What is Hypertrophy for Rugby

She-Hulks Assemble!

Rugby is famous for being a sport where size doesn't matter. There's a position for everyone! However, the physiques of the women playing rugby have changed in recent years and I put this down to the game getting quicker, players getting stronger, and collisions becoming ever more brutal. These days, it’s far more commonplace that rugby players are (and look like) versatile and competent athletes, compared to the traditional rugby player of old.

The reason for this rise in athleticism is the understanding that being more athletic improves performance and as the games grows, the players involved don’t want to be left behind. There’s also so much more importance placed on injury prevention training and hypertrophy definitely helps protect us in this physical game.

What is hypertrophy?

Simply put, hypertrophy is the term we use to describe gaining muscle. More specifically, it is how we describe the increase in the cross-sectional area of a muscle due to a combination of increased contractile protein and storage capacity of energy substrates.

The common misconception is that hypertrophy requires training like a bodybuilder. Not only is this inaccurate, but I also strongly suggest you take care of how to train for rugby vs the mirror; your performance and injury risk rely on it. This will make the difference between you becoming She Bulk and She Hulk on the field - a bigger muscle isn’t necessarily a stronger muscle!

One key difference between training for bodybuilding and training for performance is the intensity of training: the weight we lift per rep. Bodybuilders, generally speaking, lift low to medium loads for high volumes. Although this might cause a muscle to ‘get pumped’, it does not necessarily grow the desired muscle fibre type for rugby; the fast twitch muscle fibres. For this to happen, we need to lift heavy loads, and we need to lift them often.

Another important difference between bodybuilding and performance hypertrophy is the type of movements performed. Often, bodybuilders focus on a particular muscle and train it repeatedly - for example, the bicep with bicep curls. For performance, on the other hand, we need to train movements, not just muscles. Compound lifts such as a single arm row will not only train the bicep but the entire arm and back muscles. Movements like these have significantly better carry-over to rugby as they develop strength as well as size. However, this is not to say that there is no place for isolation exercises - I believe an appropriate dose of these is very helpful for hypertrophy, especially in the novice athlete.

What makes a hypertrophy session?

When designing a hypertrophy training session there are a few variables we need to consider and these can be manipulated to suit the athlete or time of year.

Load and Effort - % of 1RM
Volume - reps, sets and number of exercises
Time under tension - how long the rep is
Rest period - time between exercises

Load and Effort

If you’re experienced and have the ability to test your 1RM then it serves as a great benchmark to set load percentages to train with. If you have this data, the optimal load to stimulate hypertrophy is around 70% of your 1RM. Any less than this and we risk falling into muscular endurance training which won’t stimulate fast-twitch muscle fibres.

Many of you though won’t have this data but don’t worry - hypertrophy training involves training to rep ranges and as long as you lift maximally* within the rep range, you’ll be stimulating hypertrophy. It might take you a few warm up sets to gage the load you require and that’s fine.

*unable to complete another rep for that set

Volume

The rep range we are looking for is between 6-12. If you’re a beginner I recommend shooting for the top end of this range so that you’re effectively learning the movements and the load isn’t too heavy to control. For the experienced folk, the lower end will elicit better strength carry over in your hypertrophy goals.

Completing 3-4 sets per exercise should be enough to create sufficient overload in the muscle to elicit a hypertrophic environment.

The number of exercises within a training session largely depends on your experience and the loads you’re lifting. Performing between 6-9 exercises per training session is deemed optimal by the research.

Time Under Tension

Simply put, this refers to how long the working muscle is contracting for during the rep. However, this is broken down further into the speed of the different phases of the movement - eccentric (muscle lengthening), isometric (muscle length remains constant), and concentric (muscle shortening).

For maximum benefits in hypertrophy your best bet is to perform the concentric phase as quickly as possible; to stimulate fast twitch muscle fibres, and perform the eccentric phase slowly (3s); to increase metabolic stress and muscle damage.

Rest

Rest between sets should be kept fairly low; between 60-90s. If you’re training at the lower end of the rep range you might want to increase this rest a little in order to fully recover your fast twitch muscle fibres. If you find that you do not require at least 60s of rest, I’d argue you haven’t lifted heavy enough!

“Okay, I’m convinced! When should I train for hypertrophy?”

Hypertrophy training is tough on the body and will likely cause you some aches and pains. This isn’t conducive to playing matches where your aim is to be fresh and fast so the optimal time to complete a bout of hypertrophy training is during pre-season.

My advice is that you train for hypertrophy for between 4-6 weeks with a taper down in volume and up in intensity as you slide into training for strength; afterall, hypertrophy is the foundation of strength training.

Training sessions should last between 60-90 minutes and should be completed every 48 hours for maximum results. This is because, especially as females, we require frequent stimulus of the working muscles in order for them to grow.

Feel inspired? Check out this upper body hypertrophy workout.

If you want to take training to the next level, download FEEPO’s 6 week hypertrophy programme. Use the code FEEPO_HULK for half price.