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Every Sport has Different Functional Requirements

Player A: well lads championship on this weekend, what will we do in the gym later?
Player B: think Ill do chest and back
Player A: Nah, Im doing arms. I want to look big in my jersey!
SOUND FAMILIAR?????
What Ive noticed a good bit over the last few months are that a lot of athletes out there arent doing a lot of
functional exercises in the gym that relate back to their sport. This provides the athletes with

no structure to training

no chance to enhancing performance

increased injury risk

and quite often, athletes become slower

It seems that body building type programmes are the more common choice for the majority of athletes now a
days. This can be brought down to 3 simple things:
1.

Poor knowledge on behalf of the athlete

2.

Poor education by the coach

3.

Or just complete laziness by the athlete or coach

How does one go about putting together a structured periodised plan for an athlete? Simple! Coaches can
start of by doing a needs analysis of the sport. For an example here Im going to do rugby. Rugby union is a
contact team sport that requires a variety of physiological components due to its high bodily contact and
physical nature of the sport, which involves short repeated sprints to high degrees of strength expression
(Gamble 2004). Rugby is seen to be a high-intensity sport, in which activities that call for maximal strength
and power are interspersed with periods of lower intensity aerobic activity and rest (Nicholas 1997). In rugby,

any increase in optimal strength and size without compromising position specific qualities such as speed,
power and flexibility is desirable (Corcoran and Bird 2009). Therefore it is vital that programme design and
exercise selection are correct for the athletes physical preparation. Duthie et al. (2003) highlighted that
vigorous body contact can result from one-on-one tackling in defence, scrums, rucks, and mauls, as well as
attacking runs. During matches Rugby players are regularly subject to high-intensity efforts that are
repeatedly followed by periods of incomplete recovery. The total work over the duration of a game is lower in
the backs compared with the forwards; forwards spend greater time in physical contact with the opposition
while the backs spend more time in free running, allowing them to cover greater distances (Duthie et.
al. 2003). Many researches have noted, the more specific the training activity and drills are to the actual
sport movement, the greater the likelihood that there will be a positive transfer to that sport (Fleck &
Kraemer 1997).
If we look at what is common to all sports, the performance pyramid is a good judgement. At the bottom we
have good movement patterns if an athlete cannot move correctly then he or she maybe be susceptible to
injury, weakness and poor overall performance. In the middle you have components of fitness like
endurance, speed, strength and power. At the top you have the sports specific skills.

Looking back now its really up to the coaches to make sure that the athletes are training properly. Always
research, research, research and if you are unassured whether or not your athletes are training correctly
send them to a qualified S&C coach or someone who has at least studied in that area. This will in turn benefit
the athlete and their team.
EFFECT OF SQUATTING ON SPRINTING PERFORMANCE AND REPEATED EXPOSURE TO COMPLEX
TRAINING IN MALE RUGBY PLAYERS
THOMAS M. COMYNS, ANDREW J. HARRISON, AND LIAM K. HENNESSY

Overview
This study was undertaken to examine the effect of a heavy weight training exercise on sprinting
performance and on the effect of repeated exposure to a complex training protocol. Eleven male rugby union
players participated in the study, which involved 5 separate testing sessions. There was little research
completed on the effect of complex training on sprinting performance and the effect of repeated exposure to
a complex training protocol so that was the impetus of this study.
Introduction
McBride et al. (2005) noted that 40-m sprint time improved after completing heavy back squatting in
comparison to 40-m completed after a controlled warm up. Comyns et al. (2007) reported that a back squat
load of 93% of 1RM provided a potentiation stimulus for drop jumping performed 4 minutes post lifting and
there was a significant improvement in leg-spring stiffness and a significant reduction in ground contact time.
Minimizing ground contact time is an important technical aspect of sprinting (Plisk, 2000). The subjects were
exposed to the training protocol of heavy back squatting followed by 30-m sprinting on 4 different occasions
to investigate if they could learn to apply the benefits of repeated exposure to a complex training protocol.
Methods
Participant Characteristics: Eleven full-time contracted rugby union players participated in this study.
Seven of the subjects were backs and four were forwards. All subjects were proficient with the technique of
back squatting and could lift in excess of 1.5 times bodyweight (mean [6SD] = 1.8 [0.4]).
Equipment Used: All 30-m sprint trials were measured with a laser measurement device (LAVEG, Jenoptik).
A General Linear Model (GLM) ANOVA was used to analyse the pre to post-test differences for each testing
intervention session.
Procedures: Testing session 1 consisted of a warm-up followed by testing of the subjects 3RM using a
procedure outlined by Earle (1999) followed by 2 familiarization trials of the 30-m sprint.
Sessions 25 were the testing intervention sessions, and all involved the same procedure. The subjects
complete both sprint specific and weightlifting specific warm-ups. The subjects 1RM value was estimated
from their 3RM scores attained in session 1. Four minutes of rest was given between the lifting and the posttest 30-m sprint. At the end of each testing session the subjects completed a cool-down.
Results

There was no significant difference from pre to post-test for any of the variables for the 4 testing sessions.
Only average 30-m velocity in session 1 reported a significant change, with a reduction in average velocity.
The session x phase interaction was analysed to examine if there were any differences between the pre to
post-test changes from the first testing intervention session to the second, third, and fourth testing sessions.
This was analysed to see can male rugby players learn to apply the potentiation effects of complex training
and answer the second question of this study. There was a significant improvement in the velocity at 20 m
and the velocity at 30-m pre to post-test changes from session 1 to session 4.

Discussion and Conclusion

Although there was deterioration in sprint performance in the first testing session, the percentage changes
were small. For the subsequent sessions, no deterioration in performance was evident. In general, for
session 2 the mean post-test scores for the dependent variables were similar to the pre-test scores, and for
sessions 3 and 4, the mean post-test scores were slightly higher. Although heavy back squatting did not
provide a potentiation effect for 30 m sprint performance at any of the 4 testing sessions there were
significant improvements in the pre- to post-test changes from session 1 to session 4 for instantaneous 20 m
and 30 m velocity. This indicates that rugby players can learn to benefit from repeated exposure to a complex
training protocol.