I am currently in the midst of my rugby season and have a few questions for you. My training schedule breaks down as follows. We play a match every saturday morning (80 intense minutes), train for 1 hour-1.5 hours Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening AND Thursday evening. These training sessions can be pretty tough.

I would like to continue resistance training but am finding it very difficult to recover from the training sessions alone. I feel stiff, sore and rundown by thursday and am often not 100% for the match. I fear throwing in weights to the mix will exacerbate the situation. Do you have any tips for recovery and how would you implement resistance training into this schedule? Cheers in advance EC, your book is awesome!

It’s all about selecting the appropriate volume and exercises.

In terms of volume, you need to keep volume down and frequency up in the 2-3 sessions per week range. Sessions shouldn’t last more than 30-40 minutes. Get in, keep your strength up with a few heavy sets, then do just enough prehab work to keep you healthy.

In terms of exercise selection, don’t rotate exercises too frequently in-season. Stick to familiar ones to minimize soreness.

Eric Cressey