The Best Exercises for Rugby (Leg Edition)
You guys sent me a list of exercises and asked me to rank them for Rugby performance.
This list is a bit of fun, but gives you an idea of what exercises I use in my Rugby programmes to build the most strength.
The criteria (for best/better exercises) includes:
Is it underrated/underused in general
Does it build lots of muscle/strength through a large range
Is it well tolerated and learned (ease to coach, do "issues" often arise)
How easily is it progressed/loaded
My top-tier exercises are found in almost every athlete's plan at some point in the year; rotated around to build general strength/size in many ways.
Every exercise has a use case; so even the "trash" exercises are found in some of my athletes programmes.
Saying "every exercise works" doesn't really help coaches/athletes pick exercises to start with...we can acknowledge that all exercises have a use whilst simultaneously preferring exercises that provide the best stimulus overall.
Oversimplified Example 1:
Leg extensions and squats are both useful exercises with a use.
If someone wants to pick just 1, and progress on it for a year. Which would give them the better overall leg strength/performance/size for Rugby...the squat.
Oversimplified Example 2:
3/4 squats and deeper are both useful exercises with a use.
Deeper squats will build more muscle and facilitate long term strength gains than a 3/4 squat; so they would rank higher in this list. Even if there are some other benefits to 3/4 squats
In hindsight...conventional deadlifts and Zercher lifts may also fit within the "not really leg strength" category as there's a lot of that upper involvement and rarely are the legs the limiting factor. This was off the top of my head without any prior planning.
My aim is to help as many Rugby Players as possible via access to the education, training programmes and support that they need to make as much progress as possible.
I have no doubt that this content will help, but if you really want to make the most progress possible...consider getting involved with the coaching/programmes that I run.
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Coach Jake
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