All Black Training: Mastering the Art of Rugby Fitness and Performance

How do New Zealand All Blacks train to maintain their rugby dominance. What are the key differences between in-season and off-season training for rugby players. How do All Blacks coaches address injury prevention in such a high-impact sport. What unique training methods contribute to the All Blacks’ success.

The All Blacks’ Training Philosophy: Strength, Endurance, and Resilience

The New Zealand All Blacks have long been regarded as one of the most formidable rugby teams in the world. Their success is not just a result of natural talent, but also of a rigorous and well-planned training regimen. Nic Gill, the team’s head strength and conditioning coach for the past eight years, provides insights into the training methods that keep the All Blacks at the top of their game.

In-Season vs. Off-Season Training

The primary difference between in-season and off-season training for the All Blacks lies in the intensity and volume of work they can accomplish. During the off-season, players have more time to focus on physical conditioning without the demands of weekly matches and contact training.

• Off-season allows for increased training volume
• Higher intensity workouts are possible
• Focus on maximal load-lifting and power development
• More time for high-intensity running

Does the type of training change significantly between seasons? While the core elements remain similar, the off-season provides an opportunity to push the players harder in the gym and on the running track, as they’re not subjected to the physical toll of regular matches.

Injury Prevention Strategies in High-Impact Rugby

Rugby is known for its high injury risk, and the All Blacks’ coaching staff takes this challenge seriously. The severity of injuries has increased over the years, primarily due to the improved physical condition of players, resulting in more intense collisions.

Common Rugby Injuries and Their Prevention

To combat the risk of injuries, the All Blacks’ training program focuses on strengthening specific areas prone to damage:

1. Shoulder strengthening exercises
2. Neck muscle development to mitigate concussion effects
3. Calf strengthening for pushing athletes
4. Hamstring and posterior chain work for speedsters

How do the All Blacks prioritize injury prevention? The team’s approach is twofold: addressing past injuries to prevent recurrence and focusing on position-specific injury risks.

Innovative Training Techniques: Crawling and Band Work

While not the primary focus, the All Blacks incorporate diverse training methods to enhance overall athleticism and address individual player needs.

Crawling exercises are utilized for their multifaceted benefits:

• Improves mobility
• Enhances stability
• Activates multiple muscle groups

Band work is another versatile tool in the All Blacks’ training arsenal, offering:

• Resistance training in various planes
• Assistance for certain movements
• Variety in workout routines

Are these techniques essential to the All Blacks’ success? While they contribute to overall fitness, Gill emphasizes that they are just part of a comprehensive toolkit, used alongside traditional methods like weightlifting and bodyweight exercises.

The Structure of an All Blacks Training Session

A typical All Blacks training session is carefully structured to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. The initial focus is on preparing the players for the specific demands of the day’s training.

Warm-Up and Mobility Work

The warm-up phase of training can last anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the day’s objectives. This crucial period includes:

• Increasing body temperature
• Joint mobility exercises
• Flexibility work
• Ground-based movement drills

Why is the warm-up so important for the All Blacks? This preparatory phase not only reduces injury risk but also primes the players for optimal performance in both individual skill work and team-based drills.

Mental Toughness: The Psychological Edge of the All Blacks

The All Blacks’ success isn’t solely attributed to physical prowess. The team’s mental preparation is equally crucial to their performance on the field.

Building Mental Resilience

The weight of the All Blacks jersey carries with it a century of expectations. Players are conditioned to perform under immense pressure, with strategies including:

• Visualization techniques
• Stress management training
• Team bonding exercises
• Goal-setting workshops

How do the All Blacks maintain their mental edge? By fostering a culture of excellence and continuous improvement, players are motivated to uphold the team’s legacy while pushing their personal boundaries.

Nutrition and Recovery: Fueling the All Blacks Machine

The intensity of All Blacks training necessitates a robust nutrition and recovery program to ensure players can perform at their peak consistently.

Nutritional Strategies

The All Blacks’ nutrition plan is tailored to support the demands of rugby and includes:

• High-protein diets for muscle recovery and growth
• Complex carbohydrates for sustained energy
• Nutrient timing to optimize performance and recovery
• Hydration protocols for training and match days

Recovery Techniques

To maintain peak performance throughout a grueling season, the All Blacks employ various recovery methods:

• Cryotherapy and ice baths
• Massage and physiotherapy
• Sleep optimization strategies
• Active recovery sessions

How do these recovery methods impact the All Blacks’ performance? By minimizing fatigue and accelerating recovery, players can maintain high-intensity training and perform consistently in matches throughout the season.

Technology in Training: The All Blacks’ High-Tech Advantage

The All Blacks leverage cutting-edge technology to fine-tune their training and performance analysis.

Data-Driven Performance Optimization

The team utilizes various technological tools to gather and analyze data, including:

• GPS tracking for player movement and workload analysis
• Force plate testing for power output measurement
• Video analysis software for technique refinement
• Wearable tech for real-time physiological monitoring

How does technology enhance the All Blacks’ training regime? By providing objective data on player performance and recovery, coaches can make informed decisions on training load, tactical adjustments, and injury prevention strategies.

The All Blacks’ Legacy: Cultivating Future Rugby Stars

The success of the All Blacks extends beyond the current squad, with a focus on developing the next generation of rugby talent.

Youth Development Programs

The All Blacks’ approach to cultivating young talent includes:

• Grassroots rugby initiatives
• Age-grade national teams
• Specialized academies for promising players
• Mentorship programs with current and former All Blacks

How does the All Blacks’ youth development strategy contribute to their ongoing success? By investing in young talent and instilling the team’s values and work ethic early on, the All Blacks ensure a continuous pipeline of skilled players ready to don the black jersey.

The New Zealand All Blacks’ training regimen is a comprehensive approach that addresses physical conditioning, injury prevention, mental toughness, and technological innovation. By focusing on these key areas, the team maintains its status as one of the most formidable forces in international rugby. The dedication to excellence both on and off the field, coupled with a strong emphasis on player development, ensures that the All Blacks’ legacy will continue for generations to come.

As rugby evolves and new challenges emerge, the All Blacks’ training methods will undoubtedly adapt. However, the core principles of hard work, mental resilience, and a commitment to continuous improvement will remain at the heart of their success. For aspiring rugby players and sports enthusiasts alike, the All Blacks’ approach to training offers valuable lessons in what it takes to reach and maintain peak performance at the highest level of competitive sport.

How To Train Like A New Zealand All Black

When it comes to rugby, no team is more feared or respected than the New Zealand All Blacks. We speak to Nic Gill, who has been the team’s head strength and conditioning coach for the last eight years, about the kind of training it takes to be the very best and try to uncover the key elements that will help us live a pain-free athletic lifestyle.

What Are The Key Differences In Programming Between In-Season And Off-Season?

I suppose the only difference between in-season and off-season for rugby players is that in the off-season we don’t play a game on a Friday or a Saturday, and we don’t really have the same level of contact training, which obviously takes its toll on the body. Typically, it means that in the off-season, we can get more work in. The type of work tends to be not that different: high-intensity running, maximal load-lifting, power development, etc. The key difference is that the players are not involved in rugby as much, and therefore, can attack the gym and do more running. We tend to focus on far higher intensities.

We Know That In Rugby There Is A High Risk Of Injury Compared To Other Sports. Do You Have Any Go-To Exercises For Increasing Resilience To Injury?

The injury risk in rugby probably hasn’t increased over the years in terms of the incidence, but what we’re seeing now is increased severity of the injuries. We can probably chalk this up to the fact that the players are better conditioned, bigger, stronger, faster, leaner and just generally fitter, making the collisions more significant than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Now, a lot of injuries are collision-based: broken bones, snapped tendons, torn ligaments, fractures of all sorts, and, of course, concussions. The key things that most of us are trying to do on the physical preparation side of things is improve the strength and durability of the most frequently occurring incidents of injuries. That’s a little bit dependent on the player’s position, but also on the player himself and his history.

With A List As Significant As That, Where Do You Start?

First of all, we address any prior injuries and make sure that we are continuing to rehabilitate them and making sure those areas are no longer a risk going forward. Past injuries are a big dictator of what we focus on with each player. The second thing is the positional differences with the players and which injuries we see more of in what positions. Typically, it’s our midfielders and loose forwards who have a greater incidence of concussion and neck or shoulder injuries. They tend to bank the most hit by collisions in a game.

The success of the team over the last 100 years means that whoever puts on the all blacks jersey is expected to be at his best, Mentally and physically Click To Tweet

We do a lot of shoulder work for those guys. But really, we do a lot of shoulder work for everyone because the shoulder is such a vulnerable joint and it tends to be involved in nearly all collisions. Another area we focus on strengthening up is necks. This is to help with the symptoms or the severity of concussions. And then we work on soft tissue areas like the calf and the hamstring. Pushing athletes tend to have calf issues and we’re constantly trying to strengthen that area and keep the mobility through the ankle. Then obviously with our running athletes, the strength, range of motion, functionality of the hamstring and posterior chain are the big focus for our speedsters.

I Know That You Do A Fair Bit Of Crawling And Band Work With Your Players. Does That Fall Into The Kind Of Injury-Resilience Category?

Not really. Like anyone involved in conditioning or working with any sort of athlete or team sport, I am focused on the need of each player, because the needs within the group are so varied. It’s a matter of what’s going to have the biggest impact. Crawling is great because it works on mobility, stability and activation. There are many areas that crawling helps improve. So yes, we do a bit of crawling, but it’s not something that we have a really big focus on. Likewise with the band work. Bands have the ability to load in many different planes and in different ways. They provide resistance, assistance and a little bit of fun. Bands are just another tool we use, but I wouldn’t use them any more than dumbbells, bars, crawling or bodyweight.

In A Typical All Blacks’ Training Session, What Percentage Of Time Is Spent On Joint Mobility, Flexibility, And Ground-based Movement Work?

In a field-based session, we spend a little bit of time getting ready for what we need to do from an individual skill perspective as well as a team perspective. So that’s my first priority, to get them ready to do that. We can spend anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes getting ready, mainly increasing the body temperature, moving through some ranges of motion that they will be exposed to in the tasks that follow. And there is some thought being put into getting mobile, increasing the flexibility and creating a little bit of recovery from what we did the day prior.

Athleticism is about being able to express yourself in all sorts of ways, under all sorts of time constraintsClick To Tweet

If we’re talking about a gym session, then we spend considerably more time on mobility and working on the range of motion through key areas; likewise with ground-based movement work. That’s really the crawling side of things. But that’s just part of our preparation-to-train or preparation-to-perform window. It only takes up about 10 to 15% of our time.

Do Plyometrics Play A Part In Training? Are There Strength Prerequisites Before Utilizing Them?

We use plyometrics all the time. And I suppose the difference with plyometrics is that not everyone does the same ones. For example, we’ve got our seven-foot- tall players who need to be able to jump explosively with a small movement, and then we’ve got our speedsters who we want to try to improve things like the breadth of strength. Some of the players jump from varying heights, jump with weights, do horizontal jumps or bounding.

We use those sorts of plyometrics on a regular basis. There’s not really a strength prerequisite; it’s more of a progressive overload. We’ll start with the low-level plyometrics and gradually progress them over the international season, both in intensity and in volume. The key thing from our perspective is to start off low-level and gradually increase intensity and repetitions.

Are There Any Small Details That You Focus On Improving That Can Be Easily Overlooked?

That’s a really good question. I suppose what’s easy to overlook is exactly what you said: all the small things that start to drift over a season. It’s a matter of constantly re-evaluating what we’re doing with each player and not just putting a plan in place and then looking at it at the end of the
year to see if it was of value or if it made a difference. The needs of the athletes change weekly because the human body is such that it doesn’t stay the same. And in many instances, it doesn’t progress the way we all hope.

If Bulk Is Essential For Surviving In Modern Rugby And Athleticism Is Crucial For Winning, How Do You Achieve The Necessary Balance?

I wouldn’t say that bulk is essential. I think that’s a misconception, personally. Size and bulk are important. Just using basic physics principles, if two people are traveling at the same speed and they collide, the person with the biggest mass is going to have the most momentum, so they’re going to win the collision. That’s assuming all else is equal. The person with a lot of height might also win the collision even if they have less bulk. So yes, bulk is important, but technique and skill are more important.

In terms of surviving the game, a player can be big and have huge bulging muscles but not be very functional. You can have big but unstable shoulders. For me, it’s about having better function, better balance, stability, and strength in those areas and mobility in the areas where it’s really needed. Because again, you might be a huge bulky person carrying lots of weight, but if you cannot keep your hips low, then your center of gravity will be high and you will come out second best.

Athleticism is about being able to express yourself in all sorts of ways, under all sorts of time constraints. So, really, the balance requires not just being focused on size—we definitely aren’t—but being focused on function and being able to do your job.

How Do You Assess And Manage The Accumulated Fatigue Of An Elite Athlete Over The Course Of A Season?

This is a constant challenge. And I don’t really have a good answer for it at the moment. We monitor a lot of things around the wellbeing of a player, whether that’s the number of collisions, game time or how players are feeling. The hardest thing for us as the All Blacks team is the accumulation of travel and fatigue. It happens to us because we don’t sleep due to our travel schedule. We travel around the globe twice every year, and that’s a hell of an expectation to put on an athlete when every week you’re changing time zones and having disrupted sleep. At the moment, there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t change the travel schedule or where we play. We just get on with it.

Since Being In This Role, Have You Changed Your Mind About Any Training Philosophies Or Concepts That You Used To Abide By?

Yeah, definitely. I think rugby—at least international rugby—is quite different from other team sports in that others probably have a longer season. Our season is quite short. I think we’re playing 16 games this year. And while we travel around the world a few times to do that, the thing that I have learned during my time in this role is that sometimes simple is better. When I started as a strength and conditioning coach eight-odd years ago, I was more focused on all of the cutting-edge technologies and techniques, probably at the expense of just getting the basics done really, really well. That has changed over the years as I’ve become more experienced.

What Do You Do For A Player’s Optimal Psychological Performance, Especially For Their Return To Peak Performance Post-Injury?

My role is quite simple in the All Blacks, and that is to provide a structure and a resource for the guys to do what they need to do. From a psychological perspective, the pressure on these young men to perform when they put on the All Black jersey is pretty high. The success of the team over the last 100 years means that whoever puts on the jersey is expected to be at his best, mentally and physically. Just having that black jersey waved in front of them is all that’s required for optimal performance. People might say that many jerseys have that much power, and there may well be. But I suppose the key thing for us is that the legacy of the All Blacks is a huge motivator, one that brings with it huge expectations from not only friends and family, but from the nation as a whole.

From my perspective, they don’t need me to give them a pep talk or try to help them psychologically. The environment and the legacy of the jersey do that. However, for the return to peak performance post-injury, every injured player has different mental barriers to overcome. Along with our physiotherapist, Peter Gallagher, we just try to make sure that the rehabilitation and the return to playing is lighthearted. There’s enough on the line for these young men. We try to bring a fun aspect to it and try to relax them a little. And when it comes to getting back in the game, well, not many players can return to peak performance after a decent layoff. It depends on how long they’ve been injured. Richie McCaw could play great having not played for 12 weeks, while other players need four or five games to be back to where they were. It depends on the duration of the timeout and on the player that we’re talking about.

In Terms Of Mental Focus, Intention And Goal Orientation, What Do You Ask Of Your Athletes During Training? Is It Different Than What You Ask Of Them While Competing?

We ask nothing of the players—other than to work their asses off and sacrifice everything for the performance on Saturday. And so there’s no periodization of mental focus. We have to win every week. It’s not an option to peak mentally only one week out of four. They have to be peaking every single time they play. And what I ask of the boys every time we train is no different. We need to be getting the most out of every season, every day, every week and every month because we need to win every Saturday. So in terms of what I ask or what’s expected, it’s this—work your butt off, sacrifice everything and be ready for Saturday.

Save

Lessons from All Blacks: what I learned from training 5 world cup winners

As an Englishman and a former coach of Argentina, it pains me to say this: but there is something about the All Blacks. In the years since 2010, the three time world champions have maintained a win record of over 90% in all matches. Rugby teams around the world look to them as the example of how the game should be played. And coaches of all sports try to replicate the formula that has helped them to become the most dominant sports team in the world with a population of just 4,000,000 people-

Most rugby strength coaches never get to work with a world cup winner. Through sheer dumb luck though, I have been lucky enough to work with five of them in my career: Sonny Bill Williams at the Sydney Roosters, and Richard Kahui, Cory Jane, Liam Messam and Stephen Donald at Toshiba Brave Lupus.

As I have written many times on this blog, I believe that success leaves clues. So naturally I tried to soak up every experience I could from working with these guys. I tried to look for the unifying themes of their success, and also to compare this to the outside beliefs of the public or media who have written at length about the All Blacks. Here are the top five

Humility

One AB told me…

“New Zealand is a small place. Everyone knows an All Black. It’s not a big deal. You can’t have an ego.”

Another remarked…

“Unless you’re Richie McCaw or Dan Carter, once you get your first major injury, you’re pretty much finished. There is that much depth.”

Lastly, another player said to me in conversation…

“If you’re an All Black, every team you play against will treat it like a world cup final. It is a high pressure environment. You can’t ever let up.”

The overarching theme of my interaction with All Black players is their humility. None of them had an inflated sense of their worth to the team. They treated everyone the same, whether an intern or the head coach. And they all work hard.

Whereas most may assume that they are All Blacks because they are humble players, I believe that the All Black environment exerts almost as much influence on the players character. When you grow up with everyone knowing an All Black, when you have to be at your best every week or risk tarnishing the legacy, and when you are only an injury or a run of bad from away from having your spot taken by an equally world class player, it must be difficult to get comfortable and grow an ego.

Regardless of what came first (the chicken or the egg?!) to me the lesson is clear: only allow good people into your organisation, and once they’re in, demand high ethical and moral standards. Don’t be afraid to force out people who don’t adhere to your standards, encourage competition between your team members, and put people under pressure to achieve.

Intelligence

Ask strength coaches what they think sets the All Blacks apart, and most will assume the guys are putting up insane numbers in the gym. True, they are all good athletes. They were big, strong, powerful, fast and fit. But this should hardly be a surprise when rugby is almost a religion in New Zealand. The sport has its pick of the nation’s finest athletes, just like soccer in England, wrestling or weightlifting in Central Asia, or American Football in the USA. So half the job is done for the strength coach before a barbell is even touched.

But honestly, none of the All Blacks was the best performing athlete I have ever worked with in any of the major physical qualities. They were up there, but I’ve worked with better. However, without question they were all the most intelligent athletes I have ever worked with. They are all students of the game of rugby. They understand rugby intimately, they are constantly exploring different tactical schemes in their heads.

When the All Blacks play, they are always several moves ahead of their opponents. Not once in two years did I beat Cory Jane at a game of cards. Whilst he and many other All Blacks might not hail from a traditionally academic background, make no mistake, they are all smart, and they approach the game with this same level of intellect.

A senior player in the Argentina squad once said to me of playing the All Blacks…

“When you play New Zealand, you can hang with them for the first 30 to 40 minutes or so, and you take confidence from this. But in reality, they are just figuring you out. Once they do, the floodgates open.”

I have experienced this myself as a coach, where it was obvious the All Blacks were going to score a try against us 30s before it happened. The players on the ground could not see it, but from the coach’s viewpoint, one could see the inevitable unfolding. This reinforces to me a major lesson that I have learned throughout my career, which Fergus Connolly talks about in Game Changer. The quality and execution of the tactical game plan is King. At the elite level, all the mental toughness and strength, even all the skill in the world is not going to help you if the plan sucks.

Fundamentals

However with that said, one must understand that skill underpins the tactical scheme. The wider array of skills a rugby player can perform, the more tactical schemes become available to the team, the more opportunities there are to beat the opposition. The more deeply engrained those motor skills are, the more effectively the game plan can be executed and the resilient to psychological stress and fatigue the game plan becomes.

Think back to standout games in the All Blacks history and these traits are self evident. In the 2015 Rugby World Cup semi final against South Africa, New Zealand opened the game looking to run and attack out wide. But South Africa absorbed it well, and then the rain started to pour down. In the second half there was a noticeable change in the game plan as the All Blacks kicked for territory and relied on Dan Carter’s field goals and a drop goal to close out the game.

Likewise, think about Stephen Donald’s penalty goal to win the 2011 World Cup in front of a home crowd who had not seen New Zealand win the tournament for 24 years. This came after being called up to the squad only days before. having been previously been dropped. That is some serious psychological pressure to perform under!

Two things stand out to me when I think about the skills training of the All Blacks I worked with. Firstly: they train fundamental skills religiously. No matter what your position, you are expected to be able pass, kick, catch, tackle, ruck, maul etc. They were by far the best players, they had the least to prove, but they practised the fundamentals of their sport the most.

Secondly: none of the skills training was particularly flashy. It was just solid basics, practised again and again in the context of the sport and position- building game understanding, making decisions, cementing good habits until they become autonomous. I’ve worked with flashier athletes, but to quote Bruce Lee, “Fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks one time, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. ”.

Competitiveness

I have never worked with a more competitive group of athletes than these All Blacks. These guys could turn anything into a competition: cards, X-box, golf, skills games before and after training. Whatever it is, they want to win. This is certainly not a trait that is unique to the All Blacks, but certainly when you combine it with the above factors, that is a recipe for success.

Competition is the engine of productivity. It pushes athletes to get themselves from one another. It desensitises athletes to the pressures of the game, and it gives context to learning; if it doesn’t matter, you’re probably not going to retain it as much. Is there a potential cost, whereby athletes who don’t naturally embrace competition are discouraged from being a part of the programme? Perhaps, but I am not sure this is the kind of individual you want playing in professional sport.

Lifelong learners

As with many Kiwi players who travel to Japan, the guys I worked with at Toshiba were at the end of their careers. They had already literally won everything in the game of rugby: NPC and Super Rugby titles, Four Nations titles, and the World Cup. Yet each player still had unwavering passion for rugby. They came to work each day with the attitude that there is always something new to learn, idea to try out and improvements to be made.

Please share so that others may benefit!

Strength Coach? Click here now to get access to our extensive library of video webinars, discussion threads and career advice from world class coaches.

Comments

comments

How Does the All Blacks Rugby Team Get in Shape?

New Zealand is extremely good at rugby.

Over the last 120 years, the men’s team, known as the All Blacks, have played 19 different countries in international competition. Eleven of those countries have never beaten New Zealand. And the Kiwis are the only side to have more wins than losses against every single opponent.

Outsiders may be familiar with the team’s famed haka, a traditional Māori dance, which they perform before every game. But the team is far more than a novelty act; it’s a well-oiled machine. Rugby is the country’s national sport for a reason. And to make (and stay on) the national team, the players follow a highly specific regimen.

According to a recent story at The Telegraph, the All Blacks training regimen can be broken down into eight core tenets. The publication spoke to the team’s strength and conditioning coach Nic Gill (also an associate professor in human performance at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand) who dished on the team’s “Big Rocks” philosophy.

Essentially, any effective, sustainable fitness foundation should be built upon boulders, not pebbles. Focus on mastering the basics — strength, mobility, flexibility, nutrition, mental health — instead of throwing random darts at the board and hoping something sticks.

With that frame of mind, the All Blacks’ “training secrets” are actually surprisingly simple:

• Compound lifts: These are big guys playing a contact sport. They need to emphasize heavy push and pull movements that recruit multiple joints. Think squats, deadlifts, bench press, etc.
• Core work: Planks, exercises with medicine balls, V-sits, barbell rollouts — it’s all critical for strength and stability in the midsection, and often makes other moves easier.
• Bodyweight circuits: We know Hemsworth is a huge fan. The All Blacks like to mix short bursts on the bike with strength training (pulls and presses) and mat work (like bear crawls).
• Bear crawls: On the subject of bear crawls, this team loves them. This is a common combat exercise, which steals elements from wrestling. It demands full range of motion from the shoulders and hips, plus a tight core.
• One leg at a time: Formally known as “single-limb work.” Think weighted squats and step-ups to make sure there aren’t any imbalances in the body. (Which can form when one leg is taking more of the load in a traditional exercise. )
• Spinning: Wattbikes make sure these guys — who are huge — can get serious cardio in without impacting their joints.
• Yoga: Big guys do yoga, too. Plus two sessions of soft tissue work a day.
• Keep an open mind: Gill maintains that the brains behind that All Blacks brawn are always receptive to new ideas in fitness — they’re just not going to build the base around trends or fad diets.

There you have it. If you challenged someone at the gym to start training for “rugby shape,” they might never make it past that very first bullet point. But the excellence going down on the other side of the world — at the moment, New Zealand is the top-ranked team on the planet — doesn’t come from a scattershot strength training regimen. It requires patient, holistic attack. And whether you tackle men for a living every weekend or not, it could help you achieve a happier, healthier life, too.

Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.

5 Workouts from England Rugby Legends to Build Strength and Speed

Even in these strange times, the Six Nations is a special time of year. After all, who doesn’t get excited by the prospect of five weeks of relentless fixtures starring some of international rugby’s finest?

We know we do, but we also get excited by all the work that goes into getting players Grand Slam ready, which is why we’ve collected some of our best-ever workouts from England rugby players of the past. Whether your ambition is to build power like James Haskell, speed like Ugo Monye or strength like Alex Corbisiero, there’s a workout here to get you in Grand Slam shape.

James Haskell’s Strength and Power Workout

If you covet the physique of an international rugby star, you need to train like someone who knows how to be one – and few can match former England back rower and 77-cap James Haskell. Use his exclusive strength and power programme to look like you mean business and leave competitors in no doubt of it.

Danny Cipriani’s Bodyweight Workout

For years he was more front page news than back but, as for the talent, that never went away. He’s not the first sports star to supernova in the light of his own potential but this workout reminds us of the work Cipriani still has to put in to be one of the game’s great entertainers.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Alex Corbisiero’s Strength Workout

Alex Corbisiero was once the undisputed champion of England’s front row, but successive injuries kicked his career out of contention. This strength workout is indicative of the kind of training that made Corbisiero leader of the pack.

Ugo Monye’s Speed Workout

As an England flyer, try-scoring Lion and Quin legend, Ugo Monye made a career out of clinical finishing and searing pace, which is why we asked one of the fastest men to ever wear the Red Rose of England how you can build the same match-winning speed.

Luther Burrell’s Power Workout

Newcastle Falcons midfield battering ram, Luther Burrell, is well-known for his hard running style and ability to make the hard yards in contact. Now, his combination of split squats, side planks and hill sprints will help you get over the #gainz line.

Sign up to the Men’s Health newsletter and kickstart your home body plan. Make positive steps to become healthier and mentally strong with all the best fitness, muscle-building and nutrition advice delivered to your inbox.

SIGN UP

For effective home workouts, uplifting stories, easy recipes and advice you can trust, subscribe to Men’s Health UK

SUBSCRIBE

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. io

Adidas redesigns All Blacks training apparel | Fashion & Retail News

Adidas redesigns All Blacks training apparel | Fashion & Retail News | News

OTHER PUBLICATIONS FROM MCL NEWS & MEDIA

©
2008 – 2021
MCL News & Media

Interested in advertising?

Simply give us a call

Sales: +44 1977 708488

Or if you prefer email, click on the button below and we’ll get back to you asap

Training Ground Guru | How to think like an All Black or a Gurkha

Written by Simon Austin — January 1, 2021

GAZING PERFORMANCE techniques are being used in some of the most pressurised environments in the world.

Front-line teams in NHS emergency departments and The British Army Royal Gurkha Rifles are among those to have worked with the Twickenham-based firm.

In sport, the New Zealand All Blacks are their most famous clients and have made no secret of the importance of the Red to Blue concept in helping them to win the 2011 and 2015 World Cups.

If you watch captain Kieran Read closely during any match this season, you’re likely to see him scanning the stands during high-pressure points, which is a rehearsed “cue” for getting from red to blue.

Red to Blue was developed in 2001 by Gazing directors Ceri Evans and Renzie Hanham and is described by CEO Martin Fairn as “easy to understand but difficult to carry out”.

Red is tight, inhibited and anxious; blue is calm, clear and accurate. Getting from one state to the other can be the difference between triumph and disaster – quite literally in the case of the military or NHS.

Gazing have been intimately involved with teams at the very highest level of sport. Evans and Hanham were part of the All Blacks’ mental analysis and leadership group in the run-up to the 2011 World Cup, while Fairn was on the shoulder of former England head coach Brian Ashton during training sessions.

Now, however, their methods are being made available to all.

Red2Blue coach training and certification is a new tailored programme for coaches, providing “access to Gazing’s underpinning theory, lesson plans, maps and practical tools”.

Anyone who enrols on the programme will start off with home study and an online webinar before taking part in a two-day face-to-face workshop, the first of which takes place in London on March 28th and 29th 2019.

Fairn says his vision for the certification is “that everybody could benefit from Gazing’s simple performance tools” via a programme “developed from elite sport and the high-pressure corporate world”.

The former Coventry rugby union player, who co-founded Gazing in 1998, believes mentality is still the most neglected of sport’s four corners (the others being technical, tactical and physical).

“One of the biggest reasons for this is because mentality is seen as a problem, not a skill,” he explains. “If you recognise it as a skill, then you break it down into components, just as you would if you were learning to ski, for example.

“If you want to get good at something, then you practise the components. That’s what we help people to do, rather than leaving it to chance or just seeing what happens.”

Case study: Jim McKay, Queensland Reds

These thoughts are echoed by Jim McKay, the attack coach for the Queensland Reds rugby union team, who is a long-term advocate of Gazing’s work, having first met them when he was coach of Henley Rugby Club in the late 1990s.

Speaking from Brisbane, the former Australia coach told TGG: “The simplicity is a point of difference. Are the players on-task, or off-task and how do they respond to pressure?

“Often, we aren’t aware of when we’ve gone off-task, either in sport or in everyday life. You get caught up in your response, whether it’s to the weather or a decision by the referee and get thrown off-track

“It’s about having the self-awareness to realise when this is happening and practising techniques to get back on-task.

“Mindset is often the most misunderstood area in sport and something coaches tend to steer away from.

“You can’t just look at the game through a tactical, technical or physical lens though, you need to look at it through a mental one too.

“These concepts have helped me a lot – both one-on-one with the players and individually for me as a coach. I might be upset at half time and it’s about recognising that and getting in a clear state to deliver my messages to the players. You need to be trained and educated in how to do that.”

McKay finds the Red2Blue map – “a one-pager broken down into examples of red and blue thinking, rather than a big manual” – very useful.

Gazing also encourage foreseeing and preparing for threats – i.e. things that can go wrong – and McKay says he sometimes introduces disruptive moments into training.

“A match is a chaotic and unpredictable environment,” he says. “In training, I might, for example, have a quiet word with a player and ask him to be disruptive, by throwing bad passes, and then see how the other players react.”

If they go off-task, work can be done on recognising this and developing a cue to get back on-task – such as Reed scanning the stadium or predecessor Richie McCaw stamping his feet on the turf.

Control circles are another Gazing’s concepts that McKay has found useful. “If something’s irritating you, you have to think whether it’s something you can control, can’t control, or can influence. Depending on which one it is, you allocate your energy accordingly.

“A player can’t control whether he’s selected for the team, but he can influence it, by getting fitter or improving his passing.”

McKay thinks the Gazing principles – which will be explored in much greater detail on the certification course – can help anyone in any walk of life.

“Every day of our lives we get off task,” he says, “whether it’s at home, at school or in our jobs. It’s about being aware of when it happens and being able to have the skillset to get back on task.”

To find out more about Red2Blue coach certification, click HERE.

Minnesota native Eddie Taylor training to climb Everest with first all-Black team

Updated: 7:40 p.m.

There’s not a lot of mountain climbing happening in Minnesota. But it was his upbringing in Detroit Lakes — visiting national parks and skiing with his family — that set Eddie Taylor up to join the first all-Black team of climbers training to take on Mount Everest next year.

“I ran track in high school and I ended up going to Colorado and walking on the track team,” Taylor said during a conversation with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer. “Being out here next to the mountains, there’s lots and lots of climbing, lots of mountain area and lots of rock climbing, and I just kind of got sucked in after finishing up sports and college.”

Taylor is now a high school science teacher and track coach in Colorado and is training with the Full Circle, a group of nine Black climbers who hope to make the trek up Everest next spring.

Eddie Taylor and his pack during a rock-climbing trip to Yosemite National Park in April.

Courtesy of Eddie Taylor

Led by veteran climber Phil Henderson, there are five other Black men on the team with Taylor, including Moanoah Ainuu, Fred Campbell, Dom Mullins, Thomas Moore and KG Kagambi, a native of Kenya. Abby Dione and Rosemary Saal finish off the group of nine as the two Black women climbers on the team.

It was a chance meeting with Henderson, the leader of the expedition, at a dog park in western Colorado that set Taylor up for this next adventure.

“There’s not a lot of Black people out there in that part of Colorado,” he said. “I was walking my dog and we just ran into each other, we started to chat. And then we actually went ice climbing later on that day and ran into each other again.”

Of the 10,000 climbers who have summited Everest, only 10 were Black, he said. The Full Circle Everest team hopes to not only increase those numbers next year but increase awareness and access to the outdoors for people of color.

“I was lucky, I was privileged, I got to go outside,” Taylor said of his upbringing in Minnesota. “I got taken national parks, I learned to ski at a young age, but I think that’s not typical for other climbers of color.”

Taylor said there are a lot of factors that go into the low numbers of Black climbers but one big issue is the lack of stories showing the success of these outdoor athletes.

“It makes it really, really difficult to go do something that you don’t see other people from your background do,” he said.

A look at the safety gear Eddie Taylor wears and carries with him while rock climbing.

Courtesy of Eddie Taylor

The team plans to head to the Himalayas on March 20 and return in early June, he said.

In the meantime, Taylor said he is focusing on increasing the weight of his pack while climbing so in the New Year he can add to his mileage as the team prepares for the 70-day adventure.

Taylor said he knows it is a dangerous endeavor. But as climbing became a more important part of his life, his goals for climbing increased. This trip has become a now attainable goal for the climber but he said the added importance of the message behind the team of climbers is an added bonus.

“Just to help inspire that next generation and to show that things are possible for people in our community makes it worth it,” he said.

The Full Circle Everest Expedition is supported by The Greening Youth Foundation but is also raising money to cover the costs of travel and support for the team.

You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives. Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together.

Donate today. A gift of $17 makes a difference.

90,000 What is endurance and how to train it

Every amateur athlete involved in such sports as: downhill and cross-country skiing, running, snowboarding, sports tourism, mountaineering, rock climbing is interested in such a category of physical form as “endurance”. Many people want to be “hardy” and easily cope with physical tasks, achieving goals in sports.

In this article we will analyze in detail what this category is – “endurance”, what are its features, what processes occur in the human body and how to manage them?

The article will contain a number of not very familiar terms for amateurs from the world of biology, physiology, but it is extremely difficult to do without them in order to explain – what happens to us during the load process and it is even more difficult to understand what to do to train this very “endurance” ?

We have simplified the explanation of all the processes to the maximum by providing links to special sections in Wikipedia, through which those interested can go and understand, if desired, in more detail.

After reading, you will have a whole picture and we are sure that everything is not so complicated, just read the article to the end.

For basic training planning, it is enough to understand two different terms that describe the physical condition of an athlete:

Strength and endurance. They are not the same thing.

Strength is a person’s ability to make a one-time instant maximum effort.

Endurance is the ability to repeat this maximum effort over a long period of time.

Strength without endurance makes no sense and endurance without strength is also useless.

Let’s take a closer look – what is endurance?

Endurance is the ability of muscles to do work. This ability depends on the intensity of the supply of nutrients to muscle cells, which, in turn, depends on the body’s ability to produce these substances. They are produced in different ways, depending on the intensity and duration of the load.

With the development of strength, everything is quite simple. There are sets of exercises for different muscle groups – in consultation with a professional trainer, you can choose the base load and do a certain number of repetitions with an increase in the load, after which you need to track the dynamics and adjust the composition of the exercises and the load if the dynamics of the results are not satisfactory. That is, the principle is simple – more and more often.

With the development of endurance, everything is also not difficult if there is an understanding of the internal processes of cell nutrition and an understanding of the training regimes for these processes.Let’s figure it out.

By the way!

If you are an athlete who is actively and constantly involved in sports, if you are an amateur who regularly participates in competitions, then we have special discount cards for you that allow you to receive significant discounts on the equipment, shoes or clothing you need.

How and what do muscles eat?

Muscles, in short, are fed in the process of performing work with one single ATP substance – adenosine triphosphate or adenosine triphosphate.

There is always a supply of ATP in our cells, which is constantly consumed and constantly replenished. This reserve is given to us by nature, the mechanism was formed many millions of years ago, it exists to ensure the everyday functionality of a person and is also associated with our ability to survive in sudden extreme conditions. Even without physical activity, our muscles are constantly working and consuming ATP: the heart beats, the arms and legs move – an elementary finger movement is the work of the muscles and the consumption of ATP by the cells.The ATP reserve is designed for the average performance of a person – for the rhythm of life that is characteristic of a particular person – for professional athletes it is one, for “lovers of sofas” – another.

If you lead an inactive lifestyle, then the supply of ATP in cells will be correspondingly small, but sufficient for the current rhythm of life. As soon as we give the body a sports load, the muscles need more ATP and the supply that is in the cells quickly ends. Usually, statistically average, the stock of ATP is enough for 3-5 seconds of intense exercise.If you suddenly get up off the couch and try to run into the distance, then the stock of ATP in your cages will be enough for 20-25 meters of running – those same 5 seconds, maximum.

Further, if the movement continues, then the body needs somewhere to take ATP to nourish the muscles, and it produces it with the help of creatine phosphate, which is constantly in muscle and nerve tissues. This energy source lasts for a few more seconds.

So, right now your cells have energies for 10-12 seconds of very intense movement.

After this fuel for movement is consumed, the body turns on the most powerful source of nutrition for cells, glycolysis – the process of oxidation of glucose contained in your body.

The first 2-5 minutes of intensive load glycolysis occurs in anaerobic mode, without active use of oxygen, but with active release of lactic acid (lactate), the concentration of which in the body rises sharply during this period of active movement.

After 5 minutes of active movement, fatty acids are included in the energy supply of the cells, and an aerobic mode of supplying the cells with high oxygen consumption begins.The body begins to restore reserves of ATP, creatine phosphate and dissolve lactic acid.

It is easy to guess that in order to improve physical capabilities, we need to develop all the components of the cell nutrition process. This is the only way to significantly improve your physical fitness and pump endurance.

What to train?

As you can see, there are four basic principles of cell nutrition at different stages of movement:

1. Residual ATP
2. Creatine Phosphate
3. Anaerobic glycolysis
4. Aerobic glycolysis and fatty acids.

To improve your endurance (remember that this is the ability to repeat this maximum effort for a long time), you need to train each of these components. Monotonous training for the development of one component does not make any sense. It does not happen that one way of feeding cells works. In cyclic sports, there is no dominant method of nutrition – everyone works, because the load is not uniform, but mostly ragged and impulsive.Even if you are running a marathon on an ideal asphalt, then at first you stand still and your balance of ATP spending = 0, then you start to move and spend only residual ATP, accelerate and, having spent the entire supply of ATP, connect creatine phosphate to increase muscle power – to reach the planned running pace, you run into a steep climb and you need to work harder – you knock your breath and take the body into a hard anaerobic, then the track flattens out and you return to aerobic mode … And so – all the time, because there are no perfectly flat tracks.

All nutritional principles work and you need to train everything.

Special OXD creams will help you prepare your muscles well for stress, quickly restore them after a strenuous workout or competition. We have a special article about what they are and how to apply them.

How to train?

Each principle must be trained separately, with an understanding of the specifics of training.

Residual ATP

More precisely, its amount in cells can be increased by adding regular physical activity to the rhythm of life.The more and more often a person moves, the more ATP is stored in the cells. Just give yourself more and more often a variety of, albeit not the most difficult, loads. The body will understand that the load is constant and will also constantly have a “supply of fuel” to provide them.

Aerobic oxygen mode

Trains with long (60-90 minutes) and low intensity workouts. Slow but long running, cycling, walking. Such training well restores the body and cleanses it of excess concentration of lactate, which is formed as a result of anaerobic training.

Anaerobic mode

Trained by repetition of short duration and loaded loads with recovery between repetitions so that the next repetition turns on the anaerobic mode of cell nutrition, and not the aerobic one.

The best form of training anaerobic regimen – classic “intervals”, fartlek, cross-country running at different rates.

Between anaerobic workouts (especially for amateurs), breaks should be taken sufficient to restore and utilize accumulated lactate in the muscles.Usually, a pause of two to three days is enough for recovery, the duration of recovery depends on the person’s condition and the format of recovery – aerobic training helps to recover.

By the way! When your friend or close person is just starting to play sports, it is very important to support him morally. But it is also important to do this financially – by giving him some accessory he needs, for example, a comfortable bandana BUFF.

If you are not sure of the correctness of your choice in terms of color, size, functionality, then in this case it is best to buy and donate special certificates.

A beginner athlete will be extremely grateful to you!

How to determine the load?

It’s not difficult, but for training one or another diet, a certain load is needed. Nutrition of cells is the body’s response to a load, therefore, it is necessary to choose those loads to which the body reacts by switching on the diet we need. That is, it is not the load, not the running speed, not the weight of the barbell that is important, but the body’s response to the load. What can help us determine the body’s response to stress?

Pulse

It is the frequency of contractions of the heart muscle that perfectly informs us about what diet is working in the body.It is on the pulse that you can accurately adjust the load for training one or another cell nutritional regimen. A special sports watch with a heart rate monitor allows you to measure your heart rate during training.

A special sports watch will help you to accurately measure your heart rate both during training and during rest (and even during sleep).

All sports watches in “Kant”

And in this article you can read about a Suunto sports watch – what important “tricks” and necessary functions they have.

Recommended models:

It is impossible to effectively train different modes of cell nutrition without pulse control. That is why heart rate monitors are used by all athletes and amateurs who value the effectiveness of training.

Changes in physiological reactions to different loads and to different nutritional regimen of cells

1. When using the stock of ATP in the body, no processes are triggered and neither respiration nor human pulse changes dramatically.
2. When using creatine phosphate, all enrichment processes take place directly in the cell with the release of carbon dioxide – breathing becomes more frequent to free the body from carbon dioxide, the pulse quickens slightly, but exponentially, to remove carbon dioxide from the cells through the blood into the lungs.
3. When glycolysis is turned on, the pulse rate is seriously increased to remove lactate and carbon dioxide from the cells.
4. When you turn on the power due to fatty acids in the body, metabolic processes are triggered, as a result of which breathing is enhanced to provide metabolic processes with oxygen and to remove a large amount of carbon dioxide – the heart rate (pulse) increases to deliver oxygen from the lungs to the muscles and remove carbon dioxide released during the breakdown of fat.

If you want to train and progress with high quality, then we recommend that you contact our partners – companies that have proven themselves in the organization of training processes:

With a load of more than five minutes in the body, the oxygen mode of cell enrichment is fully started and works, and if the rhythm of the load does not increase and the muscles are sufficiently produced in this way ATP, then the pulse decreases and normalizes.

If, in this state, the load is increased, then the consumption of ATP increases and all the same processes that work at the beginning of physical activity are added to the already working oxygen enrichment – the already restored supply of ATP starts to be consumed again, the use of creatine phosphate is switched on and aerobic glycolysis starts – in the blood, the concentration of lactate (lactic acid) rises again, and the pulse and respiration become more frequent.

If the load does not decrease and oxygen enrichment is insufficient, then both oxygen and anaerobic enrichment processes work simultaneously. In this case, the heart rate increases significantly and breathing becomes significantly faster.

The pulse threshold, upon reaching which oxygen enrichment is not enough for work and even with a uniform load, anaerobic glycolysis is activated, is called the threshold of anaerobic metabolism (TANM). It is different for each person and is determined empirically by measuring the pulse with a change in load.It is according to TANM that it is possible to build a training plan for the development of different modes of muscle enrichment, because it is TANM that is the border of the modes of oxygen and anaerobic enrichment of cells.

There are five zones of load, depending on the pulse, corresponding to the threshold of anaerobic cell enrichment (TANM):

Before reaching TANM – oxygen enrichment works, above TANM – both oxygen and anaerobic.

Now, understanding how the processes on which endurance depend are arranged, it is possible to analyze in detail the principles of building specific training plans.This topic is considered by us in a separate, special article – “How to draw up a running training plan correctly?”

You definitely cannot do without the right equipment, clothing and footwear if you seriously want to play sports and progress. The element of awareness is also important here, especially if you have serious goals – half marathon, marathon, long trail runs.

Our professional sellers in Kant stores will help you to understand the abundance of offers, as well as special, detailed articles:

Useful links that will lead you directly to special sections on our website, where you can choose for yourself everything you need for running, which will help you to perform any training plan with high quality:

When buying via the Internet, we offer various payment systems:

• in cash to courier
• by bank transfer
• on card
• by installments
• with gift voucher

All details on different forms of payment

New items in Kant:

90,000 Can I drink coffee before or after training?

A cup of your favorite aromatic coffee in the morning can energize you for the whole day.But it’s one thing to drink coffee with breakfast to wake up, and quite another to include it in your workout plan.

In this note, the online store “Vinnytska Filizhanka” will try to understand this difficult issue and find out at last whether it is possible to drink coffee after a workout? Is coffee good for pre-workout? What effect does caffeine have on the body’s recovery? Will coffee help you lose weight?

Caffeine. Benefit and harm

Since its inception, coffee has been surrounded by many myths and lengands, some of them swing directly from its influence on our body.

Coffee owes its invigorating effect to its high caffeine content. Caffeine is a major nervous system stimulant found in tea, some nuts, cocoa, and most of the beans. We have all heard about the effect of caffeine on the body more than once, and even more so experienced it on ourselves:

• Caffeine relieves drowsiness;

• increases the reaction rate;

• improves mood;

• stimulates brain activity;

• has a positive effect on the production of hormones responsible for the feeling of happiness and well-being.

And although every year there is more and more scientific research and data on this topic, many scientists and doctors are still arguing about the dangers and benefits of coffee and caffeine for our body.

On the one hand, coffee is great invigorating, on the other – does a person involved in jogging, fitness or strength training really need this extra vigor? After all, the training process itself perfectly stimulates the nervous system.

Let us examine this issue in more detail for each individual case!

Can I drink coffee before exercise?

A small cup of your favorite aromatic and delicious coffee before your workout is a great idea if you will not drink it on an empty stomach and no later than an hour before activity.

In this case, coffee will play into the hands of those who have completely lost their strength and motivation after a hard day at work, those who are preparing to set a record in their studies and simply those who want to approach training with even greater enthusiasm and desire.

If you are bothered by any pains, including heart and head pains, pressure rises, you feel anxious and agitated – it is better to refuse coffee. You should not test your nervous system once again before exhausting physical activity!

The main thing to remember is that all this applies only to a natural, high-quality product.And you can find one in our Filizhanka online store. It has never been so easy to buy coffee from the comfort of your home!

Can I drink coffee after exercise?

Regarding the consumption of caffeine after active physical work, doctors still have not come to a common conclusion. So let’s take a look at both of their opinions!

Post-workout coffee. Negative consequences

• Caffeine after active physical exertion unnecessarily burdens the already excited nervous system;

• May affect the work of the cardiovascular system by narrowing blood vessels and thereby slowing down the normal blood circulation necessary for full recovery;

• Affects the liver and the transport of essential nutrients to the muscles, interferes with the active transport of proteins for muscle recovery and growth;

• Everyone knows that coffee causes mild dehydration, which is why decent coffee shops serve it with a glass of water.During training, your body is already actively losing water through perspiration and a cup of coffee for even greater dehydration is clearly not at all what it needs;

• Coffee may cause arrhythmias and breathing difficulties.

Post-workout coffee. Positive Impact

• On the other hand, coffee, as a natural tonic, helps relieve fatigue after exercise;

• Helps to reduce muscle pain by eliminating the main cause of their appearance – lactic acid;

• Helps relieve headaches and feeling unwell if caused by a drop in blood pressure.

Whether or not to drink coffee after a workout is up to you. But in order to avoid bad consequences, we recommend refraining from caffeine (after all, it is found not only in coffee!) For at least 2-3 hours after training. Even if you train in the morning, and after that you need to be vigorous and active at work all day, it’s better to wait a few hours, make a coffee break right at the workplace!

Coffee for weight loss

Have you heard the myth that a cup of coffee after exercise helps in the fight against excess weight? This misconception is especially popular among girls.

Of course, you can assume that since your immediate plans do not include building muscle mass, then coffee after workouts is not forbidden to you. But be careful!

Do not forget that any workout is stressful for our body. For good muscle and nervous system recovery, we need only the most favorable conditions: drinking plenty of clean water to restore water balance, a large meal to restore energy and good sleep.

Coffee, in turn, can only provoke unnecessary overstrain of the nervous system and delay the recovery process. We doubt that you definitely need it!

Coffee and recovery

As we said, post-workout coffee can only be beneficial when viewed in the short term:

• It perfectly helps to cope with fatigue, drowsiness and apathy;

• Improves mood and energizes;

• Helps fight headaches and fatigue in people with low blood pressure.

Use caffeine after exercise only if you need to recover quickly or you know that your sleepiness is due to low blood pressure.

In all other cases, we recommend that you refrain from drinking a cup of your favorite drink for at least the first few hours. Remember, in the long term, your full recovery is much more important than immediate results!

The best post workout drink is water! But before training, it is quite permissible to pamper yourself with your favorite coffee drink.

Can i drink coffee after exercise?

4.13 / 5

33

90,000 12 side effects of training that we encounter in the gym / AdMe

Exercise can make a person stronger, improve the functioning of the brain and other organs, normalize sleep, help achieve an ideal figure and slow down the aging process. However, many beginners and even advanced gym goers can experience unpleasant symptoms that arise with increased physical activity, for which it is better to be prepared in advance.

We at 5 Fun Facts have collected for you 12 of the most common side effects of training and prepared recommendations for eliminating them.

Important!

Any physical activity, especially with great excess weight and the presence of serious diseases, it is better to start under the guidance of an experienced trainer and doctor. In addition, you should definitely pay attention to changes in well-being. If you are worried about your condition, do not self-medicate, but immediately contact a specialist.

Muscle twitching

• Cause: Spasms, or muscle fasciculations, result from electrolyte imbalance and fatigue.
• How to fix? Always drink during training – at least cool water, and it is better to use sports drinks containing the necessary trace elements for the body if the exercise was hard. Stretching after class is also worth doing.

Lachrymation and nasal congestion

• Reason: physical activity dilates and narrows the vessels in the sinus sinuses.Rhinitis and banal allergies are also possible.
• How to fix? Exercise in well-ventilated and air-conditioned areas away from roads, spray if necessary.

Itchy skin

• Cause: physical activity makes the heart pump more blood and dilates all blood vessels and capillaries. They activate nerve endings that transmit signals to the brain that are interpreted as itching.
• How to fix? Go to the gym regularly: then the brain will get used to it and stop responding to the stimulus.The longer the break in training, the more pronounced itching can be. If you develop hives, you should see your doctor.

Desire to defecate

• Reason: tremors and vibration of the legs resonate with the gastrointestinal tract and literally make the organs “wake up” and activate. This is especially felt by joggers (there is even a special term “runner’s diarrhea”).
• How to fix? Eat 2 hours before training and eliminate fatty and fiber-rich foods.Be sure to warm up before running.

Cold, ice-bound belly

• Cause: When exercising, there is more blood in the muscles than in the internal organs. Muscles generate a lot of heat, which is removed by the skin, so the belly can feel cool to the touch.
• How to fix? This is a normal physiological response. After finishing the workout, this sensation will disappear.

Nausea

• Cause: The outflow of blood from the intestines and shaking of internal organs can provoke discomfort in the stomach.
• How to fix? Avoid high fiber intake on workout days. Better yet, remember the foods that provoke these sensations and try not to eat them anymore before going to the gym. If you get nauseous, take a few sips of water or sports drink, or sip on some soda. You can also eat candy to raise your glucose levels or chew gum.

Dizziness

• Reason: a sharp flow of blood to the legs in a standing position, overheating and termination of the exercise.
• How to fix? Remember to warm up before training and stretch afterwards. Rest between approaches can be carried out while sitting: in any case, the blood rushes to the heart. To prevent fainting and possible injury, if the condition worsens, you should sit, or even better, lie on a mat, ensuring blood flow to the head.

Numbness of toes

• Cause: Swelling of the feet from heat emitted by the muscles, tight shoes and even inflammation of the nerves.
• How to fix? Periodically wiggle your toes to disperse blood congestion and purchase specific athletic shoes of the correct size.

Bruises

• Reason: fragile vessels, malnutrition and commonplace bruises.
• How to fix? Be more careful in class and reduce the load, take medications to increase the elasticity of blood vessels, include foods rich in vitamin C in the diet.Better to see your doctor for recommendations on how to perform certain exercises.

Flank pain

• Cause: Transient abdominal pain (ETAP) occurs when running without warming up. The blood flow increases, and blood begins to flow from the internal organs to the muscles, but this does not happen evenly. The liver and spleen overflow with blood and press on their own membrane.
• How to fix? Stop or slow down.You can squeeze the aching area right on the run while inhaling and release it while exhaling – this will mechanically disperse the blood. And you should always watch your breathing while running.

Darkening of urine

• Cause: this may be due to dehydration and rhabdomyolysis – the destruction of muscle cells during exercise.
• How to fix? Be sure to drink while exercising, and if symptom persists, see your doctor.

Diseases

• Cause: Delayed Muscle Pain Syndrome (DOMS) occurs 24–72 hours after training after a long break or at a higher intensity than usual.Its appearance is associated with the accumulation of metabolic products in the muscles and microtraumas that inevitably occur during exercise. In this case, pain is felt throughout the body or the area on which the exercises were performed, tremors may be observed (to the point that it is literally impossible to stand up).
• How to fix? Try to move more and drink water in spite of pain in order to quickly remove toxins from the body. You can also get a massage.

Have you experienced any side effects after exercising? And if so, how did you fight them? Share your experience in the comments!

Black Desert: Black Spirit training

On December 20, 2017 in the Russian version of Black Desert online a new character leveling mechanic appeared – Black Spirit Training (.Thanks to her, you can upgrade your character while you are in afc, that is, you cannot be at the computer and actively play.

This type of pumping can be used by characters who have reached level 50 and above.

In order to start leveling your character, you need to contact the NPC Black Spirit Training Jamie Treiker, who stands near the training scarecrows (scarecrow) in the big cities of the game world: Velia, Heidel, Calpheon, Altinova, Valencia, Grana.

After starting a dialogue with Jamie Treiker, you will find the following items in his shop.

You can pump combat experience and skill experience, both separately and simultaneously. For each type of experience there is a corresponding book with different usage times of 1, 3, 5, 10 hours, respectively, and the price is different.

After you have acquired the necessary books, activate them and go to the training dummy. Press R to interact with the dummy and your character will begin training.

Pay attention:

• books for experience and skills can be used at the same time;
• during training, experience is awarded every 3 minutes: if you interrupt the training before the next 3 minutes have elapsed, the experience will not be counted;
• during training you can use potions and food, during training you will not be able to use them from the inventory, but you can use it in quick slots;
• you can not move the character and take any active actions during training.

Combat experience

In addition, as you train, your combat experience only rises to 99%, but you will have to increase the level by killing mobs.

The training of combat experience has effects that accelerate the rate of pumping: for example, “Tom of War”, pet skills and weekend rates.

Skill Experience

Skill points are awarded when a character gains the required amount of experience.

None of the bonuses apply to skill experience training.

I, of course, did not make the maximum measurements, but so purely for experience, I put the character at lvl 50 with buffs: Apology for 1 hour GM and Dark beer (though for 30 minutes).

After an hour of training, my character gained 2,384% combat experience and 18 skill points.

Related Articles In Orbit Games

Smart watch for fitness and training SUUNTO 3 FITNESS ALL BLACK, price 7425 UAH

RELIABLE SMARTWATCH FOR FITNESS, TRAINING AND MAINTAINING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

The

Suunto 3 Fitness SS050020000 is a beautiful and reliable fitness watch with smart features for those with an active lifestyle who value health and wellness.The watch creates a personalized training plan for you that adapts to your needs. Get real-time guidance to help you train at the right intensity. 24/7 activity tracking with steps, calories and sleep, as well as stress and recovery monitoring, provide a holistic view of the day and help maintain a healthy balance of activity and relaxation.

MODEL FEATURES

• Adaptive Training Plans
• Activity Tracker
• Sleep quality tracking
• Stress and Recovery
• Heart rate zones
• Wrist Pulse
• Connect to GPS
• Water resistance (up to 30 m)

ADAPTIVE TRAINING TIPS

There are three adaptive tips modes to choose from.Choose the regimen that best suits your goal: maintaining your current physical condition, moderately increasing your fitness level (default), boosting your fitness level with more intense exertion. With any mode selected, Suunto 3 Fitness smartwatch creates a weekly training plan with the optimal duration and intensity of each exercise.

The workout plan automatically adjusts to your current activity, so if you miss a workout or overdo it in joy, you don’t have to manually make changes.
Scheduled exercises are easy to activate and once started, the watch will help you maintain the desired intensity.

READY FOR ALL SPORTS

The Suunto 3 Fitness smartwatch is ready for all your sports, from running, swimming and cycling to strength training, hiking and more. The watch uses a built-in cadence sensor to measure speed and distance while running or walking, so it can be measured even when exercising indoors.

Wrist-based heart rate measurement makes it easy, and the water resistance of up to 30 meters means you can swim safely in your watch.

BALANCE OF ACTIVITIES AND RECREATION

Suunto 3 Fitness automatically keeps track of your daily steps and calories. But good sleep is very important for the balance of activity. Wear Suunto 3 Fitness at night to keep a sleep log. After waking up, you will see a report on how much you slept and how much it helped your recovery.

In addition, the watch measures your stress and recovery levels throughout the day to keep you energized throughout the day.

SPECIFICATIONS

SPECIFICATIONS

GENERAL

CONNECTIVITY

APP

BATTERY LIFE

PHYSICAL DATA

24/7

ACTIVITY TRACKING

SLEEP TRACKING

STRESS AND RECOVERY

LEISURE FUNCTIONS

GPS TRACKING & NAVIGATION

WEATHER

TRAINING FUNCTIONS

ADAPTIVE TRAINING TIPS

INTERVAL TRAINING

HEART RATE

SPEED AND DISTANCE

Post-Workout Recovery

TRAINING LOAD

SHARE AND EXPERIENCE

SPORTS ACHIEVEMENTS EXPERIENCE

SWIMMING

BIKING

RUN

MULTIPLE SPORT TRAINING

SPORT MODES

About SUUNTO

Suunto was founded in 1936.traveler and inveterate orienteering fan Thomas Vohlonen. Today it offers consumers a wide range of sports and premium watches, in the development of which the brand focuses on lovers of specific sports and ways of active recreation.

Suunto is located in Finland. It is here that most of the products are constructed, which – the pride of the company – are hand-assembled in the main factory in the suburbs of Helsinki. The goal of the manufacturer is to create the best tools for adventure and sports enthusiasts that help them explore and conquer new territories.Not only the highest peaks and ocean depths, but any other place.

The company is headquartered in Vantaa, Finland. It employs over 500 people around the world, and the sales market for its products covers more than 100 countries. The company is a subsidiary of Helsinki-based Amer Sports Corporation and its sister brands include Wilson, Salomon, Atomic, Precor, Arc’teryx and Mavic.

All about the benefits of bodyweight training at skyfitness.ua

Exercises with your own body weight – an affordable, convenient workout, it does not need exercise equipment or sports equipment. Fitness trainers insist: only desire and time are needed for a good warm-up, therefore they develop circular, strength, functional training with their own weight.

1. Bodyweight circuit training – a set of routine exercises for different muscle groups, which are repeated in a circle: squats, lunges, pull-ups, push-ups, jumping out of squats.
2. Strength exercises focus on the number of sets.
3. Functional training uses only those muscles that a person uses in daily life.

Bodyweight workouts are the most popular: there is no need to pay for the gym because all the exercises are done at home.

1. Exercising with your own body weight: benefit or harm?

Scientists have proven that a weight that does not exceed body weight is considered safe for muscles.Human muscle mass is not naturally designed for bodybuilding or powerlifting, so professional athletes involved in heavy sports have gone a long way in training before they were able to achieve success. Bodyweight strength exercises are the safest in terms of stress. The most famous:

• squat with a jump and a turn on 180 degrees;
• burpees;
• push-up tracks;
• Jumping Jack;
• running in place with high knees;
• jump lunges;
• elbow placket that converts to straight arms plank.

Professional fitness trainers have a unique set of exercises aimed at working out all muscle groups: in sports, their order, the number of approaches, and the frequency of execution are important.

1. Functional Bodyweight Training

Functional exercises mimic everyday movement in many ways: they focus on coordination, agility, flexibility, balance and functional strength. Functional training uses your own body weight, accessories with a balancing base (trampoline).

Exercises with your own body weight are good because they can be performed without leaving home: you do not need specialized equipment or simulators, only a correctly drawn up training program, desire, perseverance.

How to continue training when everything is against you

Appreciate the process more than the result

The fitness industry beckons people by manipulating long-term goals (slim body, muscle relief), as well as a sense of guilt: everyone looks like gods, and you are a bag.This generates income for the gyms, but leaves the person without results.

Any extrinsic motivation is short-term. If it is not strong enough, the person stops exercising before reaching the goal, if it is enough – after he has received what he wants: lost weight, pumped up, cured pain in the neck and back. After some time after this, the fat returns, the muscles go away, and the problem areas begin to hurt again.

Intrinsic motivation, on the contrary, is long-term. If you realize that life is worse without training than with it, that your body just needs to move, sweat and gasp in order to feel good, then do not quit exercising, regardless of external conditions.

Building intrinsic motivation takes time and immediate rewards during or after each workout.

Find immediate gratification, an incentive that will keep you engaged.

It can be a feeling of pleasant tiredness in the body and calmness in thoughts. A sense of your own rightness. The realization that your body is strong and healthy. Or pleasant communication with like-minded people. You have to get something out of every workout, otherwise, give up.

Don’t do what you hate

If you absolutely don’t like your workouts and after two weeks of training they still feel like hell, try something else. You don’t have to force yourself to do things that are psychologically difficult for you. I know people who hate running and gymnastics, but love barbell exercises. If they associated sport with running, they would recognize themselves as unsportsmanlike.

Find a sport that doesn’t jerk you when mentioned.

But at the same time, do not expect universal love – this is the other extreme, because of which it may turn out that you do not have your favorite sport.

Don’t expect big love

Remember that you don’t have to love sports completely. The main thing is that he pleases you with something.

I love exercise with my body weight. But in intensive complexes, when it’s really hard, they don’t please me at all. I hate exercises in which you have to raise the barbell over your head, but at the same time I am proud of myself when I manage to do a clean and jerk with a new weight.

Be kinder to yourself

Some people like the tough motivation: “You have to! If he couldn’t, then he didn’t want to! ” – and similar aggressive statements.

Often they do not take into account the circumstances: one person lives next to the park, the other – in a polluted and cramped center. One has a quiet job, the other has rush jobs, stress and physical labor. One went in for sports since childhood, the other was even in a special group at school.

Consider your circumstances and tone down your inner motivator tyrant.If your workout doesn’t work out, don’t be in a hurry to scold yourself. Just think about why it happened and how you can prevent it from happening in the future.

Combine business with pleasure

Combine multiple goals. For example, involve friends or relatives in training, and you will see each other much more often than usual.

My best friend and I actually see each other only in the gym. That’s five to six hours a week – far more than we could spend together, given work and family.The time between sets is never boring, and I always have additional motivation to come to training: to see and discuss everything that has accumulated over the week.

Prepare early

This makes it harder to quit and easier to form a habit. Notify your family about your plans, pack a bag with sports things, download more music to the player. With these preparations, you will have no doubt whether to go or not.

Plan your time and stop assassination attempts

Many people prioritize work, family, friends, but not self-care.

Shift your priorities and you will see how time for sports suddenly appears in a busy schedule.

In my schedule, three nights a week are reserved for training. No one encroaches on them, all friendly meetings, work tasks and other activities are easily and simply transferred to other days and hours. Get yourself a time like this, and let it be inviolable.

Set a skip limit

If you cannot exercise on certain days, at least set a limit for yourself how much time you can spend without training.For example, if you know that the holidays are coming, a blockage at work or other circumstances, you need to work out before that so as not to exceed the limit.

Don’t be discouraged if someone is progressing faster

All people have different workability: some have to plow to achieve what others do playfully. You can practice for two years, gradually achieving certain success, and then a newcomer will come to the gym and catch up with you in two weeks. In such a situation, it is easy to despair and quit sports, admitting that you are not made for it.

Don’t compare or blame yourself. You may have different ages, sports experience, genetically determined characteristics: muscle length, number of fast and slow muscle fibers, excitability of the nervous system. You are like two different planets – just as complex and absolutely incomparable.

If you have success, and training is enjoyable, do not think of giving up because of comparisons. But if there is no success at all, it’s time to change something.

If something doesn’t work, change it

There are many training systems.Some suit you, others make you suffer. If your workouts do not work, although you have been exercising regularly for a long time, change them. Try something else, otherwise you may have the wrong opinion: “Nothing helps me, sport is not for me.”

Study at home

If you have reasons not to leave the house for training, such as a small child, lack of time or money, bad weather or shyness, you can easily study in a spare room, in the hallway, in the kitchen.

Part of my training takes place at home: there is simply no time to spend in the gym as much as I want. Therefore, I added two home workouts to the three workouts in the gym.

You have no idea how many exercises can be done using the means at hand. More recently, I did lunges around the room with a 13 kg child on my shoulders, and when he got tired – with a seven-kilogram tent. But in fact, there are many more possibilities.

Promise yourself to exercise slowly

This can help if you are mentally tired rather than physically tired.In such a state, for example, after intense mental work, it is very difficult to force yourself to practice.

Try to fool yourself by promising to make your workout easier than usual. Chances are, in the process, you will get involved and do as much as you always did.

After work I often say to myself: “You are tired, do three laps instead of five, and then you will sit down to dinner.” In the end, I have never done less. When you have already completed three circles, you feel that you do not seem to be tired, you can still, and finish it to the end.

Use music

Music sets the mood, entertains, motivates. I can’t imagine how you can do long cardio without music: time flies with it, and you move more actively, adjusting to the rhythm.

And this applies not only to training, but also to preparation for them. If I’m not in the mood to train, on the way to the gym, I play my Go to Workout playlist. There are many songs to which you want to perform feats, be cool and heroically practice until you lose consciousness.

Listened to a couple of tracks – from a lifeless rag she turned into an athlete who craves feats, thrusters and burpees in a vest with a weight. Well, maybe not thrusters …

Watch the video

Instead of music for motivation, you can use a visual series – video. Watch a few videos of people who play the same sport as you.