We’re thrilled to share the thoughts of Omar Hayward, England U20s Lead S&C in this article, plus a few more over the next few months. This is the first of a series of articles written by Omar which tackle some important topics in women’s rugby right now.

At Feepo, we often get asked: what’s the optimal training schedule? It’s a great question. Women’s rugby is experiencing huge professionalisation but we are very much in a transition phase as amateur and professional players mix at the top level.

During this transition (and beyond), it’s vital that amateur players train effectively to perform at their best and to avoid injury playing against more professional players. This trickles down to Championship levels too as players from the Premiership loan out to Champ clubs and visa versa.

So Omar, what is the optimal weekly training schedule for a domestic female rugby player?

Omar writes:

There are several training elements that we need to ensure players are getting exposure to in a training week. It can be difficult to organise a training week when you’re trying to include rugby training, strength and power, conditioning, speed and prehab.

First off, when developing weekly training schedules, we should consider the time of season. The season can be broken down into three main phases: pre-season, in-season and off-season. For simplicity's sake the main focus for each season phase can be described as:

Pre-season: Strength, power and conditioning
In-season: Rugby performance
Off-season: Recovery

With these main focuses in mind the training week should be slightly different for each season phase.

Pre-Season

During the pre-season, you can afford to spend more time on physical development and developing your physical work-on areas.

Strength and power training should be performed 3-4 days a week. If training 3 days a week, a training split of 2 full body sessions and 1 upper body session works well. If you’re able to commit to 4 strength and power sessions per week then 2 lower body and 2 upper body sessions would be a good option.

From a conditioning perspective, 2 sessions per week in addition to rugby training is generally appropriate. These sessions are usually well placed directly after rugby training sessions.

I’d recommend 2 speed sessions a week during the pre-season. These sessions could be broken down into 1 acceleration focussed session and 1 top speed focussed session. Speed sessions should always be performed on a day when feeling fresh (e.g., after a recovery day) and be preceded by a thorough warm-up before going into maximal effort work. It’s important to take enough rest time between maximal efforts. A good rule of thumb is for every 10m of speed work your rest time between reps should be 30-60sec. For example, a 30m sprint should be followed by 1.5 - 3 min rest before your next effort. This allows maximal efforts for each repetition (and it also a great time for some static catch-pass work).

Prehab sessions should include all your mobility, stability, and specific resilience training based on the demands of rugby, female-specific risk factors and your injury history. These sessions should be short (<20 min) but be performed frequently (3-5 sessions per week).

Example weekly schedules:

In-Season

During the in-season, as the main focus shifts to rugby performance we still should aim to maintain all the physical qualities we developed in the pre-season.

Strength and power training frequency will typically drop in frequency to 2-3 sessions per week.

Conditioning will come mostly from training and match-play. You may need to supplement rugby training with some short, high intensity interval training top-ups if rugby training intensity is not high enough, or if your playing minutes are low.

Speed session frequency can be dropped to 1 session per week and placed within the warm-up of a rugby session.

Prehab sessions during the competitive in-season phase are key in keeping all the little niggles at bay. Prehab sessions should still be performed 3-5 days per week.

Off-Season

The off-season, as the focus shifts to recovery there is less of an emphasis on rugby training, strength and power, conditioning and speed.

One to two weeks in the early off-season should be used for prehab and time away from all other training. After this initial break from training activities should resume in the form of general movement and activities. This could be broken down into gym and general activities.

Gym frequency of two days per week with higher repetition schemes (>8 reps) can help aid musculo-tendinous health.

General activities may include things like hiking, climbing, swimming, or general exposure to different sports that you don’t have time for in the pre- and in-season phases. General activities can be performed 2-4 days per week.

To learn about how to use some of these pointers in your own training, read our articles: preseason guidelines, energy systems training, and what is strength and conditioning.