Lifting stats in the NRL (Rugby)

[MBasic]

Basic, you make the same error in logic every time you post. We don't a shit about Marty Taupau because he's only one guy. We are indicting the system, and one outlier is irrelevant. Completely and totally irrelevant.

you miss my point, again (you're good at this).

probably shit reporting.

they mention the guy's 160x2 / 200x1 deadlift.

later, it is revealed he can DL 310x1.

I find it suspect a guy would detrain from 310 --> 200, even in season.

I bet these are in season training numbers.

Gene's post was most excellent. This (OPost) is a shit article that tells us nothing about Rugby S&C.

[DeriHughes]

Go sign up for your local club. Play a game on Saturday. The whole game. Try your hardest. Try and squat 450 lbs on Monday. Get back to me. Do this for 35 straight weeks and get back to me again.

Read this and it might help. They only schedule one big strength session a week due to recovery demands. Hard to add weight to the bar in that instance. Even harder if you can't train at all due to injury.

Richie McCaw'''s burning desire | Stuff.co.nz

Interestingly, as a 37 year old father with young kids, who works a desk job and hasn't played serious rugby for over a decade, I could play Saturday and squat 450 on Monday because I'm now strong enough that a 450 squat is light. When I was playing rugby I was weaker, despite working with pro strength coaches, so I couldn't have done that. Either way, how would this demonstrate that genetic freak pro athletes shouldn't be squatting 450 at 250 by the time they leave high school?

You don't seem to understand that 450 just isn't very heavy.

[Marenghi]

Especially in popular sports, the overarching goal of the ones responsible is not eliciting the highest absolute performance of individuals or teams.

But many other different goals resulting in: mo money.

And that means increasing match numbers, changing rules etc.

In some individual sports, the very best have the luxury to ignore prosaic things like a steady income, ranking points, qualification matches and truly dedicate themselves to achieve the best performance possible on a few occasions per season - not the integrated sum of sports performances.

Roger Federer immediately comes to mind, who at the age of 39 shows what difference a freely and deliberate planned season can make.

Team sports athletes very rarely have the liberty to do that (ageing but still highly important superstars being the exception here and there).

[Gene Hawley]

450 is basically the minimum at certain positions. I believe I posted videos of players deadlifting 600 lbs, 590 x 3 and a guy squatting north of 550.

I also think you are ignoring the impact of playing almost year round and being chronically injured. Try squatting with something as mild as a hip pointer. It's basically impossible. Not to mention torn muscles, back spasms, separated shoulders, concussions, even broken hands and lord knows what else. Say you basically can't lift for a month. When you are healthy you don't get time to add weight to the bar and get back to where you were, you go play which makes it impossible to make real gains. Google Sam Warburton injuries and he's not even 30.

I'd also love to know your body fat and time running 3km.

Also having kids and a desk job in no way compares to smashing yourself against Bakkies Botha or Ma'aa Nonu. A desk job is actually conducive to lifting. You want to talk about fucked up sleep? Try travelling to Japan, Australia, South Africa and Argentina, back to New Zealand, followed by a jaunt to the USA and then England. But yes, you have a toddler. Boo hoo.

I've been polite here and given facts, but you don't have a clue what you are talking about with regard to rugby training or the demands and constraints the sport places on lifting.

[FatButWeak]

I played rugby in America for over ten years (college club rugby, followed by mens club ruby) and was not very good. I was tall and skinny fat. My conditioning was for shit, I believe because I was not strong enough to recover from the set pieces (scrums, rucks, lineouts and to a lesser degree mauls - these are the anaerobic "wrestling matches" that occur when the players are all balled up/bunched up) to cover the field. This greatly affected my level of play. My skills were good, but i was too weak and, therfore, poorly conditioned to play as well as I should have. Had I been able to make proper training, ie Starting Strength, part of my training regimen, I would have been a much better player.

Lugging useless body fat around the pitch is exhausting (Ive always been 20-23% bodyfat or so - lots of belly jiggle). Being leaner would have made my job much, much easier.

So, rugby is not like bodybuilding, but, as with strength, if all other things are equal (i.e strength, speed, endurance) then the leaner player may well be the better player. Certainly, 15% is very, good for an athlete.

That being said, Im suprised these guys in the NRL arent stronger. They ARE pro fucking athletes and, therefore, they SHOULD be prioritizing their strength levels. These numbers, in general, dont seem prioritized.

[DeriHughes]

I quoted the South African standard as: 1.8 (kg/kg.bw) for squats and 1.5 for bench press. So a 250 lbs guy has to squat 450 and bench 375 as a minimum. Is that too light?

450 was your number, I was just responding to your statement

450 is basically the minimum at certain positions. I believe I posted videos of players deadlifting 600 lbs, 590 x 3 and a guy squatting north of 550.

I also think you are ignoring the impact of playing almost year round and being chronically injured. Try squatting with something as mild as a hip pointer. It's basically impossible. Not to mention torn muscles, back spasms, separated shoulders, concussions, even broken hands and lord knows what else. Say you basically can't lift for a month. When you are healthy you don't get time to add weight to the bar and get back to where you were, you go play which makes it impossible to make real gains. Google Sam Warburton injuries and he's not even 30.

I'd also love to know your body fat and time running 3km.

Also having kids and a desk job in no way compares to smashing yourself against Bakkies Botha or Ma'aa Nonu. A desk job is actually conducive to lifting. You want to talk about fucked up sleep? Try travelling to Japan, Australia, South Africa and Argentina, back to New Zealand, followed by a jaunt to the USA and then England. But yes, you have a toddler. Boo hoo.

I've been polite here and given facts, but you don't have a clue what you are talking about with regard to rugby training or the demands and constraints the sport places on lifting.

Not sure the comparison of my physical abilities with pro athletes in their prime is relevant here, but anyway. If you really think a busy work & family life at 37 is more conducive to developing physical attributes than being a full-time professional athlete in your 20s then... wow.

Why do you believe these reported numbers are all done in-season? Why would a coach report those numbers instead of the pre-season testing numbers?

If you take a 24 year old, 115kg, full-time professional tight head prop, what should he be able to squat and deadlift for a single at the end of pre-season? And please explain the basis for your opinion.

[Marenghi]

If you take a 24 year old, 115kg, full-time professional tight head prop, what should he be able to squat and deadlift for a single at the end of pre-season? And please explain the basis for your opinion.

This is an empirical question, not a wish.

The goal is not to achieve the highest deadlift or squat possible. These are powerlifters´goals, those are not powerlifters.

The goal is to maximize sports performance.

The question is how many (finite) ressources should be dedicated to improving a 1RM squat or deadlift?

Take 10 athletes each and let them train different hours per week for max strength. Compare before/after between. A study, in short.

In highly competitive sports, the best methods should prevail if theyre not hindered by tradition etc. Sometimes systematic testing will speed up generating this knowledge.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The question is how many (finite) ressources should be dedicated to improving a 1RM squat or deadlift?

No one has advocated training for a 1RM squat or deadlift. I understand that it's easier to refute your own version of the argument, but our argument is different.

[Marenghi]

DeriHughes wrote:

If you take a 24 year old, 115kg, full-time professional tight head prop, what should he be able to squat and deadlift for a single at the end of pre-season? And please explain the basis for your opinion.

You can substitute "1RM" with other strength related goals - the question remains the same.

[DeriHughes]

DeriHughes wrote:



You can substitute "1RM" with other strength related goals - the question remains the same.

The question is nothing to do with maximising strength in any rep range though. It is about a reasonable expectation of strength, for this avatar, based on their likely genetics and other demands for their sport. My assertion is that it is reasonable to expect a level of strength significantly higher than those currently being expected by the rugby coaches (not to mention multiples of bodyweight being nonsensical as targets), particularly for tight five forwards.

Remember these are young men who have typically been scouted from c14 years old, played representative rugby at the national level, and have focused on turning pro as soon as they leave school at 18. The problem is no-one is setting a high enough bar for strength, or telling them how to reach it. They don't know what they're capable of, because their coaches don't know either. Over the last 15 years I have seen dozens of these kids given bullshit, over-complex, programmes by their pro clubs, wasting masses of time, and only getting marginally stronger. They even stop them actually playing rugby to focus on what is essentially bodybuilding.