Ideas to mix your preseason up
Preseason has a perception, let's try and change that.
Preseason in the Northern Hemisphere is almost here. This time in our sport has a perception of fitness, fitness, fitness. Broncos, burpees, no balls allowed.
This perception can harm recruitment and attendance. Over the next 3 weeks, I’ll go through some ideas you might want to use in your preseason. These include focuses on attack, defense and different activities to bring into the mix.
The purpose of preseason is to get players engaged and prepared for the season. Let’s dial up the fun, increase engagement and make it purposeful.
Before you begin your preseason, focus on a couple of targets. These goals need to be achieveable and be supported/co-created by the players. Think about what a good preseason would give the team and what good might look like.
This post focuses on what else you can bring into your preseason. Bringing in other sports and other opportunities to connect can help.
A reminder of other articles that might help:
I’m a big believer in bringing other activities into your rugby team. They can bring a physical and emotional boost to your players. It can also just add variety into your programme, which is key to keeping people engaged.
In previous seasons, I’ve developed a friendly competition for players to see how many points they can collect in a month. Players could get points for reading, going to the park with a ball, doing a workout at home, doing yoga or cooking a new recipe. It emphasises preseason as a period beyond ‘fitness, fitness, fitness’.
Here’s a list of activities you can add to your preseason plans
Pilates/Yoga - This could be sending out video links for players to do at home, video links for players to do together as a group (there are a range of good instructors that have videos online). You could also hire an instructor to come to the clubhouse or taking part in a session as a group.
Running/Walking club - Organising a time to meet up and go on walks or runs as a group is a great way to make the fitness feel different. The idea of a running club can be scary if players are worried about their fitness, so grouping players together or having a walking/walk-job option for people might relieve some nerves.
Swimming - I love swimming so I don’t need an excuse to get into the water. Going to a local pool as a group can be a great way to offer different ways to be physically active. Lane swimming have different option for people’s pace. However a family/no lane session is an opportunity for players to relax as well as swim.
Film night/BBQ - These options might seem obvious but including opportunities for social time away from fitness is important. A BBQ can also be a chance for the players to bring family members.
Karaoke - Before this turns into a list of things that I want to do this Summer, hear me out. You don’t have to find a karaoke business for this. Open up the clubhouse, grab a microphone and put some lyrics on a screen and you’ve got an enjoyable social. Bonds for the season are forged in these moments.
Multisports/Races - This can be a family day out or just for the team. Organising a range of competitions and activities for your team can get them physically active without it feeling like a chore. You could include school sports day style races (like the 3-legged race), volleyball or football. If alot of players are interested, you can split them into groups to compete for an overall team trophy.
Bootcamp - I’ve spoken about a bootcamp before. The idea of a bootcamp is for it to be a short programme over 4-6 sessions (this makes it different from the perception of preseason being broncos for 2 months). Whilst it is fitness, it’s underpinned by having adaptations and modifications for everyone. This makes it accessible. Bring the music, create stations where players work in pairs to support each other and make it applicable to rugby and general fitness (passing stations, bearcrawls and lifting tackle columns).
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