Your Rugby Workout Plan, Four Weeks at a Time

A rugby workout plan is a four-block gym and pitch programme that builds base, strength, power and match sharpness in that order. Lift heavy twice a week, sprint fresh once, condition twice, and change the emphasis by position. The free per-position PDF below gives you all four weeks written out.

What is the ERA Four-Block Build?

The ERA Four-Block Build is four weeks that each do one job, run in order. Repeating the same week for a month is the most common mistake in a self-written plan: the body adapts to it within a few weeks and then holds still.

1. Week 1 — BASE. Volume, movement quality and work capacity. Reps are high, load is moderate, and nothing is chased.
2. Week 2 — BUILD. Load goes up and reps come down. This is the week that makes you stronger.
3. Week 3 — POWER. Speed of the bar and speed of the feet. Weight comes off so the bar can move; the set ends when it slows.
4. Week 4 — PEAK. Deload, then test and retest, so you finish the block with a number rather than a feeling.

Four weeks is one block, and a season is made of them. Inside Elite Rugby App the same logic runs across a 365-day cycle with four phases: Off-Season (Week 1–8), Pre-Season (Week 17–24), In-Season (Week 33–40) and Active Rest (Week 49–52). Run this block where it fits your own calendar, then keep running blocks.

What does a rugby workout week actually look like?

A rugby workout week is four sessions: two in the gym, one speed session run fresh, and one conditioning session. The table below is the whole four-week block, week by week, so you can see what changes and what stays the same.

Wednesday and the weekend are deliberately empty. If you have a match, it replaces Friday; if you have a team session, it replaces the conditioning day rather than sitting on top of it. Adding sessions to a full week is how players arrive at round one already tired — how the whole training week fits together is a question of its own.

How many days a week should a rugby player train in the gym?

A rugby player should train in the gym two to three days a week in season, and three to four out of season. Two heavy days done properly beat four rushed ones, and the gym is only one of the stresses in the week: pitch sessions, conditioning and the match itself all draw on the same recovery.

The plan above uses two gym days so the speed day can be run fresh. If you are out of season and want a third, add it midweek and keep it light. Eat for the work as well — what you eat around training decides how much of the session you actually keep.

What lifts belong in a rugby workout plan?

A rugby workout plan needs a squat, a hinge, a press, a pull, a hip thrust and power work — plus neck and trunk every single week, which is non-optional in a collision sport. That is a short list on purpose: six or seven movements, loaded properly, beat twenty done at half effort.

The sets, reps, progressions and position variations for each of those lifts are the subject of their own guide, and repeating them here would only make both worse. Read the lifts, sets and reps behind each session for the detail; this page is the week they sit inside.

How does a rugby workout plan change by position?

A rugby workout plan changes by position in emphasis, not in structure: every position squats, presses, sprints and conditions, and what moves is where the extra work goes. Elite Rugby App programmes six position groups, and the table below is what each one leans into.

If you are not sure which group you belong in, work back from your own height, weight and pace: find the position your body suits first, then take the row above. The full position-specific programmes live in the position-specific gym programs inside the app.

Can you do a rugby workout plan at home or with no equipment?

You can run this plan at home, and you will keep the engine while losing some of the strength. Sprints, hills, press-ups, chin-ups on anything solid, single-leg squats, sled or partner drags and hard trunk work all transfer. Keep the four-day shape and the block order; substitute the loaded lifts, not the sprinting.

What no-equipment training cannot replace is heavy loading, and heavy loading is what prepares you for contact. Treat a home block as the bridge to a gym block, not a permanent swap, and build the aerobic base while you are there with the conditioning blocks that build the engine.

Download the rugby workout plan PDF for your position

The rugby workout plan PDF is the same four-week block as the table above, written out for all six position groups — sixteen sessions each, the same two gym days, speed day and conditioning day, with the sets and reps beside them and each group’s own programme lines listed on its page. The cover says plainly that it is a sample block rather than the full programme. It is ten pages, and it prints.

When in the season should you run this plan?

Run this plan when you have four uninterrupted weeks and no fixture you are protecting: the back end of the off-season, or the opening month of pre-season. In season, keep the same four days but hold week 2 as the standing week, because the match is already supplying the peak.

Eight weeks out from round one, this block is the first half of a longer runway — the eight-week pre-season build is where it leads. If you want to see what the professional version of the same week looks like, we wrote how professional rugby players train from the inside.

Why am I fit in the gym but gassed on the pitch?

You are fit in the gym but gassed on the pitch because gym fitness is paced and rugby fitness is not. A machine or a circuit lets you settle into a rhythm; a match gives you a maximal effort, twelve seconds of walking, another maximal effort, and a scrum you have to push in while still breathing hard from the last one.

The fix is not more running. It is repeat-sprint work with short, incomplete rest, done at a speed you could not hold for five minutes, plus enough contact conditioning that the collisions themselves stop costing you a set of lungs. That is what the Friday session in the table above is for, and it is why it is written as shuttles or a conditioning game rather than a steady run.

The second half of the answer is strength. A player who is strong enough for the collisions spends less of their engine surviving them, which is the least obvious reason the two heavy gym days in this plan are non-negotiable.

How do I plan my gym week if I play twice a week?

If you play twice a week you get one heavy gym day, not two, and the rest of the week is primers and recovery. With a midweek fixture and a weekend one there is no day sitting 48 hours clear of both matches, so the honest version of this week has a single heavy exposure early and protects everything else.

Hold this shape for as long as the double-fixture block lasts, then go back to the four-day week above. Strength is maintained on one heavy day a week for a surprisingly long time; it is only building that needs two. Where the rest of the week’s work goes once the fixtures thin out is the rugby training program.

Where to find out more

The strength and conditioning material behind this plan is standard practice rather than anything proprietary, and the governing body publishes its own free coaching and player-welfare resources at World Rugby and World Rugby Passport. On this site, the next steps are the gym program itself, conditioning that looks like the game and the coaches behind these programmes.

Frequently asked questions