In-season rugby gym programme: stay strong from September to May

The typical amateur pattern is familiar: a big pre-season in the gym, a good first month, then the sessions get squeezed by work, club nights and Saturday fixtures until there’s nothing left by Christmas. By the play-offs, players are weaker than they were in August.

It doesn’t have to happen. Done right, in-season training usually maintains strength and power across a season of up to 32 weeks, and younger players (17–19) can keep getting stronger Spiering et al. 2021. This guide explains how to set up an in-season programme that fits the club week. The goal is simple: play the last game stronger than the first.

How many gym sessions in-season?

For an amateur who trains twice a week with the club and plays most weekends, two gym sessions a week is the ceiling, not the floor. Several respected coaching sources recommend one or two in-season; one argues for three. We stay at two for amateurs because you already have club training and a game. Players who aren’t being selected can have a third, as a top-up.

The reassuring part is how little it takes to keep what you’ve built. A review of the minimum dose needed to maintain performance found strength can be kept with as little as one session a week, provided the loads stay heavy Spiering et al. 2021. So a short, heavy session beats a long, tiring one.

When to lift around matches

Match fatigue is at its worst 12–36 hours after a game and is mostly gone by 48–72 hours Naughton et al. 2021. That gives a simple pattern for a Saturday fixture:

If your club trains Monday and Wednesday, the strength session might move to Sunday or Tuesday and the power session to Thursday. The principles stay the same:

• With 7–9 days between games: strength 2–3 days after the game, a light power session about 2 days before the next.
• With only 5–6 days: the strength session only, no power day.
• The day before and the day after a match: no heavy, lower-body or power work. A light upper-body, medicine ball and mobility session the day before is allowed when two-game weeks leave no other room.
• Match morning or the day before: an optional light primer is fine for experienced lifters: a few short sprints or light ballistic efforts. It doesn’t count as a session.

More on the day after a game in should you lift the day after a rugby match?

Loading: waves, not maxes

In-season, main lifts are trained at least twice a week at about 70–88% of max. That range keeps strength developing without the fatigue of near-maximal work every week. A sensible default for intermediate lifters is a 4-week wave, which comes from professional rugby programmes rather than trials:

The next wave repeats slightly heavier. Volume falls through the wave while intensity rises, and only the last “indicator” set of the week goes near your max. That set drives next week’s weights.

Beginners don’t need waves. Simple linear progression (a little more weight each session) keeps working in-season for months, at two sessions a week rather than three.

What goes in each session

In-season sessions are short: 40–50 minutes of work, or 45–60 minutes including a warm-up. A practical template:

1. Warm-up (8–10 minutes), including balance, landing and a few build-ups.
2. One explosive exercise: jump squats, hang cleans or medicine ball throws, 3–4 sets of 3.
3. A lower-body pair: a squat pattern and a hinge pattern.
4. An upper-body pair: a press and a pull, supersetted.
5. Hamstrings: Nordics, about 2×4–6, once or twice a week, every position.
6. Trunk and neck: about 6 minutes, with light neck and shoulder work paired into main-lift rests.

The power session is a lighter, faster version: the same main lifts at 50–75% moved as fast as possible, with short sets and full intent, plus jumps or throws. Stop each set as soon as reps start to slow.

Programmes that include the Nordic hamstring exercise halved hamstring injury rates in a large meta-analysis van Dyk et al. 2019, so don’t let Nordics drop out in-season. Start them gently if they’re new, never in the 72 hours before a match, because unfamiliar lowering work causes a few days of soreness.

Conditioning: let the club week do it

For a player training twice and playing every week, club sessions and games are the game-based conditioning. Adding hard running on top usually just adds fatigue. The app adds conditioning only when your week is missing it:

• Played under 20 minutes, on the bench or not selected? A short top-up so your weekly work stays close to the squad’s.
• Back three with no near-top-speed running at training that week? A small dose of 3–4 runs at 90–95% over 30–50 m, because hamstring strains happen at high speed.
• Plyometrics: no extra for players who train twice and play; one or two low-volume sessions only for those not being selected.

Log full-contact minutes after club sessions too. World Rugby’s guidance for professional teams suggests at most 15 minutes of full contact a week World Rugby contact load guidelines 2021; it’s a reference point, not a rule for amateurs, but heavy-contact weeks are a good reason to trim gym extras.

Two-game weeks

Midweek cup games or double-headers change everything. Use a high–low template: Monday high (a few quality sprints, 2–3 sets of power, sub-maximal strength in waves), Tuesday low (upper-body strength, medicine ball, mobility), Wednesday game, Thursday high only if there was no Wednesday game, Friday low, Saturday game, Sunday off. Keep the high days tiny. In a very heavy week, the power work goes and strength stays.

Big fixtures, breaks and the run-in

• Big games: line up the heavy, low-volume wave weeks before them and put higher-volume weeks against easier opponents. For a key fixture such as a cup final, add no new exercises in the last 4–6 weeks.
• Christmas and other breaks: strength tends to hold for about three weeks of complete rest, then fades faster McMaster et al. 2013. Even one session a week at normal intensity keeps it. After 2+ weeks off weights, restart with two lighter rebuild weeks.
• The last 8 weeks: cut heavy squat volume and shift leg work towards jump squats to keep legs fresh; upper body carries on as normal.

Use readiness to steer the week

In-season is where a daily check-in earns its keep. A short countermovement jump test and a few wellness questions track fatigue well Claudino et al. 2017 Saw et al. 2016. When the signs are poor, change the emphasis and cut volume, but keep reps and rests normal. Some in-season volume should always stay, because teams that dropped it entirely lost a clear amount of strength. See the readiness check-in for how Match Ready does it automatically.

Signs your in-season plan isn’t working

• Your main lifts are drifting down for two or three weeks running while effort at the same weights feels higher: run a 1–2 week recovery block with volume down by about half and loads held near normal.
• Your jump or wellness scores stay low across two weeks: cut next week’s gym volume by about a third and look honestly at sleep, food and work stress.
• You keep skipping sessions: make them shorter, not rarer. A 40-minute session with the main lifts and neck work beats a 75-minute plan you never start.