Concern about gym culture in youth players

[Jaguares]

Nick Easter has joined a growing chorus of high-profile stars to raise concerns about professional rugby’s ‘gym-monkey’ culture at academy level amid fears careers will be cut short by increasingly brutal collisions. The 36-year-old Harlequins No 8, who only turned fully professional 11 seasons ago and was not involved in academy rugby, believes the size of youngsters entering the sport now is cause for serious concern. A Mail on Sunday investigation earlier this year found the England Under 18 side that played Wales last season was heavier man-for-man than Will Carling’s 1991 senior England side that reached the World Cup final

‘If I’d been playing high-level club and international rugby at 20 or 21 in an attritional position like No 8 I’m not so sure my body is in the same condition it is now. That is the fear for a lot of the youngsters coming through now. They are two or three stone heavier per man than England Under 18 sides of the past and yet they are running at higher collision speeds now. ‘It might be a good thing that they are doing all their weights and are on the protein shakes building their muscles up but there are other areas of your body that probably aren’t fully developed and are taking a lot of hits. There might be a few repercussions as far as that is concerned in years to come.’ The remarkable increase in the size of schoolboy players has coincided with an unprecedented period of success for the England Under 18 side which has yet to be translated into the senior team.

Easter is not the first senior professional player to claim the next generation of players are focusing too much on weight training and not enough on skills, with former England lock Simon Shaw first raising concerns back in 2009. But those concerns appear to have fallen on deaf ears. ‘Someone like Billy Vunipola is naturally a big bloke but the guys who naturally aren’t that big are potentially a worry,’ Easter added. ‘You see a lot of the tall and lithe back rows and second rows who are told to bulk up. You see it when they have a shoulder injury or an upper body injury because they completely lose their mass. You think “Oh my God, that’s probably what they are naturally like”.

‘When they are training they all look pretty much the same but some guys are naturally quite big and can put up with punishment but others find it harder to keep the weight on. Their bodies are not meant for that punishment.’ Last week RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie admitted to serious concerns about the number of positive doping tests returned in junior rugby in recent times while insisting the professional game is too tightly monitored for a doping culture to exist. Another England star who did not go down the academy path, Ben Morgan, agrees the sheer size of young players is a worry.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ru...nkey-culture-damage-future-England-stars.html

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Seen a lot of this on twitter too.

It makes sense, but equally: the big players tend to get weeded out once senior contracts start getting offered.
Look at the England guys. We're notorious for having really big u20 sides, but the players in recent years who have really kicked on haven't been the big guys.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

That is bull, they have studied the use of weights and found that it actually protects the muscles/ joints more.


What he should really be talking about is how much of a better rugby player he would have been it he worked out instead of eating pies!

 

[Peat]

Seen a lot of this on twitter too.

It makes sense, but equally: the big players tend to get weeded out once senior contracts start getting offered.
Look at the England guys. We're notorious for having really big u20 sides, but the players in recent years who have really kicked on haven't been the big guys.

Except that we routinely weigh less than opponents and have a notable shortage of monster backs and back-rows; in the last three years, I would say that only Vunipola, Sisi, Armitage, Ben Howard and Devoto seemed genuinely outrageously big. And some of those were just tall tbh. Any notoriety is misplaced.

That is bull, they have studied the use of weights and found that it actually protects the muscles/ joints more.


What he should really be talking about is how much of a better rugby player he would have been it he worked out instead of eating pies!

Twenty years ago studies found that sugar is harmless stuff and we should look at other things to reduce in our diets. How confident are people that the current studies on physical science will be seen as right in twenty years time?

 

[BRSTLDRGN]

Weights are important yet I think Easter is refferring to those who go straight in with weights that are too much for them and then think drinking a grey drink made from a powder will prevent every possibly side effect of that.

Think clubs at that age group (say Under 15's and up) should a) teach the benifits and pitfalls of over gymming and b) limit their kids to a number of hours a week to ensure theyre not overdoing it.

Rugby isnt bodybuilding, no point being ripped with all the muscles if you cant catch, pass, kick or tackle.

 

[welshglory]

Load of crock. If he had been more professional in his conditioning then he.probably could have been one of the best 8's in the world with his natural ability.

The main problem is the structure of the season and general player welfare. Player associations should go on strike to bring change.

 

[welshglory]

He does have a.point about youngsters who shouldn't be bulking, bulking though.

Because of the nature of premiership rugby and the competition for places, these guys are pushing themselves to the.limit to get a contract.

Is there a problem with Northern hemisphere rugby as a whole in that there isn't a big enough stage, apart from the JWC for youngsters to push through with skills as well as size?

I'm thinking of the ITM cup in New Zealand as the best example

 

[IWasAPirateOnce]

On the one hand, people tend to get uncomfortable with the idea of youngsters lifting weights, when actually there is no evidence of adverse effects in adolescents and teens performing controlled strength and conditioning training (child gymnasts, for example, are some of the fittest teens you'll ever see and there's no medical reason that weights can't be a part of that). So arguing against the training itself doesn't really make sense.

Rugby, on the other hand, is a different animal. It's a high impact sport, and while increasing muscle mass can help protect against that, it also directly increases the force you put your body under in each collision. In adults that's not as much of an issue but in youngsters there can be a huge disparity in the size and strength different people can reach. Additionally, it's not just about your bones and joints; you could double your muscle mass but that doesn't offset how much impact force your organs can take (not least of which your brain). That does not change because you've packed on some size, but the size of your impacts does. In that sense there absolutely seems to be an escalating risk with no clear way to mitigate it.