Game Specific Conditioning

Benefits

Game-specific conditioning looks to improve both aerobic and anaerobic fitness, but also integrates technical skills and tactical awareness. By modifying rugby games with specific rules, coaches can maintain high-intensity game play, which encourages decision-making, communication and execution of skills, while mimicking the demands of game play (Campbell, Peake and Minett, 2018). Conditioning, which integrates rugby-specific skills such as tackling, passing and rucking, can help players to maintain technical performance when fatigued.

Methods of training

Small-Sided Games

Small-sided games are a commonly used training modality in rugby to develop technical, tactical and physical qualities. Small-sided games can be manipulated by placing task constraints on the game, such as playing rules, pitch dimensions, player numbers and work-to-rest ratio (Zanin et al., 2021).

Playing Rules

Playing rules can be manipulated, such as incorporating two-handed touch instead of tackling to increase the speed of the game while also increasing the opportunity of more technical actions such as passing (Morley et al., 2016).

Pitch dimensions

The size of the playing pitch can be adjusted to target specific areas of physical and tactical adaptation. Larger playing areas tend to elicit greater external load, such as running speeds and distance covered, while small playing areas generally lead to a greater technical component (Zanin et al., 2021).

Player numbers

Adjusting the playing numbers in the game is linked with the pitch dimensions, as these two variables affect the relative playing area of each player. When players have a greater relative playing area, due to greater pitch dimension and/or fewer playing numbers, this generally leads to greater external load. Lower relative playing area leads to greater technical skill being performed (Zanin et al., 2021).

Work-to-rest ratio

Work-to-rest ratios can be manipulated to match the demands seen in gameplay. External load (e.g. total distance) has been shown to be similar across multiple work-to-rest ratios ranging from continuous play to highly intermittent play, such as 6:1 or 4:1 ratios (Zanin et al., 2021). Higher work-to-rest ratios have been shown to have greater internal loads, such as rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and time spent above 90% maximal heart rate (Zanin et al., 2021).