August 17, 2010 - Rugby Skills and Practice, and Active Recovery Sprints

Tuesday morning as I was driving home from work, I swung by Costco. I got there a bit before they opened and decided to make use of the time. An out of the way space in the parking lot in front of my truck allowed me to practice a few of the skills outlined in "Rugby: Steps to Success." (Yes, I'm that dork). I performed each of the skills for 25 reps in a row, each direction first with eyes open, then closed. They were as follows

Around the body passes

Through the leg Figure 8s

Over/Under the leg Figure 8s

The through the legs did a nice job of engaging my abs, and the over/unders gave my hip flexors a surprisingly good workout.


Later that night at practice, We started off with a few conditioning sprints. My stamina is improving, but it definitely has a ways to go. Afterwards, the coach put me back with the forwards at flanker, and also at a new position, 8. We practiced scrummaging against the scrum machine. As much as I love driving with my legs, this just made me absolutely giddy. Here we had eight people working together to produce power in a well coordinated effort. At one point we had all the backs hop on the sled and we were able to easily drive them forward.

At the end of practice, I performed 5x50 yd sprints jogging back, and with 5 breaths rest in between each. This time I remembered some advice Craig Gilkes gave me at the RKC II and ran them while wearing my mouthguard. The mouthguard slightly restricts air flow and makes breathing a bit tougher. Still, these felt as if they were getting easier.