I weighed myself yesterday and found I’d put on 2kg of muscle thanks to Crossfit! I’m adopting Crossfit as a daily framework for my own training sessions.

I’ve posted my daily sessions in the sidebar and have a dedicated page with my training calendar.

Note that I’ll still be periodising my training. At the moment, it’s the in-season/maintenance phase and things are all pretty specific. In the off-season, I’ll change the training mix a little.

I’m keen to hear people’s thoughts!

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Finding a pattern: tuning Crossfit for rugby specificity

——– UPDATE: 24 July, 2010 ——–
Pattern found: check out my Crossfit Style Rugby Sessions Calendar for daily rugby-specific WoDs.
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I know a little about training for rugby, and have had some personal success with devising and following training plans. I think it’s highly likely I’d be at least in the top 5 women in the country for workrate off the back of my own training program.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_rw-8XqNh0
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Since it was a special year for me, I took the indulgence of making a personal highlights and misadventures video of my performances at Nationals.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD95eRtfloM

Probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’m wearing #7 for the Brumbies.

I’m halfway through a team retrospective video – will post soon.

video

After Nationals, I’ve had a fair amount of mental and emotional processing to do. I’m through the cloud, now, with new goals and energy for them shaping up before me.

And my little sterno-costal sprain (and it’s consequent muscular complications for the shoulder) is on the mend! Matt Stewart of SportsPhysioWest, Parramatta, is a genius.
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I’ve been enjoying the Crossfit sessions over the past few weeks, and am now ready to add in a few more rugby-specific elements.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S6xD8F9ECo
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Call it a labour of love. Or an obsession. I’ve compiled stats on all ACT players in the ACT v Sydney match during the 2010 Women’s National Championships, which Sydney won 11 – 10.

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ACT Women · stats · truck and trailer

I was the only openside flanker in the championship division at Nationals to miss out on the Wallaroo Training Squad. Ouch. Being a curious creature and wanting to understand where I need to improve, I decided to check out my match stats, starting with the ACT trial match against Sydney on 16 April.

If interested, you can check out the video highlights from the game.

I looked at myself (obviously), Alex Hargreaves – incumbent Wallaroo #7 but playing #8 for ACT – and Amy Robertson, the Sydney #7. Note that I’ve only counted material contributions, ie hanging onto a ruck is not counted as an involvement.
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backrow · Brumbies Women · statistics

Wanting a little variety after my pure rugby focus over the last year, I’ve decided to do CrossFit Workouts of the Day (WODs) for the rest of the maintenance (competition) phase.

CrossFit gives you a set of functional movements, often combined into rounds, that taxes various components of fitness. From what I can see, the emphasis is on strength and power endurance, some strength and power development and some anaerobic endurance. Each WOD is roughly 30 – 60mins.
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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkvk6VAvllw

I found an old clip from 2007, my second game as openside flanker, and it features a lot of the usual suspects.

The clip is from the ACT women’s grand final between Royals and Vikings. I played for Royals that year, and was moved from flyhalf to flanker for the finals series. I did my best George Smith impersonation, although it must be said it’s unlikely an objective observer would have known that’s what I was doing, haha…

And things have changed a little since then. I’m now playing for the Vikings in the backrow. The referee in the clip is Drew Crozier, and he is the one who really convinced me to play in the backrow fulltime when he took over as the ASCT Women’s coach last year. He seems to have lost both weight and hair since 2007

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Okay, I’m over my disappointment and am ready to play.

Sadly, though, our club game last weekend was postponed and there is a competition bye this weekend, which means I have another week to wait before I can play rugby again.

So if anyone out there needs a backrower this weekend, give me a yell.

Rugby