Off-Season Conjugate Training for Rugby
Ashley’s off-season program uses the conjugate system—focussing on neural, mechanical, and metabolic work. Plus, core accessory rehab exercises.
Density Training for Sport
How can we make rugby players perform better in a very short period of time without a negative impact?
Programming Different Physical Qualities
I like to program from a metabolic, strength, or power focus. The three-day-a-week program allows more stimulation for each major area.
Solving the Conditioning Paradox
Bigger players often suffer from a lack of condition—they need size to execute their skill set yet run the risk of overuse-related injuries.
In-Season Rugby Programming Utilizing the Westside Conjugate Methods
The key to the program is to never accommodate to movements and exercises. Change some aspects of your training every time you train.
Programming for a Full Off-Season
Here’s a Major League Rugby (MLR) perspective on how to set up programming after the last game of the season.
The Six Pillars of Excellence
There are six pillars of excellence that every player and staff member should live by. It’ll breed character, culture, and success.
Why Athletes Should Use Cheat Reps
Because it can be a wonderful tool to increase power, muscle mass, and performance in a given sport. That’s why.
Programming Two-A-Days for Your Player's Pre-Season and In-season
Poliquin, Thibadeau, and Schoenfeld, among many other writers and researchers, have popularized this method—performing multiple training sessions within a day. Here’s how I set this up for my players within a three-day split program.
The Exercise Selection Chart
Let me walk you through a new weight room and share my processes for creating an exercise selection chart to best meet the needs of your athletes.
Pre-Season Planning
This is the first-week break-in program that I will put in place. I will also keep some players on this three-day-a-week programming based on needs-based discussions with the playing group upon their return and what other work-ons they have from a physical and skills perspective.
Specialty Bars and Sports Programming
Why do strength coaches persist in using the traditional bar now that there are many excellent alternative bars available?
The Integration of Unilateral and Bilateral Movements to Assist in Stren...
The program within is called One Big, One Small—there is one major movement, and a secondary movement supports this major movement. It can be used by anyone irrespective of sport or training goal to improve performance or get bigger and stronger.
Rugby Wants You!
Where do all of the football players go when they are unable to reach their playing goals in college or the National Football League?
Flow Chart to Assist in the Determination of Physical Training Content i...
Here’s the standard week-long plan with a seven-day turnaround between games, optimizing a balance between recovery both physiologically and psychologically.
Pre-Season: Our Time to Shine
It is the one chance each year that sports practices do not take priority or leave players fatigued that they cannot give 100 percent to the physical development program.
Integration of Strength and Power Programming for the Lower Body in Spor...
Running sports are tangential in nature, so in order to optimize transfer from the weight room to the field, both vertical and horizontal movements need to be considered. To this end, the program I am going to outline will look at elements of training to ensure all bases are covered.
Build a Professional Rugby Team Through This Academy Program
I am currently working as a consultant for a pro rugby team, and I was asked about the type of player I would require moving into a pro team. Fair warning: What I wrote here may be considered heretical in the strength and conditioning world…
The Physical Requirements That Make a Rugby Player Great
In January 2017, Marc Keys and I embarked upon a labor of love to develop a questionnaire investigating what the various groups of people who make up the rugby industry think are the key elements of the physical preparation of the rugby player. Here are the results.
The Grand Unified Theory of Everything
A few years ago, I attempted to bring 4 strength sports together into a training plan for rugby. This time, I want to delve deeper into the framework that makes up the programming of these sports and how we can program them into a usable athletic development plan.
Rugby Top-5 Strength and Conditioning Equipment Picks
For Ashley Jones, being at the S5 Compound is like being a kid in a candy store, meaning he needs some moderation. Rather than use all of the equipment, Ashley shows off his top-5 pieces of equipment that should be in every strength and conditioning program for rugby.
Ocham’s Razor and the Pareto Principle in Weight Training Programming
According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of results come from 20% of your time. Ocham’s Razor states the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Simplicity is the missing ingredient in most training programs. Hence why I return to the famous paradigm of the pull-push-squat.
The Art of Programming for Injury Prevention/Risk Management
I believe the most important role of a strength and conditioning coach is to create programs that minimize the risk of injury. Armed with knowledge from a study on rugby injuries, I wrote a program that focuses on strengthening injury-prone areas. Here’s what I came up with.
The Simplicity Project: Expanding to Two-A-Days for Strength and Size
The people have spoken, and I have answered. After receiving plenty of emails and comments about my last article, I decided to create and share a complete program based on The Simplicity Programming Project.
Minimal Effective Dose and the Search for Magic Bullets
To paraphrase Ronnie Coleman, “Everybody wanna be strong but nobody wanna lift heavy weights.” Ain’t that the truth. News flash: This is what you need.
Samoan Rugby Union Returns to CARE Program
The program I am currently running features the CARE program in a new format that I feel better allows the player to get a workout in without going too deep in the RPE continuum, especially if he or she is coming from a unit or a team session.
Getting the New Job: Sharpen the Sword
Doing an extraordinary job in your present position does not guarantee you immunity to the inevitable changes that take place with funding cuts, administration changes, or coaches moving on. Are you prepared to find a new position?
Game Changer: Rugby Programming Adjustments from the 40th NSCA National ...
Several incredible presentations from Paul Comfort, Mike McGuigan, and Bryan Mann led me me to make some key adjustments to the programming of my Metabolic Group.
LISTEN: The Australian Strength and Conditioning Association Podcast wit...
Appearing as special guest for episode 13, Ashley joined the podcast to discuss his career, the knowledge he has gained through his experience in the industry, and the lessons he has found most valuable for training and coaching athletes.
Weapons of Metabolic Disruption
This compilation of training sessions is drawn from the minds of many great coaches, and includes initial and periodic testing to ensure intensity and distance per session challenge the metabolic systems of the athletes.
Programs to Stimulate Size and Strength Gains
I have collated a few of my most result-producing programs for you to try, from both a sports performance perspective and also general training for size and strength for the non-sports person.
Regular Testing for Physical Improvement in Rugby
Rugby is a high intensity intermittent collision sport, which requires a multi-factorial physical training approach to optimize performance.
Engineering Physical Performance — Reassess Utilization of INOL Model
I have been a huge believer in Intensity Number of Lifts (INOL) to develop programs that are achievable and that follow a sensible loading pattern over time, but I’ve recently made some important changes.
What Drives Performance: Processes Not Outcomes
How we are judged is out of our hands in a lot of ways, but if I adhere to my processes and don’t compromise my principles, morals, or values, then I can honestly say that I have been successful in my role as a strength and conditioning coach.
Programming for Speed and Power
This 12-week program can be utilized by any individual wishing to prioritize the physical elements of speed and power.
Programming for the Loose Forwards in Rugby
A loose forward must be one of the fittest players on the field. This requires a specialized approach to the strength and conditioning program.
Unification of Training Stimuli (with Program)
You might call this The Grand Unified Training Theory: attempting to combine the training elements of Olympic lifting, powerlifting, strongman, and bodybuilding into one single training program.
Armour Plating the Upper Body and Power Training the Lower Body
Trial and error over time has led me to where my programming is today. This has produced a philosophy that includes a different approach to upper and lower body training.
Project Jonah: The Final Report
This four-year journey following the development of a young athlete has finally come to a close, with many lessons learned.
LISTEN: Ashley Jones — Incorporating Games in a Pre-Season Program
With proper consideration of neural, mechanical, and metabolic elements, this podcast covers the methods used for developing a proper pre-season plan.
Big Is a Byproduct of Strong
A proper weight room strategy provides adequate attention to the development of strength and size — two qualities necessary for your team’s improvement.
Improve Performance on the Field: Individualize, Prioritize, Optimize
Communicating with your athletes and ensuring you have a mutual understanding of goals and systems is vital to improving the physical capabilities of your players.
Ashley Jones Receives NSCA Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year A...
“It is a worldwide award but the organisation is based in the USA which is why I didn’t really think I had a chance of winning, although I was honoured to receive the nomination."
Programming for Rugby Inside Backs
These strength and performance methods for positions 9, 10, and 12 maximize individual player abilities on the field and produce more capable athletes.
Assessment Methods to Determine Ideal Speed Development Protocols
These three velocity-based sessions build the trainable aspects of athletic speed development.
The Rationale Behind Specialty Bars, Grips, and Angles
With a variety of unique, specialized equipment, you can program to address a multitude of player strengths and weaknesses.
Aerobic Threshold Training for Field Sports: The Starting Point for Repe...
To help athletes overcome the limiting factor of human performance, an adequate training program must address an individual’s aerobic metabolism.
Pre-Season Training for the Part-Time Athlete
This program outline gives you the ability to insert the gym-based training, conditioning, and specialized development that addresses your individual pre-season needs.
The Psycholology of Rehab
“The psychological side of rehabilitation is still scientifically observable,” explains Weingroff. “Spiked levels of dopamine and certain neurotransmissions can be monitored. Maintaining hormonal and neurotransmitter levels associated with positive mind-sets and positive rehabilitation is what we strive for.”
Progression and Regression System for Exercise Selection
Implement this exercise variation protocol to keep your athletes training at an optimal loading standard.
LISTEN: Rugby S&C with Ashley Jones
The information in this podcast comes from years of rugby training experience on multiple continents.
The Complete Aerobic Conditioning Guide for Field Sports
Field sports are characterized by a somewhat stop-start nature, varying movement speeds, multiple changes of direction and the execution of decisions and individual skills under conditions of game pressure and/or fatigue and in the case of some of those sports, the threat of imminent collisions.
Training for Metabolic Improvement
Preparing for the demands of the field requires this balance of conditioning and weight training.
LISTEN: Practical Training Tips from the Rugby World
In this sports performance podcast, Australia's Dan Baker shares a lifetime of strength and conditioning secrets.
Three Quick Circuit Finishers
Finish your training with one of these three circuits to shed those extra pounds…without sacrificing performance.
Off-Season Strength Training for Amateur Rugby Players
Get the jump on next season by showing up bigger, badder, faster and meaner…