SS Novice 6 Months In - Rugby Season Starting in 3 Weeks

[Beerspitnight]

Been getting after the novice program of SS since the end of August and, with the help of a very knowledgeable friend, have seen great success these past 6 months. I have taken my squat from 80kg to a solid 130, bp from 70kg to 90kg, and dl from 130kg to 177.2kg. Now I need to sort out how I am going to incorporate conditioning work into my schedule to get ready for rugby season. Rugby practice starts in 3 weeks (or so depending on the weather) with our first proper run-around in 4 weeks and the first proper game in 5 weeks.
I am 33 years old, 6 foot tall and currently 106kg (front row). I eat clean (for the most part) paleo plus milk and cheese and beer (on the weekends - I'm drinking a Chimay Red right now) - milk intake is limited by costs of good organic whole milk here in Beijing (500ml = $2.50 or so) I try to take in 3 500ml cartons on lifting days and 2 on non-lifting days. I eat whenever I am hungry but I know I am going to have to eat more once rugby training starts. Rugby training isn't overly cardio intense and we train twice a week (T and TH) at night and games/training on Saturday afternoons. I am thinking that I will work in sprints after training on T and Th and Saturday as well. Question is, do "you" think that sprint/rugby training will "overly" impact my progression in a negative manner? I would like to continue my linear progression during the season while also being able to run around the field for 80 minutes.
The other issue that I have is that I train in the gym M, W and F at 6:30am and I'm up at 5:15am to get there on time - T and Th training ends around 9:30 and by the time I get home and in bed it is close to 10:30 or so - so my sleep suffers on T and Th nights.
Any insight/suggestions on preparing for the pitch would be appreciative.

Monday:
Back Squat
Pullups/chinups
Press

Wednesday:
Front Squat
Bench
Deadlift

Friday:
Back Squat
Push Press/Split Jerk
Power Cleans

I'll keep a log here to see how my progression goes.

Friday - Feb 25
Back Squats
130x5x3
Split Jerk (1st day doing them) 70kgx3x3
Power Cleans 80x5x3

[f4thpathway]

I don't think it will hurt it too much. (former blindside winger) If you dropped to 5-3-1 or stuck the SS format but only hit squats once, maybe twice a week you'll be fine. I'd say your on-field performance should be better right now than it has been. Rugby & sprinting should help your LP and vice versa, if you don't do insane amounts of sprinting. Personally, I would do squats on mondays, maybe some front squats (even for progression) on wednesday. Your friday workout (without squats) seems ok for saturday games. As long as you're strong in the scrum and not collapsing the line. If I were doing it, I would go through a week of practice and sprints and see how my numbers were the next monday. If there isn't much deviation I would stick with it because you'll be adapting more after that.

[Beerspitnight]

f4th - thanks for the insight. I'll update this log as I go and we'll see how the numbers go.
Today (Sunday) is food buying and weekly food prep day.

$15 worth of eggs
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24 egg and spinach eggs (4 breakfasts)
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4 lunches
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Sweet potatoes
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[Dutchblood]

Nice food prep there, good to see someone eating lots of real food. I had a good haul on the way home from work I scored 12 whole chickens all at 66% reduced rate, from around $2.60 for the smaller ones to $4.00 for the bigger ones.
From the limited knowledge I have it may be hard to continue Linear Progression through your whole rugby season if you are a 'natural' athlete with all the demands of training and matches. Normally once you enter your season you use your strength base to develop sports specific power and concentrate on developing speed, dynamic power etc... whilst maintaining the strength you have, maybe a search on rugby training programs from Sports Institutes may shed more light. I am no expert but what you have achieved already is pretty damn good.

[f4thpathway]

Nice diet.

[Beerspitnight]

[B]Dutch-I am curious to see how my numbers go as the season gets underway. I play on a club team, which means we basically play rugby so we can drink beers together on Saturday afternoons! That's not to say the run-around isn't a blast, but we aren't top-ranked athletes either! Most training sessions involve ball handling, passing and tackling drills. If I can work sprints in after the general workouts, I am hoping that my squat numbers won't be destroyed - I just need to be able to run around the pitch for 80 minutes once a week while smashing guys as hard as I can!

Today's workout saw a drop in back squat numbers as I am attempting to focus on hitting my depth - for the last couple of weeks I was putting on weight while not paying enough attention to my form - so I dropped my workset from 142.2 to 120 and 125 today (and added an extra set in an attempt to keep my volume up)

Back Squat
Bar x 10
50 x7
70 x 5
90 x 2
WS - 120 x5
120 x5
125 x5
125 x5

Pullups
8
6
6

Press
bar x5
30 x5
40 x5
WS 67.2 x 5
67.2 x 4
67.2 x3

I am still progressing with my press - but a bit disappointed with work sets 2 and 3. Smallest plate we have is a 1.1kg - so the smallest jump I can make on all exercises is 2.2kg, which is sometimes a bit much. I am trying to find some smaller plates, but being in China, nothing is easy.

Squats felt strong and I will increase to 130 on Friday and see how my form holds up.

Thanks for reading and for the feedback guys!

And once it hits 60F here in Beijing, I will shave the beard and drink a 6 pack of PBR...
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[Beerspitnight]

It is a cold morning in Beijing - threw on the spikes and ran some sprints this morning. Quick warmup and then I ran 100 x8 with 50 meter walks in between. Both of my Achilles tendons started to tighten up on the final meters of the 8th sprint. Guess I needed a longer warmup. Ground was fully frozen still with patches of dirty snow here and there. Was huffing and puffing once I finished up but it felt good to get the lungs working again. I headed into the gym at school and did a quick 22 x4 GHD situps to finish the morning up.

[Beerspitnight]

Legs are a bit sore from the sprints yesterday, but they aren't as bad as I thought they would be. I ate really well yesterday and my sleep was good (even with the kid crying his face off at midnight - ear plugs are a life saver, as is my wife.)

Today's getup:

Front Squat
Bar x5
40 x5
60x5
85 x5 x3
I have been struggling with my front squat for a couple of weeks - I think I have my form down finally and I'll thank Rip's video for that.

Bench
bar x10 x2
40 x7
60 x5
90 x5
90 x5
90 x5 (spot on 5th)
I had a spot on the 5th rep of my last two work sets last week, so this is a small improvement. I will move up to 92.2 next week

DL
70x5
100x5
180 x4 (fail on 5)
reset a couple of minutes later - 180 x1
I was unhappy with the fail on the 5th rep during my first attempt - I think my form was starting to suffer. The guy I work out with recorded my first attempt, but he didn't do a very good job and it is a useless video. My reset attempt was recorded and I felt stronger on that rep than I did for the 1st rep of the first attempt.


I am planning on doing some sprint work again tomorrow morning - or getting after the small hill that is next to my school in the afternoon - either way I'll be running tomorrow.

[Beerspitnight]

Was still a bit sore this morning from Tuesday sprint session. I was hoping to get into school early yesterday (Thursday) to do some sprints up the hill next to my school, but the little man was wide awake and I wanted to give the wife a bit more sleep, so I hung out with him instead of sprinting. I am pretty happy that I didn't sprint yesterday as I can only imagine how my legs would feel today.
I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked to have gotten last night either as the little man was up again at 4 and the wife was exhausted - so I took over the holding gig until he fell asleep at 5am and then I left for work/the gym.

Squat form is good - I can feel the difference in the weight though and today I was a bit knackered by the 3rd workset.

Backsquat
bar x10
50 x7
70 x5
90 x2
130 x 5 x3

Push Press
bar x5
35 x5
45 x5
80 x5
80 x5
80 x4 (form was off on 5th rep as the bar came forward and I lost momentum trying to get it back on track)

Power Cleans
bar x5
40 x5
50 x5
80 x5
80x5
80 x3 I was pretty exhausted by this point and my form was hurting. I am still having some issues with the pull point on the clean as I tend to pull too low - then when I start to think too much during the lift I fuck myself up even more. Additionally, I was running late and started to think about my first class (which I hadn't prepped for) and what I needed to do when I got into the room. Needless to say, I wasn't overly happy with that last set. Think I might need to drop the weight next week and focus on getting the pull correct.

[Dutchblood]

Getting the depth below parallel on squats is a bitch but worth it, I am focusing on that too, seems to give the hip flexors and ITB a bit of a hammering in my case.
4 wheels on DL is good work I am aiming for that. Definitely a few months away from me.