Your Rugby Training Programme, Week by Week

What is a good rugby training programme?

A good rugby training programme is built around your match, your position and the part of the season you are in. It names every day: two or three gym sessions, one speed session run fresh, conditioning that looks like the game, skills, and real rest. It changes with each phase instead of repeating the same week all year.

How many days a week should I train for rugby?

Most club players should train four or five days a week for rugby, counting team sessions, plus the match. In season that is two gym days and two team trainings around a Saturday game. Off-season it is four or five days, with at least two full rest days. Three days still works if you combine sessions instead of cutting them.

What should an off-season rugby programme include?

An off-season rugby programme should include four gym sessions, two conditioning sessions, one speed day run fresh and at least two full rest days a week. Two of the gym days are lower body and two are upper body. The running stays aerobic and builds slowly, and the ball comes out at least once a week.

How long should a rugby programme be?

A rugby programme should cover the whole year, built from blocks of about eight weeks rather than one long plan. A year holds an off-season block, a pre-season block, in-season blocks for as long as your season runs, and four weeks of active rest. Inside each block, the emphasis changes from week to week.

Is there a free rugby training programme?

Yes, there is a free rugby training programme on this page. Pick your position, the part of the season, your training days and your time in the gym, and the builder lays out the whole week and prints it. The free rugby workout plan PDF adds four weeks written out for all six position groups.

Can I follow a rugby programme without a gym?

You can follow a rugby programme without a gym, because only the gym days change. The speed, conditioning, skills and rest days run exactly as written. On gym days, swap the loaded lifts for single-leg squats, press-ups, chin-ups on anything solid, partner drags and hard trunk work, and expect to keep your engine while losing some strength.

What does an off-season rugby training program look like?

An off-season rugby training program is four gym days and two conditioning days a week, with no match to protect. Weeks 1–8 of the cycle are where size and maximum strength are built, because nothing has to be fresh on Saturday. Conditioning stays aerobic and unglamorous. Skills work drops to whatever keeps your hands honest.

What does an in-season rugby training program look like?

An in-season rugby training program is two gym sessions and two team sessions built backwards from Saturday. The heavy legs go on Monday, the main pitch session on Tuesday, upper body mid-week, and the team run on Thursday. Nothing slow and exhausting happens inside 48 hours of kick-off.

How to train for rugby by yourself?

You can train for rugby by yourself by running the gym and conditioning halves of the week alone, and finding a partner only for contact and passing. Strength, speed, repeat-sprint work and recovery all need no one else. Book the two sessions that do need a body, and stop apologising for the rest.

How to train for rugby at home?

You can train for rugby at home with bodyweight strength, hill or shuttle running and ball handling against a wall. Keep the shape of the week — two strength days, one speed day run fresh, one conditioning day — and substitute the loaded lifts, never the sprinting. Treat it as a bridge to a gym block.

How much in-season fitness training does rugby need?

In-season rugby needs one hard conditioning session a week and one short top-up, no more. The match and the main pitch session already supply a large aerobic and repeat-sprint load, so extra running mostly buys fatigue. Conditioning is built in the off-season and maintained in season, not the other way round.

What is a good workout routine for rugby?

A good workout routine for rugby is four sessions a week: two heavy gym days, one speed day run fresh, and one conditioning day. Keep the lifts few and heavy, put the sprinting before the fatigue rather than after it, and change the emphasis every week instead of repeating the same session for a month.

The four-week version, with a per-position PDF, is the rugby workout plan.

How many hours a day do rugby players train?

Professional rugby players commonly train around four to six hours a day across gym, pitch and recovery, split into two or three sessions. That is a full-time job. A club or school player training four times a week is doing the same shape of work at a fraction of the volume, which is the right comparison.

The day-by-day version is in how professional rugby players train.

What is the 3-3-3 rule gym?

The 3-3-3 rule in the gym is usually taken to mean three sets of three reps on three main lifts, run at a heavy load. It is a simple strength template rather than a rugby-specific one — useful inside a build block, but it does no speed, conditioning or contact work, so it cannot be a whole rugby programme.

What does belong in a rugby gym session is in the rugby gym workout.

What is the 40/20 rule in rugby?

There is no 40/20 rule in rugby union — 40/20 is a rugby league rule, where a kick from inside your own 40-metre zone that bounces into touch inside the opposition 20 wins the scrum feed. Union’s equivalent is the 50:22: kick from your own half, bounce it into touch inside their 22, and you throw in to the lineout.

Is 5'9" too short for rugby?

5'9" is not too short for rugby. Across eight of the squads at the 2023 World Cup, scrum-halves ran from 165 cm and fly-halves from 174 cm, so being under six foot rules out the second row and little else. Selection turns on your engine and your work in contact.

See which rugby position suits your body type.