you can lift for the target reps. Do the target reps on every set, even the light ones, and treat every set as a work set. Lift the lighter weights as explosively as possible to prime your nervous system and develop speed. The bar will naturally slow as the weight goes up: your last two or three sets will be grinders, but the rest should be fast.

Increase the weight by roughly 7 to 10% of your top weight each set; don't worry about being precise. Reach your top weight in five to eight sets, with equal jumps. For squats and deadlifts the jumps will be big; for the bench press they'll be smaller.

Once you've hit your top set, reduce the weight by 10% and do two more sets (the back-offs) with the same reps. Here's an example using sets of six:

Next time, start the ramp slightly heavier, for example 62.5 kg. Small jumps allow more long-term progress. If you can't complete the ramp (say you only get five reps instead of six), repeat the workout next week. If it's the last week at that rep target, just move on; you'll get it next time round.

It looks like a lot of volume, but really you've just made your warm-up sets count. Only the last three or four sets are truly hard.

You won't ramp to the same reps every week. Use this undulating plan:

• Weeks 1 to 3: ramp up in sets of six, plus back-offs
• Weeks 4 to 6: ramp up in sets of four, plus back-offs
• Weeks 7 to 9: ramp up in sets of two, plus back-offs
• Week 10: ramp up in sets of eight, no back-offs (deload week)

Try to increase the weights week by week, and when you start again at week one, begin with heavier loads than last time.

What about speed work?

Where an exercise is marked "speed", use the heaviest weight you can move without slowing down. That's usually 40 to 50% of your one-rep max. Speed work is usually five sets of three reps, done as explosively as possible. If you can't move the bar fast, it's too heavy and you're training yourself to be slow. It's better to go a bit too light and move faster. Start at 40%.

If you don't know your one-rep max, estimate it. After warming up, pick a weight and do as many good reps as you can, then use this formula (the Epley formula):

Estimated 1RM = weight lifted + (weight lifted x reps x 0.0333)

So if you managed 6 reps with 90 kg, your estimated 1RM is about 108 kg; call it 107.5 kg in plates.

Power cleans aren't marked as speed work, but they are exactly that. Done after heavy deadlifts, the bar should feel light. The same is true of medicine ball chest throws: kneel on a mat about 4 to 5 metres from a solid wall, hold the ball at chest height, lean back slightly and explode the ball off your chest into the wall. Gather it and repeat, or throw to a partner.

The push press is another power exercise where speed matters more than weight. With the bar racked on the front of your shoulders and your feet shoulder-width apart, dip into a quarter squat, then stand up fast and use that drive to send the bar overhead. Lower it to your shoulders and repeat. You should blast through any sticking point; if you can't, the weight is too heavy. Expect to push press more than you can strict press.

Assistance exercises

Assistance exercises use a rep range, for example 6 to 10. Choose a weight that lets you do all the sets for 6 reps. Next time, add a rep to one set. Keep adding one rep per session until you reach the top of the range on every set, then increase the weight, drop back to the bottom of the range and repeat. For example, with four sets: 6, 6, 6, 6, then 7, 6, 6, 6, then 7, 7, 6, 6, and so on until 10, 10, 10, 10.

The exception is chin-ups. Do as many reps as possible (AMRAP) on each set and try to beat your total for the four sets each week. For core work, make sure the last few reps of each set are hard. Your abs work as stabilisers in almost every other exercise in the plan, so you don't need much more.

Warm-ups and cool-downs

A proper warm-up improves performance and may lower your risk of injury, but spending too long on it wastes energy. Ramped sets are one of the best warm-ups there is and cover most of the bases, especially if you use a full range of movement and keep rests short on the early sets.

Spend a few minutes on light cardio, dynamic stretches and foam rolling before each session, but don't overdo it. If you need a longer warm-up, repeat one or two of the early, lighter ramp sets; that's also a good chance to practise technique.

Afterwards, as each workout is a full-body session, finish with some full-body stretching. It doesn't matter much how you organise it, as long as you do it. Hold stretches for at least 15 seconds, and longer for very tight muscles.

Eating for size and recovery

The plan only works if you eat enough to recover from it. Players trying to add muscle generally need a small calorie surplus and plenty of protein; a 2018 meta-analysis (Morton and colleagues, British Journal of Sports Medicine) found gains in muscle mass levelled off at around 1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight a day. Build meals around protein-rich foods such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy and pulses. ParrotPal's chart of high-protein foods in the UK shows the protein per portion if you need ideas.

Other contact sports

The same principles apply to any collision or contact sport: get strong on the big lifts, train power explicitly and keep enough in the tank for skills training. Plenty of rugby players also pick up wrestling, judo or Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the off-season, and the strength from this plan carries straight over to the mat. If that's you, JitsAI has a week-by-week plan for your first 12 weeks of BJJ, and our grip strength guide covers the grip work both sports demand. For conditioning alongside the gym work, try our assault bike workouts.

Chapter 5: Conclusion

There's no such thing as a perfect programme, unless it's written specifically for you by an experienced coach who has assessed your needs. And even a perfect programme won't work unless you put the effort in.

Almost any programme, even a bad one, will produce some results if you stick to it and add weight to the bar. But you'll get far better results from a good one. Most bodybuilding programmes fall short for all the reasons at the start of this guide: no specificity, no periodisation, the body split into arbitrary parts, not enough focus on the big lifts, too much variety and too many isolation exercises.

The Rugby Warfare plan avoids those traps and focuses on the exercises that build strength, power and functional muscle. Best of all, you don't need a fancy gym: a barbell, dumbbells, a bench and a squat rack are enough.

Resist the temptation to add more. Its strength is its simplicity. Simple doesn't mean easy, though: you still have to work hard and do a little more each week.

Strength training doesn't have to be complicated. Have faith in the plan, add weight to the bar week by week, eat to support your training, get enough sleep, and you'll become a much harder player to stop. For the three lifts to master first, see our top 3 strength exercises for rugby.