Exercise selection

When resistance training, exercise selection plays a big part in the resultant adaptations. The exercises selected impact on the movement patterns and musculature that are targeted and overloaded. Exercise selection can lead to a more general resistance training programme or it can focus the training on a specific area.

When planning to develop a general preparatory resistance training programme or an anatomical adaptation-based resistance training programme, the exercise selection may include exercises for all the main muscle groups or movement patterns and exercises that challenge these muscles in different ways. The hamstrings muscles, for example, extend the hip and flex the knee. To train the hamstrings in both of their functions, the coach may include a hip extension exercise like a Romanian deadlift and a knee flexion exercise such as a leg curl.

Exercise selection can also make a resistance training programme more specific to the needs of a player or position. The coach can programme exercises that will replicate the demands placed on the body during specific rugby skills. This could lead to enhanced performance in the rugby specific skill as the body adapts to the resistance training. For example, a front row forward must be able to scrum effectively, so the coach may select exercises specific to the skill of scrummaging to include in the resistance training programme. Mills and colleagues in 2019 looked at strength training for improving scrum performance. After a detailed analysis of the scrum and the forces involved, they identified the need to build strength in the neck extensor muscles, the back-extensor muscles and the extensor muscles of the hips, knees, and ankles. They also identified the importance of horizontal force production in the scrum and that coaches should look to develop this in their resistance training programmes to improve scrum performance. From this information, the coach could use exercise selection to target scrum performance. The squat or deadlift exercises would be great choices for building muscle and strength in the extensor muscles of the back, hip, knees, and ankles. The neck extensors could require some weighted neck extensions to specifically target their development. To develop horizontal force production, the players could push weighted sleds. This would mimic the body position of the scrum and target the important muscles for scrummaging.