Writte by Margot Wells
November has seen a change in weather conditions and with it pitch conditions, so how does this affect rugby players energy levels?
As the pitches become softer so the calves and Achilles have to work much harder when running and take longer to recover. This has to be taken into consideration when training on grass as a one hour session in the summer would have an energy rating of 3 but at the moment it would have an energy rating of 5.
What do I mean by energy ratings? The amount of energy required to complete the session and how quickly the muscles recover from the session. So if a game is 5 then a heavy rugby session with contact would also be a 5.This then means that there has to be a few lighter sessions towards the end of the week in order that the player feels fresh on game day.
Fitness sessions that constitute a 5 would be a heavy weights session so already a player has had 3 x 5 hard sessions in a week before all the other training sessions are included. Any session that takes around 30 minutes and involves speed would be a 1 and a jumping session providing it is short would be a 1. So how many points does a rugby player accumulate in a week?
Perhaps at this time of the year it would be prudent of the coach to give his sessions a rating in terms of length of training time, amount of effort expended and length of time taken to recover. In this way he could ensure that players were not over training and as there are a lot of games throughout a season, then the players would be fresher for the games and less liable to injuries due to fatigue and overtraining.
