Identifying Physical Capacity for Rugby

UTC the feeder club to the Catalans Dragons have recently recruited some of the best junior players in France to play in the French league and hopefully progress to playing in Super League.

In their first session in the gym what I really want to see from them is the following:

This evaluation is done visually as well as on the scales and through the biosignature modulation method. By getting an idea of whether a guy has the height / weight composition profile of a super league player gives an idea of how far off they are physically from playing at the top level. If a player arrives lean and muscular with little training background you know the guy has part of the physical package covered. There is only one Rob Burrow and not too many Eorl Crabtree’s. If you’re a long way from the norms you’re going to need to have something special about you.

Before I came to France I did a body weight analysis by position and club of all the NRL teams. Surprisingly it showed not only an almost exact correlation with the league table at the time but the State of Origin and Australian teams were the heaviest teams of all. Dave Taylor and Greg Inglis are a couple of current examples of oversized star players.

American Samoans have a 40 times better chance of playing in the NFL than a Non-Samoan American! This same tendency exists in rugby league and it shows us that being big and powerful are 2 key characteristics that help if you want to play rugby at the highest level.

When a new kid comes in and he jumps over 26-27” with average technique you know you’re working with an athlete, if they’re around the 22” mark you know it’s a long road ahead! Vertical jump is the best physical predictor of whether a player will make it in the NFL, I believe that same is the case in Rugby League. From my experience anything over 30” for middle men 32” for everyone else (measured on the just jump mat) is a good score for a rugby league player. If you’re thinking “they’re not basketballers why do I care if they can jump” consider that it’s the high correlation with acceleration and agility that makes the test interesting.

We test with this machine –

Call me a madman but when I see a kid that can perform a great looking squat I get excited. Chest up, straight back, good hip range, drive through the heels. It also happens that the guys who have good at the technique with little training tend to get less injuries and be more powerful. You’re not going to get this with every kid but the ability to do an ATG (arse to grass) back squat is a great place to start in the gym.

Once the player has got the technique right the goal is to lift more that one and two thirds body weight. Note that I’m talking about a full depth squat here. If we’re talking about a curtsy for the queen then 2.5 times body weight should be possible.

After this there are lots of other evaluations and factors that will decide if a kid becomes a professional or not but ticking these 3 boxes enough to give me a smile!

With experienced lifters the olympic lift variations are great for power development. Knowing this is possible from a someone who might play centre or second row raises mental limits on what a rugby player can lift.

Keegan Smith is the Catalan Dragons Strength, Speed, Nutrition guy, Paleo food lover and occasional mystic. He’s PICP 2 and Biosignature qualified.KeeganSH.com is his website or you can find him on twitter @KeeganSH.