General Rugby Tips: Back Training for Rugby Players 

Rugby coaches often hear a common complaint from their players that they are suffering from back pain. In spite of medically guided coaching at conditioning camps, these problems continue to exist and sometimes, grow bigger with every passing day. What causes these discomforts?

First of all, the strength training programs at the coaching camps does not include many lower back exercises. The only exercise that is performed here is the dead lift. Many players cannot even do this one exercise properly because they lack the basic skill and flexibility. 

The players always do not have the sufficient core strength and stability. Moreover, in a rough game like, rugby, the lower back is quite exposed to injuries and no protection is provided to protect that area. 

To recover from this continuing problem, players should concentrate more on core strengthening and stabilizing programs. Exercises of the lower back like superman, prone cobra and prone bridge needs to be done at least thrice weekly.  

Before the beginning of those traditional or difficult exercises, it is very much necessary to go for effective base strengthening programs. The coach must focus a lot more on functional strength build ups. The forwards of a Rugby team must perform a bend-over roll or T bar pull up exercise on a regular basis. These are very useful as the back gets toned up for the moves they are supposed to do during the game. Stabilizing and balancing exercises are also very effective because of these factors. Once you have become a master in the basic functional exercises, start doing the difficult ones.  

When you do not have any matches, do a long distance running exercise at least one in a week, as that will keep you fit for the next season. 

2) History of Tennis at Wimbledon  

‘Wimbledon’ is the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world and its pride and glory has crossed over the boundaries of England. The tournament is hosted by The All England Lawn Tennis Club in London. Despite being about a century old, a master plan was made in 1993 to take the tournament to the century beyond. It was a long term plan, which was made to improve the quality of the championship better for the players, spectators and officials. Over the years, Wimbledon has become something more than the British monarchy over strawberries and cream. 

Wimbledon is the oldest professional tennis tournament and it is played on grass. It is one of the premier ‘grand slam’ events that are hoisted in open competition. If you ask any tennis player or fan, you will see that he agrees to the view that no other tennis tournament has contributed so much to the development of tennis like Wimbledon. 

The All England Lawn tennis club was founded in 1868 as The All England Croquet Club. Their first ground was located off Worple Road in Wimbledon. To increase the membership of the club, a lawn tennis court was started in 1875 and it became very popular at that time. In 1884, the Ladies Singles and Men’s Doubles was started and the trophy was donated by Oxford University Lawn Tennis Club. 

As the club went on to become a very prestigious one, it was renamed as The All England Lawn Tennis Club in 1922 and shifted to Church Road to have a 14,000 strong stadium. The lawns of the club were arranged surrounding the court and hence the name Center Court came into being. With the increasing popularity of the tournament, temporary stands were replaced by permanent ones and wooden rackets were replaced by graphite ones. 

3) Popular Sports in United Kingdom 

There are many popular sports in the UK, which are played by many British people and are served in many private clubs. Though soldiers in modern British army fight with modern weapons, archery is played in many clubs and UK is searching for a modern Robin Hood who can bring an Olympic Gold Medal. Athletics is another common sport which is played in clubs in the big cities and also in the smaller towns. Jogging, running, fun races are regularly arranged by the local clubs and UK does quite well in international athlete events. 

Though basketball does not have a mass following, but it is played by more than 1000 clubs in UK. The good teams also participate in the European Club Championships. Bowls is a very popular sport in the UK right now and it is played by people for all ages.  

There is another popular sport named croquet which is basically a more gentle form of American Football. There is another interesting sport called ‘Dart’. Though it is played by five million people in the UK every day, some people do not consider Dart as a sport and it is considered as an excuse to get drunk. It is played mostly in the pubs. Some still prefer playing Frisbee and it has now become a competitive sport. 

Many people in the country sides prefer gymnastics, as most school centers and clubs have their own gyms. Though hockey is a very old sport, but people start taking interest in it after England won the Olympic gold medal in 1988. Horse racing has to be popular because there are always many gamblers in any society. As far as martial art is concerned, it is practiced in many clubs, but Britons take special interest in judo. Volleyball, wrestling and weightlifting are also popular UK sports. 

4) Vertical Jump Secrets 

Sudden vertical jumps are very important in a rugby match and a rugby player must know the secrets of improving them. 

One can go for forceful arm swing as it helps to lift the jump by at least 15%. Make a proper timing of it with the jump and the player is bound to get wonderful results. 

Keeping your body flexible is a very important factor as you can see how long gymnasts can jump with their flexible body. You can do the stretch-reflex-shortening cycle at least three times a week. While doing this, you must keep in mind that stretch should be done only after a workout or exercise. If you do stretch before a workout, the power output actually decreases. 

A rugby player must concentrate on increasing the inner – abdominal strength. Inner abdomen means not only the rectus abs, but also the transverse abdominal wall as the latter plays a vital role in every power movement. Suck in your stomach and hold the transverse abdominal wall as the latter plays a vital role in every power movement. Suck in your stomach and hold the breath for 20 seconds and then release. 

Though this exercise is not mentioned in any training manual, over speed jump is proven to be useful to improve your jumps. This exercise makes the nervous system to speed up the reflex action during the jump. 

There is a muscle named Dorsi-Flexors which is located on our skin. If this muscle is made strong, you can jump more quickly with faster take offs. Doing aerobic exercises is a must here as the player must keep in mind that the sport involves both speed and power. 

There are many other exercises like wave loading, spring back, speed soles and strengthening the toe muscles. If you load your body with some weight before jumping, your muscles will get used to perform with loads. So you will be able to jump better without those loads. 

5) Fitness and Rugby 

A Rugby player must be fit to perform the difficult activities during a match. He has to splint at his maximum pace for very short periods, i.e. three seconds or maintain a fast move changing speed and direction and strong and regular use of the upper body muscles. 

Sports researchers say that in order to keep a rugby player fit for the game, certain benchmarks are needed for their exercises. A rugby player should spend 47% of his time on walking or jogging, 6% on running or sprinting, 9% tackling the ball and competing for it and rest 38% standing. More focus should be given on the exercises that are needed for the competitive phases of the game. Those exercises are difficult and should be done with high intensity. 

The players in the rugby team should also be taller (around 187 cm), heavier (weight around 100 kg) and extremely muscular (around 179 cm). The forward player in a rugby team is likely to have more body fat as it may be easier for him to overcome a lean opponent. But this argument is not justified if the opponent player is equally strong and has same body fat. In such cases, the forward will have to increase his lean body weight and reduce the fat mass.  

In a rugby game, the players at the back need to run at a very high speed and change direction quite frequently. Their movement has to be much faster than the forward and thus their 40 yard sprint time is going to be 4.8 seconds and for the forwards, it is 5.1 seconds. The forwards need to have more upper body strength than those playing in the back. The muscle mass should be used to move fast body movements to cover up short distances. 

6) Aston Villa: History of the Club 

Aston Villa football club is a very reputed football club of England. The club was formed in 1874 and the four founders of the club were Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood. At present, the club is owned by Randy Lerner. In 2006, he took over around 60% of club share by paying a huge 62.6 million pounds. Their first match was against a local rugby club and the match was played according to the rugby rules in the first half and as per the football rules in the second half.   

This club has got immense contribution to the football of England, as they started the Football league in 1888. In fact, it was also one of the founder members of the British Premier League in 1992. It maintained the tradition of being one of the most thriving football clubs of England since years. This club won both the First division championship and FA cup 7 times.  

They are also one of the 4 English football clubs to win the UEFA Champions League and the1981-82 European Cup. The dress worn by the players while playing on the field includes: claret shirts having sky blue sleeves, sky blue socks and white shorts. The traditional crest of the club is a rampant gold lion on a light blue background and the club’s motto “prepared” is written beneath that.  

The Aston Villa club has got its own stadium named Villa Park, which is a UEFA rated four star stadium. Incidentally, it is the largest stadium in English Midlands and the eighth largest in the entire England.  

Like other English clubs, Aston Villa had many hooligan firms associated with them. They used to fight with the supporters of their main opponents. The main opponent of Aston Villa club had been Birmingham City and the match between the two clubs came to be known as Second City Derby.