Latest / The Rugby Muscle Podcast / JULY Q&A 🎯🔥 | Energy Replenishment, How to Improve Recovery, Speed Session AND MORE!

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JULY Q&A 🎯🔥 | Energy Replenishment, How to Improve Recovery, Speed Session AND MORE! · The Rugby Muscle Podcast

• 0:00
  For this month, this is the July live q and a.
• 0:13
  As of next month, these questions will be pulled from the Discord link instead.
• 0:19
  and we will go that way if you are eager to ask more questions or if you're eager to get your training taken care of.
• 0:25
  Rugby muscle.com.
• 0:27
  If you want your training all completely taken care of year round, that's rugby muscle.com/team.
• 0:33
  Or if you want one-on-one coaching where you can not just answer, get me to answer your questions, but you get me to do basically everything for you.
• 0:41
  You'll find that@rugbymuscle.com slash elite.
• 0:46
  If you're joining past the fact, comments below will still potentially make new videos or they will be answered on the next month's edition of the live q and a.
• 0:56
  Now I've got questions already populated from the Community page and from the Facebook group.
• 1:02
  So I've got a few questions ready to go.
• 1:04
  So, thumbs up and comments if you wish to get your question answered.
• 1:09
  Now let's go, we'll get into the answer, he says, how does energy replenishment slash expenditure work?
• 1:17
  Maybe a tough one to answer, but I climbed Fuji, I guess, Mount Fuji a week and a half ago, and did around 2000 meters of altitude that day, which is way too much for me At a hundred kilos, I knew I was pushing myself too hard because my heart rate was at a constant high for around nine hours.
• 1:38
  But I wasn't climbing alone and ego was playing a, a huge role, honestly.
• 1:41
  Yeah, of course.
• 1:42
  If, if you're gonna keep a high heart rate for nine hours.
• 1:45
  The reason for the story is that all of last week I had trouble doing the slightest amount of work.
• 1:49
  I was genuinely out of energy and pseudo depressed, like for the entire week.
• 1:54
  I feel like I'm in the dark as to mechanism at play here and I ideas.
• 1:59
  So obviously that didn't all paste, but whatever.
• 2:03
  We'll get rid of that.
• 2:04
  So Mike, yeah, that's one of those things that's just a severe, what you've gone through there is like severe over training.
• 2:10
  Now there is no, like, there's not just one mechanism.
• 2:13
  it's, but it is basically a survival, mechanism, right?
• 2:19
  It's just basically you, your body is, has seen that priority and so like replace this climbing Mount Fuji.
• 2:27
  ego trip with like an actual, you, you, you as a human have to survive your priority in those.
• 2:35
  how many hours did you say you took?
• 2:37
  nine hours.
• 2:38
  Your priority in those nine hours.
• 2:40
  Is to like keep moving and you know, if, if it's that level of stress, you're avoiding some sort of predator or trying to hunt to eat because you are about to starve.
• 2:50
  So you are pushing yourself beyond the body can really go quite far.
• 2:53
  But then that is at the expense of um, um, lots of downstream stuff.
• 2:58
  So there's gonna be like potential muscle loss there, potential, um, like degradation to give yourself, uh, that energy to be able to do that.
• 3:09
  And then it's gonna take a long time to replenish that.
• 3:11
  So yes, over, up to and over a week of that, of, uh, recovery is, is like normal.
• 3:19
  That's, yeah, that's, I, I.
• 3:21
  That doesn't sound like too much for me at all, and, um, I mean, sooner depressed, like, I'm not sure if I can speak on the mechanism of that, but all I, all I would say is for, for as far as I'm concerned and as far as really you need to be concerned, it's normal.
• 3:37
  It's just a case of like severe over training.
• 3:41
  Um, your body is basically eating itself from the inside out in order to perform that task that you wanted it to perform at that time.
• 3:49
  We would never advocate for that in any sort of training regime where, you know, obviously the idea of your training is to make you better.
• 3:56
  So what you've done here is you've pushed yourself way beyond.
• 3:59
  And if you think of the, um, you know, the fatigue recovery adaptation curve, right where you start, you give yourself a stimulus that fatigues you, you then recover and then ideally come back up and make that adaptation.
• 4:12
  What you've done is given yourself such a huge stimulus that you are.
• 4:15
  Not trained or not prepared for that.
• 4:17
  You're just, you are all the way down here and you're just carrying a huge amount of fatigue.
• 4:23
  And this is like, I guess I'll shoehorn my own thoughts in here as to, um, why like you hitting week one of preseason is really stupid and just going too hard is always, never a great idea.
• 4:36
  It's because, Of things like this, because you're not trained for it, you're not prepared if, and if you're not trained and you're not prepared, you don't make that recovery to get an adaptation.
• 4:46
  You potentially take yourself even further into a fatigue state and, and actually not just like, Don't get the improvements you, you want, but you don't even allow yourself room to improve because you are so fatigued from those earlier sessions.
• 5:02
  So it's always better to build into sessions, particularly, uh, July time.
• 5:07
  A lot of you guys, um, in the, maybe not so much in the US but I know that in the UK.
• 5:13
  I starting out your preseasons and building into preseason is always the way it should be done.
• 5:19
  Hitting week one hard is not the way it should be done.
• 5:21
  You need to be prepared for it so that you don't end up in a bad state for the rest of your preseason.
• 5:27
  You want to continually build momentum and get more and more trained and then give yourself more and more stimulus as you are more and more prepared for that increased stimulus, and therefore that's how you get better.
• 5:38
  There's no sort of snapping into it.
• 5:40
  There is, you could perform that, right?
• 5:42
  You can, you can get through it, but what are the effects you're after?
• 5:46
  For Mike here, his effect was he wanted to get to the top of Fuji, I guess, and like show himself that he could do it, and he did that and that's great.
• 5:55
  Whereas most people, for training your, your objective is to get better, so make sure you're doing that.
• 6:01
  Anyone remembers the live streams?
• 6:03
  About a year or so ago when we were doing, we were drink, it might have even been two years ago.
• 6:08
  Drinking out of water, drank out of glass bottles is phenomenal.
• 6:12
  All right, next question.
• 6:12
  We're going from the live section here.
• 6:15
  Mc goes three a z that's a hell of a name.
• 6:20
  He says, is there a minimum height for a flanker?
• 6:22
  Is supposed to be, no, absolutely not.
• 6:25
  flanker can be.
• 6:26
  So this is something that speaks to me because I am six foot one.
• 6:32
  Um, people will say, oh, you must be six foot three, because everyone always lies about their height.
• 6:36
  Height.
• 6:37
  But I'm actually a solid six foot one.
• 6:39
  And when I was a younger player, Quite a few times, it was recommended to me that they, for people who said, oh, you should, you should probably consider, if you wanna play at the highest level or a, you know, higher level as possible, you should consider playing hooker because you don't quite have the height for, um, flanker.
• 6:57
  But at the end of the day, if you are dynamic enough, if you can make it work, you can.
• 7:02
  Like play whatever position you want and enjoy it.
• 7:06
  Save maybe being a seven foot tall prop or a five foot, five lock.
• 7:12
  Maybe those aren't gonna work.
• 7:14
  But outside of that, like Mike Phillips is, was a world class scrum half at like six four.
• 7:21
  Um, and then you've got Quagga Smith who is under six foot and is a world class seven or eight, and there are a number of other players that aren't very tall.
• 7:32
  Um, particularly, I mean, if you look at England, they've got Sam Simmons.
• 7:37
  Um, if you look at, well, actually all the friendship guys are huge, but, uh, Aussies always seem to crank out some guys.
• 7:45
  Uh, obviously hooper isn't that big.
• 7:47
  Um, And you've got loads of other players and to just, those are just examples.
• 7:52
  Uh, the, to demonstrate the point that there is no minimum height as a coach, you would have to factor that in.
• 8:00
  If you are picking a shorter flaker on one or shorter.
• 8:03
  Flanker or number eight, you might have to pick a tooler flanker or a number eight to begin with, to, to, to, to counteract that just so that you can, um, run a really effective lineup or you can have a really dynamic lineup.
• 8:19
  There's lots of different options, but that, all of that is to say is that there's no.
• 8:24
  Well, firstly, there's no minimum height.
• 8:26
  Secondly, there's nothing that you can do to train for your height.
• 8:28
  And thirdly, if that's your position, I would just own it and make sure as a short flaker, that something that you must do is be really, really, really, really fit.
• 8:39
  You have to be just as fit as possible.
• 8:41
  Be a terrier, go around.
• 8:42
  The pitch could be everywhere.
• 8:44
  Be every single breakdown.
• 8:45
  Be nice and fast so that you can get around the pitch so you can be dynamic and you can prove yourself.
• 8:51
  People will still potentially try and put you a hooker.
• 8:53
  But if you want to play flanker, if you want to enjoy your rugby, that's where you want to play.
• 8:56
  To enjoy your rugby, there is no minimum height that you have to be, you just have to be really, really fit.
• 9:02
  And, and that means being aerobically fit, that means reading the game really well so you can get sort of breakdowns properly.
• 9:09
  Um, that means working on your speed and being dynamic around the pitch.
• 9:12
  And that also means.
• 9:14
  Potentially two other things, two different roads that you can go down is being really dynamic with your carrier.
• 9:19
  So like your explosive and you can, uh, explode into contact and be a really dynamic carrier.
• 9:24
  Or you'd be a really smart carrier where you can sort of link the forwards and the backs, which is a lot of, um, modern teams.
• 9:33
  Now we'll look to do that with their, they'll look to do a couple forwards that really play that link role well, and it can be any position.
• 9:40
  It can be prop two, number eight, where you are that sort of pivot position where you can carry hard or you can link to the backs as well.
• 9:47
  So that would be my vice.
• 9:49
  There is no minimum height.
• 9:51
  Next question, we'll go from the YouTube once again.
• 9:55
  Let's see, Luca, He says, how would a speed session in the off season look for you?
• 10:01
  How many reps curved sprints?
• 10:03
  What distances this would.
• 10:05
  Essentially be based upon what your um, goals are as far as off season, if you are someone that is, and how long your off season is as well.
• 10:16
  For the most part, I'd still, I like to, particularly for short off seasons, I like to still keep some level of sprinting in there.
• 10:23
  For a lot of people that sprinting work will just be, um, Like tempo work, so still aerobically biased and it will still be fairly low volume, but because of the lower intensity of it, um, it's still going to like.
• 10:41
  Be able to be incorporated through your week on, on low intensity days and be really effective because you've, you're dedicating a lot more time to working on your technique and you can do that as far as agility.
• 10:52
  You can do curved sprints, you can do just straight line speed.
• 10:55
  All of that stuff would be great for you, uh, in your off season.
• 11:00
  Allow you to still get faster, but not like, allow you to still also hit the weights fairly decently within your off season.
• 11:09
  Um, And reap the benefits of time away from the rugby pitch and more time potentially in the weight room and get those effects.
• 11:18
  Whereas like when you're in season, you know that you are not going to get too many weight sessions anyway, so you can always go a little bit lower on the volume.
• 11:29
  Really not really deprioritize, not saying that it's not a goal or something that you're not working on, but it's not the big priority.
• 11:36
  You deprioritize the weight stuff and then you can really hammer home the sprint, sprint work, um, like before your rugby sessions, since you're already going to the field.
• 11:44
  Now some people, um, can absolutely do no, uh, sprint sprinting during their off season for at least, you know, especially if it's a long off season, there'll be months where they might go.
• 11:54
  Without any sort of sprinting.
• 11:56
  And that would be fine.
• 11:57
  And in fact that would be welcomed because they just need the recovery, they need the time off, and they might be carrying niggly injuries and stuff.
• 12:04
  Um, and then I think depending on the person, I wouldn't, more often than not, I would work on basic straight line speed and um, And like basic agility just to build those, like to get a really strong foundation of speed, work under your belt.
• 12:26
  And then as we get into pre-season, maybe then we're looking technically at the curve sprints because we, we want to build up that base.
• 12:33
  We want to build up that real high effort force projection and that higher efficiency of sprinting and changing direction.
• 12:40
  Then when we're looking at curved sprints, um, I, I do like curved sprints as a, as a base, but just generics running into a circle or a figure of eight.
• 12:51
  Um, those are mostly in off season, be done on, uh, tempo days, on aerobic days because I think that way you get your best, you get your best of both.
• 13:01
  You get your really high intensity work focusing on, uh, big speed sprints, um, and, and really high force output.
• 13:10
  And then you get your technique work of how learning to really curve your body and how your body feels on your tempo and your aerobic days.
• 13:19
  And then you can still mix those in with some, uh, heavy, good weight sessions.
• 13:25
  Um, but reality is, I think more often than not, I'm, I'm, I'm also not a huge fan of massively segmenting.
• 13:34
  Off season versus in season.
• 13:36
  I think as a rugby player, it's just hard to do that because there's so many different things you wanna work on, you want to be working on.
• 13:44
  Um, a good few of those things most of the year, particularly if they're, if they're either low hanging fruit or big targets for you.
• 13:55
  I think that then you don't have to worry as much about off season versus in-season.
• 14:00
  I think you ju as far as training goes, just as far as load management goes is where you want to switch offseason versus in season.
• 14:08
  So I'd still sprint year round if you need to.
• 14:12
  I'd still sprint in season if you need to.
• 14:14
  I'd still lift weights in season i'd.
• 14:15
  I wouldn't tr treat them too differently from that standpoint.
• 14:19
  I'd treat them differently as far as like, You can get into, you can just add in one to two more sessions in the off season and get away with it.
• 14:31
  Thumbs up for this little setup with the pink light behind me.
• 14:33
  We'll be doing more YouTube videos with this new light set up.
• 14:37
  I'm quite happy with it.
• 14:38
  Quite happy with how e cam is, uh, evolving here.
• 14:42
  Next question.
• 14:43
  This is Thomas Who says, I want to go pro.
• 14:45
  Should I try my best to train like a pro or just keep training like an amateur?
• 14:51
  I'm 14, so still in school.
• 14:54
  I'm doing the s W seven Academy Gym program and I was wondering whether I can do, whether I can do extra rugby training, for example, every day except two rest days, or would that be too much?
• 15:12
  Um, I think that would be too much, mate.
• 15:15
  I think what you need to do is a 14 year old.
• 15:18
  You just need to focus on the basics.
• 15:19
  You, you're still building your foundation and there is no specialization at your age anyway.
• 15:25
  So I would get in quite a lot of rugby.
• 15:29
  And so without the context, I dunno how much rugby you already play.
• 15:32
  Uh, that would be number one.
• 15:34
  Um, and then number two, I would get in as much of the weight sessions.
• 15:39
  As far as, actually, no, I just get in enough weight sessions, which would probably be three times a week at maximum.
• 15:45
  And then, um, any aerobic sessions you can get in around that.
• 15:49
  And that would be based on what your rugby commitments are.
• 15:53
  Right.
• 15:54
  Because I remember when I was 14, I think if I was 14, I would've had, and, and maybe this must be better these days with everyone's knowledge on player welfare, the like, but when I was, when I was 14, I think I had school rugby on Monday.
• 16:09
  I had, um, what did I have on Tuesday?
• 16:12
  I would've had.
• 16:13
  Junior?
• 16:14
  No, I'd have had school rugby on Monday.
• 16:16
  Um, I'd have had another sport on Tuesday maybe.
• 16:20
  Uh, maybe school football.
• 16:21
  I'd have had, um, school rugby matches plus my club rugby training on Wednesday, Thursday, I would've had county rugby.
• 16:31
  Friday, I think I had, uh, that was my day off Saturday school rugby.
• 16:37
  Sunday club rugby or county rugby, and I think one of those other days would've also been county rugby as well.
• 16:43
  And it got to the point where I had to take a break twice.
• 16:47
  Once when I was 17 and once when I was 19 because it was just adding up too much.
• 16:51
  So I think the keys, I would say to you as a 14 that wants to go pro, of course you're a 14.
• 16:58
  I mean, of course you wanna go pro, but the difference isn't gonna be.
• 17:04
  Whether you did five sessions a week versus 10 sessions of a week as a 14 year old, as to whether you make it or not.
• 17:12
  People don't want to hear that.
• 17:13
  They want to hear that they wanna work harder and harder and harder, but that's just not, that's just not how it works.
• 17:19
  Um, with that all being said, you can make massive progress on just three sessions a week.
• 17:26
  Uh, you can make massive progress on just, I mean, three sessions a week as far as.
• 17:32
  Two basic sessions of weights, one basic session of aerobics, and on one of those weight sessions, you can also add in more conditioning and that would easily be enough Butte, especially if you are doing lots of other rupi around it.
• 17:45
  Um, I would just make sure that you're recovering from Rupi if there are some level of weaknesses that you have.
• 17:51
  Right.
• 17:52
  Such as you are not strong in a tackle or you, your left hand pass sucks, or something like that.
• 17:57
  I would just spend 10 minutes before one of your rugby sessions and go and train and go and do those skills.
• 18:04
  I wouldn't worry about too much else.
• 18:06
  Uh, yes, you can do extra speed work.
• 18:08
  Yes, you can do, uh, you know, extra condition work on top of that.
• 18:13
  Is that gonna make a huge difference in the long run?
• 18:17
  Maybe.
• 18:18
  It might do, but it might also burn you out.
• 18:21
  So I wanna make sure that you, you are not consistently getting yourself knackered.
• 18:25
  So I like the fact that you said, um, two off days.
• 18:28
  However, if you are suggesting that you go Monday to Friday and then just two days off, that's not gonna cut it.
• 18:36
  That's not you.
• 18:36
  You would much rather go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, take Thursday off, and then go Friday, Saturday, and then take Sunday off.
• 18:43
  Or however it would would be, you know, three days on, one day off, two days on, one day off.
• 18:48
  And that's how I would play it.
• 18:50
  Um, or potentially that's how I would do it.
• 18:54
  No, potentially of anything else, and I would make sure that I structured, um, your intense days together.
• 19:01
  So if you've got an intense weight session, ideally that's going to be on the same day as your intense training, just so that you've got a full day of recovery.
• 19:10
  Even if you've got like some skill work or aerobic work on that light day, that's still gonna be better than stacking heavyweights rugby training and heavyweights rugby training, and you've got no, no time to rest.
• 19:22
  Hopefully that makes sense.
• 19:24
  Think I'm gonna be doing a post or a post a, a video previewing the world Cup if there's any interest for that.
• 19:31
  Um, cuz I'm pumped.
• 19:32
  Dunno about you guys.
• 19:33
  You guys pumped for the World Cup coming up.
• 19:35
  Um, it's sort of come out of nowhere in a weird way, I think.
• 19:40
  Um, like it just seems not that long ago that we were stuck in a pandemic and there was, it seems like the last World Cup wasn't even that long ago, but, um, it's gonna be intense.
• 19:52
  Shout out to you Americans who are now gonna be supporting England or probably France cuz you guys didn't make it.
• 20:01
  Thomas C also says he has, he has another part to his question.
• 20:04
  I didn't notice this.
• 20:05
  Do apologize to Thomas.
• 20:07
  Let's see.
• 20:08
  He says, also, as a 14 year old, should I begin to bulk?
• 20:11
  I'm five foot 11 and seven E kilos.
• 20:14
  What position do you play, homie?
• 20:16
  Uh, and I dunno whether it's a bulk or just maintain and wait until I'm older.
• 20:20
  So what I would do, no, it doesn't say what position you play.
• 20:25
  So what I would do if I was you, Thomas, I would just eat, I would eat a lot more food.
• 20:30
  I, I would add in more food.
• 20:33
  Uh, I ideally I would track your calories.
• 20:36
  I would sign up to MyFitnessPal or Macro factor.
• 20:39
  And I would figure out how many calories I'm having and then I'd add to that, um, um, well, or I'd even go to Precision Nutrition and type, or actually, what am I talking about?
• 20:52
  I'd go to, let me find our website.
• 20:54
  That's Got it.
• 20:56
  I have my own macro calculator that you can download to figure out how many calories you should be taking up.
• 21:08
  Let me see.
• 21:08
  I should know the the address off by Hub.
• 21:10
  I believe it's rugby muscle.com/macros and you'll be able to download, boom.
• 21:19
  Yeah, it is.
• 21:19
  It's right there.
• 21:21
  Rob muscle.com/macros and you can download your free macro calculator.
• 21:27
  So that you know how many calories as a baseline, you should probably be eating per day.
• 21:32
  I then take my weight every morning as I would then I still do.
• 21:36
  It's what I do.
• 21:37
  I wake up every day, go to the bathroom, step on the scale.
• 21:40
  I record it.
• 21:41
  Over time, you're gonna know it as a trend.
• 21:42
  Are you slowly going up Because you do wanna slowly be going up.
• 21:45
  If you want to be 80 kilos or 85 kilos, let's say you wanna be 85 kilos in a year's time, that means you want to be gaining.
• 21:56
  1.25 kilos per month.
• 22:01
  Right?
• 22:01
  So that's not a whole lot.
• 22:02
  That's not what I would consider a bulk.
• 22:05
  But in a year's time, you are gonna be 82 kilos instead of 70.
• 22:08
  That is a, that is a fucking huge difference.
• 22:12
  And so that's why it's, it's quite important to be like precise with your calories because, because if you overdo it and you add five kilos in a month, you are then gonna be wasting your time that you should be.
• 22:25
  Eating a fuck ton and, and gaining muscle slowly and gaining strength slowly and fueling yourself.
• 22:30
  You could be wasting some of that time trying to get rid of the fat, trying to diet, trying to lose that excess fat so that you can stay fit, so that you can keep moving.
• 22:38
  So if you add that slowly onto your frame, Not only are you gonna notice it, you are going to be able to control it.
• 22:46
  You are going to be able to make sure that most of its muscle and you're also going to slowly adjust to it on the pitch.
• 22:51
  You're gonna learn how to cope with it.
• 22:53
  Whereas if you do, if you gain, you know, five kilos in a month, imagine running around with a five kilo weighted vest, it's gonna make things harder.
• 23:02
  So I would bulk, but I would bulk slowly.
• 23:05
  I would not do any sort of dream of bulk.
• 23:07
  And for you as a youngster, that's still gonna be.
• 23:09
  A lot of calories, uh, like a serious amount, but you need to get a, you know, you need to get a handle on it.
• 23:15
  And you need to understand just each, just step on the scale each day, see how slowly your, or see what your weight is averaging.
• 23:24
  And if it's just staying the same, then you know you need to eat more.
• 23:27
  And I'd set the se self, the target of one to two kilos per month.
• 23:31
  That would be nice.
• 23:32
  Slow enough, but also fast enough that you know that you can be, um, adding that muscle and that strength.
• 23:38
  And as long as you're getting stronger in the gym, you're still getting fitter, you're still getting faster, you're still improving it.
• 23:43
  All the other things in rugby, like that's all good weight, that's all gonna be good for you.
• 23:48
  And you know, 14.
• 23:49
  So do that for two years.
• 23:51
  You had one kilo a month for two years.
• 23:55
  That, that puts you at, uh, 94 kilos.
• 24:02
  Yeah.
• 24:02
  I dunno why that took me so long to, to figure that out.
• 24:04
  One kilo a month in two years, when you're 16, you'll be 94 kilos.
• 24:09
  Probably.
• 24:10
  Even that is somewhat unrealistic.
• 24:12
  But you know, that's, this is only just to give you solid numbers so that you can wrap your head around it and, and, and like understand it.
• 24:19
  Um, so it wouldn't necessarily be a quote unquote bulk.
• 24:23
  It would be just gain eating to perform and inevitably eat to slowly gain weight.
• 24:30
  But I, I wouldn't call it a bulk, I would just, you don't need like loads of volume.
• 24:34
  You just need to get in enough weight sessions, you need to eat enough food and that's it.
• 24:39
  So like, for example, if you are, let's give some numbers for the training and numbers for the, um, for the calories.
• 24:48
  Say if you, your baseline right, just to maintain.
• 24:52
  It is 3,500 calories.
• 24:55
  If you then eat 4,000 calories per day, you will slowly gain that weight or maybe a little bit less than that.
• 25:00
  You'll, you'll slowly gain weight and most of that will be muscle and it'll be sweet.
• 25:05
  Could you gain a little bit more weight if you, if you ate 5,000 calories?
• 25:09
  Sure.
• 25:10
  But it's just gonna be an inconvenience and it's got probably gonna, um, Come back to bite you in your ass.
• 25:17
  There's too many of those cal, too much of that weight that's gained ends up being fat.
• 25:20
  Likewise, if you're doing your training right, could you get a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, uh, training in the gym four or five days a week as opposed to just two or three?
• 25:33
  Yeah, maybe.
• 25:35
  But again, that's probably just gonna come back to bite you in your ass when you realize that you don't have any time to do your fitness work or your speed work.
• 25:41
  Or all the other things that you could do better off at, you're way better off at finding a like no nice slow rhythm and just keeping that going.
• 25:49
  Right?
• 25:50
  If that means just two weight sessions a week and 3,800 calories, that's fine, you know?
• 25:57
  But the key is to do this in the long term.
• 25:59
  You are not gonna be signing any professional contract for at least.
• 26:03
  Uh, two to three more years.
• 26:05
  And even then, if you don't sign a contract by then, you've still got another two to three more years before you even can entertain the idea of whether you are gonna make it or not.
• 26:14
  So time is on your side, and the, this could also apply to anyone of any age, right?
• 26:19
  You don't, there's no rush to this stuff.
• 26:21
  What's much better and, and what stops a lot of people is.
• 26:24
  Rushing into trying to get the results as fast as possible.
• 26:29
  And, and in doing that, all you do is eventually either burn out or you, you hit a plateau, you get unmotivated or.
• 26:40
  Things, just life gets in the way and then you see yourself as a failure, and inevitably you just have to restart again.
• 26:46
  What's much better is just to find a consistent rhythm of improvement, so that year round you're constantly getting better, maybe at a slower rate than those one to two months where you fucking nailed it.
• 26:58
  But who cares?
• 26:59
  You're doing this.
• 26:59
  For years on end, and you're consistently getting better.
• 27:02
  You're not having to restart, you're not having to think about how much better you were back in the day.
• 27:06
  You're slow, you're always getting better, but with a, with a level of balance.
• 27:11
  And I should probably plug Team Robbie Mussel to help you in doing that.
• 27:16
  rugby-mussel.com/team is a year round program.
• 27:21
  Two to two to three, I think sometimes four wait sessions a week at most.
• 27:27
  One to two conditioning sessions.
• 27:30
  Occasional speed or power session thrown in there and adjustments for in season or off season as far as the volume goes and complete guidance through that program.
• 27:39
  I think we have our last question.
• 27:41
  Yeah, you might have noticed on the uh, Facebook feed also my picture or the rugby muscle picture.
• 27:51
  And the rugby muscle page picture is a Vietnamese skincare lady.
• 27:58
  There's another reason why we're going to the discord because I don't know how she did it.
• 28:06
  But she hacked my page and for the li I, I restored the my access to the page.
• 28:12
  Yet this lady is still my profile picture and I have no way of changing it back, which is absolutely preposterous, but I digress.
• 28:21
  Here we go.
• 28:23
  A jiu says, can you help me with my programming for weighted calisthenics, pushups and pullups to most?
• 28:37
  Pullups for mostly hypertrophy and strength and recovery.
• 28:44
  I feel like I am doing too much and need some structure.
• 28:49
  Please also do one on how to improve recovery.
• 28:54
  I have muscle soreness, trouble sleeping, and winding down.
• 28:57
  Well, if that, that's the case, you're doing too much.
• 28:59
  There's no improve.
• 29:00
  If you are like, Go back to the start of this.
• 29:04
  Well, the start of this, uh, live q and a, listen to what I said about Mike's overdoing it for a purpose.
• 29:11
  You are doing weighted calisthenics in order to get stronger, right, and, and build muscle.
• 29:17
  If you are doing it so much that you can't sleep because you are overtrained, you are, you are, you are missing the forest through the trees.
• 29:25
  You are doing this stuff to get better yet because you're doing so much of this stuff.
• 29:31
  You can't get better because you're doing too much.
• 29:34
  So step back, I I would do so if it's weighty, calisthenics, weighty dips are quite rough on the shoulder, but we, we'll, we'll just use this like any other exercise, right?
• 29:43
  You could do, you could do these exercises two days a week.
• 29:48
  You could do both pushups and pullups.
• 29:51
  Um, and that would be fine.
• 29:54
  Like, but I would treat it like any other exercise where if you are doing it for strength, You would slowly decrease volume and decrease the reps and add weight week on week, on week.
• 30:07
  Um, so you could for, for traditional strength training, for a big strength focus would be.
• 30:15
  To, you can either keep the reps static or you, I mean, the sets static, or you can lower the, or increase the amount of sets, and you're gonna lower the amount of reps that you're doing because you're continually increasing the weight and you're increasing the weight to a point where you just experience too much fatigue.
• 30:31
  You deload, you start again, but you start again at a slightly heavier weight and you just cycle through, cycle through, cycle through.
• 30:37
  The opposite way is what you do for hypertrophy.
• 30:39
  So, You add volume, you either add volume by adding a few reps each week or a rep each week.
• 30:46
  Um, if that, until you can't do that anymore, then you potentially slowly add weight to the bar.
• 30:54
  There's so many different ways to do it.
• 30:55
  I dunno why I said it.
• 30:56
  Like there's just one way.
• 30:58
  The point is week on week for a period of four to six to eight weeks.
• 31:05
  You are gonna see if you can keep adding reps.
• 31:08
  Um, and if you, if you're working within a certain rep range, say you're doing five, your rep range is five to seven, maybe when you get to seven rep, there's so many different ways you can do this.
• 31:19
  I dunno why I'm trying to explain all of programming to you here.
• 31:22
  Um, there are so many different ways you can either add sets.
• 31:26
  No.
• 31:28
  See, I'm, I'm, so now, now I'm sort of flustered and thrown off.
• 31:31
  Let me take, let me go again.
• 31:33
  Okay.
• 31:34
  Firstly, you can add weight to the bar each week or overtime.
• 31:39
  So say you're doing sets of five, right?
• 31:42
  You're doing sets of five repetitions.
• 31:44
  Maybe it's three sets of five repetitions, or it's five sets of five repetitions.
• 31:49
  You do 20 kilos weighted pushups, week one, week two, you do 22.5.
• 31:56
  It's another set of five repetitions.
• 31:58
  You nail that.
• 31:59
  You go to week three, you do another set of five repetitions, but this time at 25 kilos and you keep adding weight until you can no longer add add weight.
• 32:07
  You then deload if you, you know, you deload after.
• 32:12
  Four to eight weeks, to 10 weeks, and you stop seeing progress and then you restart again a little bit heavier.
• 32:17
  So maybe you start on 22.5.
• 32:20
  But what sometimes happens is as you get more and more advanced, maybe you cannot add weight to that every single week.
• 32:27
  So what you then do is you can either stick with it and maybe add weight every two weeks and acknowledge that.
• 32:34
  That's absolutely fine because sometimes strength takes longer to to add to.
• 32:40
  To actually manifest, or what you can do is take that light away or take that same weight and do one extra rep, and then over time again, add a little bit more weight.
• 32:50
  Um, there are advanced ways where you can force add in weight.
• 32:54
  You, so, so maybe you just as standard, you don't have a, a necessarily a rep.
• 33:01
  Target on a rep goal, as in you have to do five reps.
• 33:04
  Maybe you have a range of reps that you need to hit, so between five to seven or three to seven, and once you hit that top end, then you add weight or, uh, you can do, yeah, there's loads of diff.
• 33:15
  So those, those are just a few examples of ways that you can progress.
• 33:19
  Um, I would suggest it's taking your time with it.
• 33:26
  I'd make sure that your, your form is crystal clear and that you can like, replicate perfect form.
• 33:33
  You are not adding weight, particularly on weighted calisthenic movements.
• 33:36
  It can become very tempting to add weight and then like on weighted pull ups, you start swimming up to the bar and, and you're not doing very good ones or weighted dips.
• 33:43
  You're sort of like down and then you, you're hiking yourself up using your hips.
• 33:48
  Whoa, that camera just did a strange reaction.
• 33:52
  You know, so you could do those different, so you would avoid doing those sort of mistakes.
• 33:57
  Um, as far as like recovery, like again tho, that should be done probably two times a week at most, and that way you've got more room to improve.
• 34:10
  Doing more than twice a week isn't gonna be better.
• 34:14
  Doing once a week might not necessarily be worse.
• 34:17
  It might be worth doing one day a week of heavy.
• 34:20
  Depending on everything else that you've got going on.
• 34:23
  It could be one day a week of the heavy weighted calisthenics and then one day a week of light, like getting that, getting the pump work in where you're doing, you know, lots and lots of reps, uh, you know, 10 to 20 to 30 to whatever reps of pushups and pullups.
• 34:40
  And that way you're getting blood flowing.
• 34:42
  You are getting a lot of volume in, but you're not fatiguing yourself anywhere near as much.
• 34:47
  Um, And that's how I'd improve it.
• 34:52
  It's not, there is no one way to improve it.
• 34:54
  There's just, whatever you're doing right now is too much.
• 34:58
  And I need more context.
• 35:00
  The fact I've got no context to sort of throw me for a loop.
• 35:03
  Um, so I, I, I sort of a little bit all over the place for that answer.
• 35:08
  I do apologize.
• 35:09
  But, um, for the recovery, the main thing that you have to focus on for recovery is gonna be.
• 35:17
  For you, adequate training volume.
• 35:19
  If you do more too much like I, if anything, you would err on the caution of doing not enough.
• 35:24
  And if you're getting better, who gives a fuck that?
• 35:26
  It's not as much as you could possibly do and still continue to get better.
• 35:30
  You're getting better.
• 35:31
  Always take gains when there are gains to be had.
• 35:35
  Okay.
• 35:36
  If you're getting better, that's a victory.
• 35:38
  You don't have to worry about, oh, how can I get even better, even faster?
• 35:42
  This is a long game we're playing here.
• 35:43
  We're strength and condition, particularly for rugby because we've got so many different areas that we're trying to improve.
• 35:49
  The longer we can continually get better, the better we're going to be in the long term and the better rubber players we're going to be because we can do it on less and allow ourselves all the other areas to improve.
• 36:04
  Okay.
• 36:06
  Um, and if you have trouble sleeping and trouble winding down, I would suggest dedicating some time to doing that, just giving yourself that much more time.
• 36:16
  So, Whether that means like training less helps, helps you do that, or whether that means actually scheduling it in that, you know, one to two hours before bed, you stop working, you stop studying, you stop doing stressful things, you maybe wind down and watch some tv.
• 36:34
  You could do loads of different things.
• 36:37
  To allow you to relax, to allow you to wind down and, and then therefore sleep better.
• 36:43
  But obviously that has to be improved if you are going to, um, get better at this stuff, if you're going to make gains.
• 36:51
  Sleep is a huge priority.
• 36:52
  Number one though is adequate training volume closely.
• 36:56
  Next to it is sleep and enough food.
• 36:58
  So the only thing I haven't touched on here as far as.
• 37:02
  Important recovery tips go is making sure that you're eating enough food if you, and if you find that you are, you are only doing two sessions a week and it's not that high volume.
• 37:13
  Maybe you're only doing three sets each session.
• 37:16
  Um, S like, log your food, see how much you're eating, because potentially you're not eating enough food.
• 37:22
  And if you're not eating enough food, it doesn't matter how well you sleep or how perfect your training program is, sort is set out.
• 37:29
  You're making things really difficult for yourself.
• 37:31
  So get to eating.
• 37:34
  Rugby russell.com/macros to get your macros.
• 37:37
  Yeah.
• 37:38
  Uh, and also why not?
• 37:39
  We're here if you want your programming properly sorted out for you.
• 37:43
  We do, uh, we don't do weight pushup.
• 37:45
  Uh, we do some weighted pushups, but mostly it's gonna be bench press, but you can always switch that out.
• 37:49
  We all, we have a lot of focus on as part of our strength movement on way Pullups, so you can find that at rugby-marcel.com/team to join up and, and see inevitable progress year round as a rugby player.
• 38:05
  I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on that live feed.
• 38:07
  I'd like to thank Muck Mc goes three Z for asking the question on the live feed.
• 38:12
  I'd like to thank everyone else for asking those questions.
• 38:15
  I thank you all for joining me and you listener, who has listened, uh, either on the podcasts or watching after the fact on the YouTube.
• 38:23
  Thank you for joining me for the whole of this podcast.
• 38:26
  Give it a thumbs up at, really does help.
• 38:29
  Let me know any questions that you have in the comments below, and if you don't have any questions, Just pop a comment below.
• 38:36
  Anyway, for the vibes, for the algorithm to make yourself feel better because you helped old TJ out on the rubbing muscle feed today.
• 38:47
  Um, do I have anything else?
• 38:49
  Spotify, five stars.
• 38:50
  If you haven't done that and if you've made it to the end, we, we are nailing those five stars on Spotify, so I do really appreciate it.
• 38:57
  Hit subscribe if you're new.
• 38:58
  If you haven't done that.
• 38:59
  If you haven't hit subscribe on both Spotify and YouTube.
• 39:03
  Man E Easy Gains right there.
• 39:06
  Do that, uh, look out for the, uh, the discord that is gonna be coming your way.
• 39:13
  If you're in the Rugby Muscle Athlete's Facebook page, that will, you'll see that come up if you are on the emails, which you can sign up for@rubber-muscle.com for no, not slash anything, rugby muscle.com.
• 39:24
  You'll sign up for the 14 day launchpad and you'll be added to our emails.
• 39:27
  Or if you just get your macros, you'll be getting our emails as well.
• 39:31
  And that way you can get into our discord.
• 39:34
  Thank you guys so much for joining.
• 39:35
  I'll see you in the next one.