Building foundations over the off-season

Introduce and re-introduce techniques in the off-season and preseason whilst keeping the Summer fun.

Photo credit: Omega Photography

The Summer is a time to try new things. You can introduce different activities such as cricket, football, rugby rounders, volleyball without worrying if players are getting cold.

Bringing different sports to your sessions can help players take a Summer break from rugby whilst still being active and connected with their teammates. These activities also help improve skills that can translate over to rugby.

One of the most successful Summer events I’ve run has been a bootcamp. I’ve written about it before. It’s a blend of rugby starter games (such as rugby netball) and a circuit. Players pair up for the circuit, so everyone gets to cheer a partner on.

For the circuit, players complete a range of activities. These are partially inspired by World Rugby’s Contact Confidence.

---

---

As well as being a useful programme to incorporate all year round, Contact Confidence contains some exercises you can add into your own Summer programme or adapt into a bootcamp.

I love using activites that fit into ‘pre-contact’. It’s ideal to work on core skills for contact. It helps players new to the sport see that contact has levels they can build up to. It helps remove the view that tackling isn’t full contact or nothing (which can be a daunting concept). It also helps break the skill down for more experienced players.

See here for insight into how I view the different levels of contact:

How I approach coaching contact

The section on ‘mobility, rolling, falling and landing’ contains partner carries which are brilliant for pre-season or offseason races. You can also include them in any bootcamp circuit.

The section on ‘neck strengthening’ contains bearcrawls. Anyone who’s been coached by me knows I love a bearcrawl. It’s a great exercise that helps players build great body positioning.

Players have to focus on ensuring their back is flat and they have a neutral head. If I’m coaching players new to rugby, then a bearcrawl gives me chance to explain the neutral head and ensures players understand this fundamental technical element from the start.

I also love to use wrestling activities. These can be any type of wrestle or grapple activity. A ball rip activity can help players become familiar with contact (if they’re new or returning from injury). It can also help build up strength and confidence in regular contact players.

You can also use grapple activities as an pre-contact (which is level 2 in my contact scale. Level 1 is non-contact which helps players work on tracking).

Pairing players up and getting them to pick or push their partner up is a great way for players to gain confidence as well as strength.

Any of these activities can be used within a bootcamp style programme or within a Summer of fun games and races.

They can help ensure players are working on their contact and strength foundations. They can also help remove some of the perceptions about contact for players new to the sport.

---