"Training for Power and Strength"

(http://sports-99.blogspot.com/2011/12/rugby.html) 

Fitness is a tough concept to wrap your head around. Some people believe fitness is “looking fit” while others argue it has more to do natural selection. Greg Glassman, the founder of Crossfit, has defined fitness in less than a hundred words…but who wants to read all of that? A simplification of Glassman’s definition of world class fitness is: eating natural foods at a level that will support exercise but not body fat, training for strength, endurance, and power, training five or six days per week while avoiding falling into a routine, and learning to play new sports (Glassman, 2002). But who exactly possesses world-class fitness? When I think of world-class fitness, I imagine rugby players. Rugby players take a beating day-in-and-day-out without becoming tired. They react to constant changes in their environment with incredible speed. In a Romanian study, it was discovered that a training regimen that catered to strength and power not only increased the strength and power of world-class athletes, but it also increased their reaction times and their fitness by Glassman’s standards and natural selection.

In a study performed in Romania, professional rugby players were placed on a 10-week training cycle that utilized three phases in an attempt to increase their reaction times. The first phase was a 2-week hypertrophy phase, which focused on lifting sub-maximal weights for 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions in order to increase muscle size. The second phase was a 4-week strength phase that consisted of lifting heavy weights for 3-6 sets of 2-6 repetitions. The third and final phase was a 4-week conversion phase that called for the athletes to perform 3-4 sets of 2-6 repetitions. This phase concentrated on lifting sub-maximal weights as fast as possible. During this 10-week training period, the athletes also performed coordination and plyometric exercises (Rusu, 2011). Surprisingly, all of this training for strength and power also increased the athletes’ reaction times. These athletes not only gained strength, they also became better equipped to react to their environment. According to natural selection, nothing is more important for survival than being able to react to the environment.

As people look to increase their fitness, they should look to the rugby players. Training for strength and power as rugby players do has been shown to increase the fitness of elite athletes as well as that of Joe-Schmoe’s around the world by both nature’s definition of fitness and Greg Glassman’s definition of fitness.

Citations: 

Alexandra Mihaela Rusu, et al. "Testing And Training The Strength, Power And Complex Reactions In Rugby Players." Palestrica Of The Third Millennium Civilization & Sport 12.3 (2011): 236-239. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Feb. 2012.

Glassman, Greg. "What is Fitness?" The Crossfit Journal. N.p., Oct. 2002. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ-trial.pdf>.