Five strength exercises every rugby sevens player should do

Strength plays a key role in a player’s conditioning to help them excel at the sport and reduce injuries. It takes many months of consistent training to prepare a player for the physical stress endured at the highest level.

The current head of strength and conditioning for Great Britain Sevens, James Nolan, summed up its importance succinctly: “Strength underpins, muscular power dominates, speed can kill – but conditioning wins.”

Most teams on the HSBC SVNS 2024 circuit will complete four weight sessions a week, often split into two upper- and two lower-body workouts. In pre-season these sessions will aim to improve a player’s strength and conditioning, while in-season sessions target power and maintenance.

As a player, I would always be excited at the start of pre-season to try and push my gym numbers up a few kilogrammes as I looked for those marginal gains. Having these small targets helped keep my motivation high, with my sights firmly set on the first tournament of the series.

Throughout my rugby career, I have completed hundreds of different exercises in the gym. The following five exercises are the ones I think are the most important for every sevens player.

Power Clean

The power clean involves moving a barbell from the floor to rest across the front of your shoulders as quickly as possible. It is an explosive compound lift, in that it requires multiple muscle groups to work simultaneously.

It helps improve explosive power which players can use when accelerating onto the ball in attack or launching into a tackle in defence.

It is a very technical lift that requires a lot of coordination and timing. It’s still my favourite exercise in the gym because it feels more like a skill than anything else. Making little tweaks can lead to huge improvements, so I always feel very focused and ‘present’ when performing them.

Back Squat

The back squat involves loading a barbell across the back of your shoulders and then bending through your hips and knees to lower your body height before returning to the starting position. It’s another compound lift which can have many variations in the timing, speed and depth of the squat.

It helps improve a player’s lower body strength which is used for many things on a rugby field including decelerating and changing direction.

As an exercise, it sees some of the biggest variations in sets and rep ranges throughout the season. During pre-season players could perform four sets of 10 reps compared to a tournament week when there might only be three sets of three reps.

Single-Leg Romanian Deadlifts

Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) involve holding a barbell while standing up straight before hinging at the hips to bring your upper body forward and lowering the weights before returning to the starting position. They target your posterior chain, which includes the muscles along the back lower half of your body that allow you to do important movements.

One of these important movements is running at top speed, a key element in any sevens game. RDLs particularly help strengthen your hamstrings, which are vulnerable to injury when repeating efforts of top-end speed during sessions.

Anecdotally, the most common injury during the first few weeks of a sevens camp often seem to be a hamstring tear or strain.

The beauty of RDLs is that you can also complete them on a single leg, which helps with balance and proprioception [the body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location without deliberate focus]. I include a few sets of these in every running warm-up and rugby session I do, even today.

Upper-body push/pull combo

Super-setting, upper-body push-and-pull exercises are a staple of most strength and conditioning programmes. This involves going straight from one exercise to another and then taking your rest period before repeating for a second set.

My two favourite exercises for this are a dumbbell chest press and a pull-up. A dumbbell chest press involves lying down on a bench facing the ceiling with a weight in each arm and extending and flexing your arms. A pull-up involves hanging from a bar using an over-grip where your palms face away from you and pulling yourself up before lowering slowly to the starting position.

Both are compound exercises and require strength and shoulder stability, two key elements when preparing for taking contact in rugby. They also help with efficiency and power when performing skills like passing, handing off and jackaling.

Core

The previous four exercises have looked at upper and lower body strength – but what ties everything together is having a strong and stable core. It is the key for players to be able to keep up with the running and contact demands of elite sevens training.

My favourite exercise is a weighted plank where you lie on your front and then prop yourself up on your elbows with a weight on your back.

As a player, it is one of those exercises that you don’t appreciate until it’s gone. I remember an opposition player’s knee hitting me square in the side which gave me a huge bruise for at least a month. Suddenly everything to do with training became so much more difficult whether I was in the gym, running or just trying to get changed.

The research and money that has been invested into strength and conditioning over the last few decades has helped take professional sport to a new level. But it is only a cog in a much larger wheel. 

Rugby sevens still requires players to be extremely skilful and teams to operate as cohesive units. So if you are a young player reading this, I would urge you to spread your time and effort across each aspect of rugby to become a well-rounded player.

See the HSBC SVNS champions crowned in Madrid, 31 May-2 June. Tickets from €10 are available to purchase here