Rugby player testing

Abstract

The game of rugby has evolved over the last 10-20 years, particularly with the introduction of professionalism, but also as trainers and coaches’ knowledge and understanding of the game and its demands have increased. The game of rugby union played at a senior level now involves more movement of the ball, bigger collision impacts, and tougher defensive lines. Therefore, the fitness requirements of the senior club player have also changed. In this chapter we reveal what we consider the most important fitness requirements of our senior club-level players. Coaches and trainers of younger players would need to adapt these requirements to the age level of their own players. Superior performance of today’s athletes is the result of a complex blend of many things including biomechanics, training, social support, psychological factors and so on. In addition, because rugby is a collision sport that can take a toll on the body, building injury resistance to maximise playing/game time throughout the season is also important. Modern coaches recognise that the most consistently effective methods of preparing athletes for competition is one which is based on proven scientific principles rather than on trial and error or on judgement alone. It is therefore more and more common for the coach and athlete to seek input from the sport scientist for the athlete to achieve their full potential. In many cases the sport scientist will test several aspects of fitness specific to the sport. The results from testing players are valuable in several ways for the coach and trainer. Fitness testing allows the coach to figure out where the players fitness levels are currently (and therefore what they may need to improve on and/or positions the player may be more suited to). Such testing also improves motivation for the player (if they know they are being judged on fitness gains), gives feedback to the coach on which players are putting the effort in, and allows the strength and conditioning coach to gauge the effectiveness of their training program.