Does it ever feel like the best rugby players in your competition know something you don’t know?
You do your extras at training, make sure you’re getting proper nutrition and adequate sleep thinking that these will push you to peak performance on game day. But come game day, something feels missing.
Is there a secret to rugby success that you aren’t privy to?
I know the secret and I’m willing to tell you!
So let’s get straight into it.
Speed, agility and quickness is essential for rugby success
You could have a pin-point accurate pass like Aaron Smith, tackle like the ‘Axe’ (that’s Trevor Gillmeister for those non-Queenslanders) and even be a step ahead of everyone when it comes to reading the play, just like Cam Smith, but all these skills mean dilly squat if you don’t possess speed, agility and quickness.
Many players with great rugby potential are left behind simply because they don’t train their speed, agility and quickness. To an extent I can understand why as there is a misconception out there that footy training will be enough to improve your game.
All those passing drills, attacking, and defending drills done at training will improve your speed, agility, and quickness, right?
WRONG!!!! I cannot stress this enough. General footy training will not get you faster on field.
The real speed, agility and quickness development happens off the training field. You must work these skills separate to rugby training to truly develop them. The secret is out – you MUST be developing these skills outside of general training.
Here is what you should be doing
1. Train speed, agility and quickness on separate days to footy training
These skills need to be executed at 100% accuracy every time, so your body and mind needs to be fresh. Performing these skills with even the slightest of inaccuracy will stunt your development and performance on the field, which brings us to point 2…
2. Master technique first
Like all skills you need to be able to perform the skill correctly to gain the most improvement and this is no different to speed, agility and quickness as mentioned above. Perform the skill slowly first (could be at walking pace) then build up the speed. Remember, technique first then speed second. Once you have mastered the skill at pace, introduce a defender to make training more game-related.
3. Progression
We all know that to improve on a skill, we need to be continually challenging our body. You aren’t going to improve if you keep lifting 20kg without slowly increasing the weight. When it comes to speed, agility and quickness there are many ways to add progression including, but not limited to, increasing your speed when changing direction, adding resistance when accelerating and even grabbing a mate to act as a defender to simulate a game situation. Be creative but always try to relate it all back to games situations.
4. Know what you are doing
There is nothing worse than thinking you are training the correct way but finding out down the track that there has been no progression and all those bloods sweat and tears have gone to waste.
Educate yourself on what you need to be doing to improve your speed, agility and quickness as there are a lot of moving parts to training these skills. For example, you need to be training at a certain intensity to get the best out of your fast twitch fibres and you also need to be performing drills and exercises in the correct order, otherwise you could be fatiguing your body at the critical moment that produces gains. Not to mention choosing the correct exercises and drills to perform to guarantee improvements. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to follow a proven program rather than sort through the internet guessing what is going to work!!
There you have it the cat is out of the bag. Speed, agility and quickness is essential to the success of any rugby player. The best players in the world know this and now you do too.
Speed, agility and quickness must to be trained on separate days to rugby training, master the technique first then add speed, progress the skill by challenging your body every training session and most importantly know what you are doing. If you want to follow a proven program, then just click on the link below
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