At the end of a rugby season your body is often tired and battered and a long earned rest is warranted. It’s good to down tools and lay off the training for a few weeks to let your body recover. However, it often means you have to work harder at reconditioning pre-season than you did at maintaining your fitness and strength during the season.
My top tips for that start of season are easy to follow and aim to avoid the pitfalls of injury and pain.
Graded Training
- Pre-season is important to allow your body to return to full fitness but start slow and steady and build the intensity and frequency of exercise gradually.
- Aim to increase cardiovascular fitness (endurance) and global/ core muscular strength adequately before embarking on powerful exercise like sprinting or weight lifting.
- Listen to your body, if it hurts then stop and seek advice.
Recovery Post-Training
- Leave at least a few days initially between training sessions to allow your body to recuperate fully.
- Stretching and ice bathing can help to alleviate muscle soreness.
- Keep hydrated and eat plenty of greens and lean meats to fuel your body.
Choose The Right Footwear
- Your choice of footwear is vital pre-season as the ground can often be baked hard by the sun.
- Avoid rolled ankles by opting for a short stud or astro turf boot if necessary.
- New boots can mean blisters. Prevention is often better than cure so use a blister guard or Compeed plaster at the first sign of irritation.
Make Sure You’re Game Ready
- It is hard to be fully prepared for a match as nothing really compares to actually playing the game competitively. You need to be mentally and physically prepared for the unpredictable nature of sport and the effect of adrenaline rushing through your veins.
- Pre season games are ideal to grade your exposure back to tackling under pressure, sprinting full pelt, falling on to hard ground and trying out new skills.
- Even still, 80 minutes is a long time and so if you feel you’re flagging, sub off to re-fuel before an injury kicks in. You can then aim for longer next time.
Written by Caroline Morrissey before her departure for Australia
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