Carl jennings Strength & Conditioning Consultancy
Articles
Rugby League World magazine UK (Published Mar /09)
Standardized Routines & Continual Assessment
In previous articles I have written an introduction to a number of important elements, developing physical abilities for improving rugby league performance, in relation to Strength, Speed, and Fitness. Over the next couple of weeks I want to get a bit more specific about a number of my favourite routines, which I have developed during my time as head strength & conditioning coach.
I call these activities “Standardized Routines”, and over the years they have helped hundreds of elite professional rugby league players develop peak physical fitness. Proved over the test of time, they continue to play an important role within the training programs I implement.
The unique and exciting aspect of these “Standardized Routines”, is that they not only act as effective training routines covering every aspect of physical development, but also accurately measure physical training performance, due to the athlete achieving performance measures of time taken to complete the routine, or repetitions/distance recorded at exhaustion. This aspect is unique and allows the athlete to have a training program which monitors athletic performance on a constant basis I call this system of training “Continual Assessment”. I do recognise that to build an effective training program it is essential to introduce a battery of reliable sports testing protocols, to establish the athletic abilities of your individuals, and from these results tailor a program to suit your specific group. But I believe performing traditional sports testing over a couple of weeks in the year is ineffective, especially within the hectic Rugby League season, when fatigue, injury, and training monotony will impact on their physical form. This is where my “Continual Assessment” theory comes into its own, it is practical, and much more effective, driven by the “Standardized Routines”.
I place the “Standardised Routines” within the training micro cycles, and the results achieved are assessed and drive future planning. To be a successful strength & conditioning coach you must be pro active in respect to the players needs, as well as understand the specific requirements of your chosen sport.
I designed these “Standardized Routines” with the help of the players that I coached. Choosing players I could trust to give me honest feedback, and that were willing to do the extra physical work needed to develop the routines. Through experimentation, study, and a lot of hard work, I eventually developed a range of highly effective routines, that not only enhanced the required physical adaptation, but due to their “Standardized” nature, becoming an important tool for measuring physical training improvements.
Another key to the effectiveness of these routines are their sport specific nature. It is widely agreed within the sport science / strength & conditioning community, that developing a sport specific training program is essential for success within a given sport. It is this belief that has driven me to develop many of these “Standardized Routines”. Although to the untrained eye they may seem like many other training drills or activities, in fact they are specifically designed to enhance the correct energy pathways, as well as teach the athletes brain to recruit the correct sequence of muscular contraction, enabling them, over time, to generate maximal functional strength, power, and fitness for rugby league.
Rugby League is a running based sport, and during a game a player will spend their time performing many random bursts of varied distances, sprinting, jogging, and walking. Tied in with these running elements are a large number of high intensity contact activities. The nature of the game requires an elite rugby league athlete to develop their anaerobic energy system for all the high intensity efforts, as well as developing a strong effective aerobic energy system for the low intensity activities which ties all the high intensity activities together. It is having a strong understanding of the physical requirements of the sport which has lead to the development of these routines.
In this month’s article I’m going to focus on just a couple of my most popular “Standardised Routines”, “The Jennings Phosphate Shuttle” (C) Copyright 2004, an extremely effective sport specific aerobic fitness routine, and the “Wiki Blitz (C) Copyright 2003 the ultimate anaerobic strength and fitness routine.
Looking back 2003- 2005 seems to have been a pretty creative time for me and it was during these three seasons while working as the head strength & conditioning coach at the Canberra Raiders, that some great routines were created. I believe this was due to a number of factors one being some of the tremendous athletes and personalities I had the privilege of coaching at that time ,who challenged me to develop routines they could use, as well as the rapidly changing game in the NRL which required all coaches at that time to be creative or risk dropping behind.
I was committed to develop routines which I believed could be used not only as training aids, but also as tools to monitor sport specific fitness. Over a number of months I became absorbed in developing routines which I believed in time could be recognized within this sport as essential physical training routines for rugby league development. I had to ensure that these new routines satisfied a number of important criteria for them to be classed as ‘Standardized’ meaning they had to be designed within a structure made up of elements that were measured with a format of exact time, distance, and repetition. This important factor would enable the routines to be replicated exactly, every time they were used, enabling the coach and athlete to accurately measure athletic performance improvements. They also needed to be easy to set up, implement, as well as being effective for athletic development.
Two tremendous rugby league athletes I had the opportunity to work with between 2001 and 2006 during my time at the Canberra Raiders ,were Alan Tongue and Ruben Wiki. These two players challenged me to develop routines they could use to enhance their respective physical abilities. Alan Tongue wanted a routine that could enhance his specific running based aerobic capabilities, and Ruben who wanted me to develop a tough anaerobic gym routine which could give him the edge on the field.
Alan Tongue and "The Jennings Phosphate Shuttle"
When Alan and I initially discussed what we wanted to achieve with the standardized aerobic running based routine, we recognised that to make it effective, a number of essential elements needed to be built into the activity. It needed to be of a shuttle format, to replicate the defensive line requirements of the game. Getting up and down off the ground had to be added as this is a major fitness requirement of the sport, it had to have a stop start theme to try and replicate the interval effort aspect of the sport, and also include an overriding format of gradual overload, (The further into the routine you achieve, the faster you had to run), this developed mental toughness, another requirement of an elite rugby league athlete. It was also essential to create a scoring system so that an exact fitness measure could be given to the athlete. After months of trial and error we eventually came up with the format for the "The Jennings Phosphate Shuttle". In practice it worked better than expected. Being a field based activity it enabled me to train the whole squad at one time, it became a good visual format to identify players who were physically behind in relation to fitness within the team, as well as those athletes who were the leaders in that regard. I introduced shorter versions of the routine, which were utilized as a pre fatigue activity before skill activities to place the players under physical stress developing skill under pressure. The only equipment the coach needs to implement the routine is a field, stop watch, whistle, and cones to mark the distances on the field, and most importantly the instruction sheet which includes distances, as well as work / rest periods. I have used this routine extensively and successfully with all age groups at the Canberra Raiders, as well as since moving to the Penrith Panthers. I also utilised the routine during my time working with the Great Britain RL team during the Tri Nations tournaments of 2004-2005-2006. It is a measure of its popularity, that those players who have used the routine in the past still continue to utilize the routines even after moving onto other clubs.
Ruben Wiki and "The Wiki Gym Blitz"
Ruben Wiki is one of the most respected Players of the Modern game. The world’s most capped International, with 55 appearances for New Zealand. I had the privilege of working with Ruben for 4 years during my time as Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at the Canberra Raiders. An inspirational figure on and off the field, his commitment to preparation was second to none, ensuring he performed at his inspirational best over a 15year career.
In early 2003 we talked at length together about developing a short duration anaerobic gym based fitness routine, for him to perform late in the training week, he believed it could help get him physically as well as mentally prepared for the weekends game. We understood that it was important to create an in season routine that helped him perform at his best, not one which impacted negatively on his energy requirements for performance. Three factors needed to be built into the routines, intensity, volume, and energy system emphasis. We also recognised that we needed to utilize equipment we could guarantee would be available in most health clubs and gyms, which was important, especially in the NRL due to the amount of travelling involved, sometimes having to utilize gyms in other locations. The equipment we eventually chose was a concept 2 rower, a bar bell, and a floor space large enough to get up and down. After weeks of trial and error the "Wiki Blitz" was created. Since its introduction it has become an important part of my training programmes. Ruben wanted to develop a tough routine and we certainly achieved that, It is one of those routines that never becomes easy to complete, the fitter you become the more intense you can work, the more intense you can work, the harder it hits your anaerobic system. The initial “Wiki Blitz” was developed for elite athletes over sub 30min duration, since that time I have introduced 3 versions of the routine to cater for junior, and novice athletes, as well as a shortened version taking approximately 10minutes which can be used with confidence in the competitive season.
For details on how to acquire these “Standardized Routines” and many more, visit my web site
www.carljenningsscc.com.
