File photo of the Stormers
By Athenkosi Tsotsi
With the return to non contact training for professional rugby imminent, it will be up to the strength and conditioning coaches to get the players in top shape, thus making them the most important personnel during this phase of return to play.
Strength and Conditioning coaches are the backbones of the head coaches backroom staff, their work can go unnoticed but they play a vital role in the teams performance dynamics.
"A conditioning coach primarily works with athletes and is responsible for improving athletic performance. Their daily duties are to implement systematic training programs for both teams and individual athletes and working closely with coaches," Stormers Strength and Conditioning coach Riefaat Jappie elaborating on what a conditioning coach does.
With the game evolving to new heights, the role of a conditioning coach in modern rugby has become key, they help sustain and enhance the performance levels of players with their meticulous planning.
"The role of a conditioning coach is very important for preparing and monitoring players to perform and train optimally every week and to withstand the high demands of the game that involves high collisions, sprints and accelerations and at the same time reducing athletic injuries."
The pausing of rugby due to the lockdown had implications on the players fitness, routines had put in place for players, for coach Jappie, he had to be clever in his planning as he had to accommodate players based on the resources they have in their respective environments.
"Due to restrictions in the first part of the lockdown players could not run and running is a very important factor in all team sports. The space availability, running surfaces and equipment was different for each player and I had to adjust accordingly. As the lockdown got extended players also started losing strength and muscle mass due to not having the appropriate equipment.
I had to put routines in place that suits every player’s daily routines. Therefore, it was more what must be done in the week or on a day and so that the player can fit it in his daily routine. I had to be flexible with the planning and had to design training options for all types of space availability and equipment players had at their disposal," said Jappie.
For the Lions Strength and Conditioning Rupert Oberholster, he has been fairly pleased with fitness levels his players have attained during the lockdown.
"To be honest, as a group, we are probably fitter than what we were after our December break. We have a lot of individuals that are running personal bests on specific fitness tests. Unfortunately, a few players’ circumstances made it difficult to run, but we are working hard in getting them fit and ready to go.
We really put a lot of effort into the players over the past 70+ days to ensure that they are all training hard and improving on all aspects of their conditioning. Level 4 of lockdown made it easier to prescribe running programs to everyone, and I used a GPS app to monitor the players every day," said Oberholster.
The likes of Vincent Tshituka, Jaco Kriel and Rhyno Herbst have recovered from their respective injuries thanks to the lockdown, and it will be up to the conditioning coach to ease them back to intense first team training.
"Injured players follow a strict return to play protocol that would include straight-line running, agility drills, rugby specific drills and extra fitness on the wattbike or rowers. As soon as they have cleared all medical tests and built up their running loads, they will join the team’s training. We then track their loads on our GPS system, for the first few weeks."
SA Rugby announced plans for an in house Super Rugby version tournament which will include the Bulls, Stormers, Sharks, Cheetah, Kings and the Lions. Before the tournament commences there will be a 4-6 week window period which will be used to allow players to get to competition levels fitness, the conditioning coaches will play a major role in ensuring this is possible.
"Our main focus will be to get the players bodies ready to play a game as soon as possible. The Covid-19 regulations that are in place make it really difficult to get their bodies ready for contact, without being able to make actual contact with other players. But we have some exciting ideas and we are confident that we will have them 100% ready for contact before the first game.
Competition level fitness is basically the fitness level a player should reach before being able to play in a specific competition. To this end, Super rugby’s physical demands regarding running fitness, contact fitness, positional fitness are massive and the player’s bodies must be able to take the hits and loads every weekend for +-22 weeks," explained Oberholster.
The importance of a conditioning coach can not be understated, during this period of return to play, their value will be more evident.
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