Hi again friends, back with more fun to end the week for you! After a couple of convos with my clients this week on this topic, I figured this would be a good bit to write about. I like rep ranges and here’s why.

First off, I like them for the big movers, usually the first or second block of a program (A’s or B’s to some of you). I usually start off by saying, with an 6-8 rep range for example, shoot for 6 reps, if you get to 8 and are feeling really strong still, go for 8. Keep in mind I’m still hoping for a 7-8 out of 10 on the effort scale so that plays a factor into what rep the trainee (client) is targeting.
 
I also find rep ranges good because folks can feel like they’ve made progress on a movement without necessarily adding weight to the bar, because sometimes you’re just not ready for that yet. Example, someone was doing a front squat with 95 lbs for a set of 8 to 10. Maybe the first week they do all their sets for 8 reps. The next week they’re still not overly comfortable with even 105 on the bar, so they stick with 95, BUT they bang out 10 reps for all their sets. I’d still call that progress, even without the bar weight changing 1 ounce.
 
An example that's good, sort of the yang to the yin above, perhaps someone comes in, 6-8 reps are prescribed that phase/week or whatever. They get up to 165 on the bar for their bench press having done that for one of their, we’ll say solid feeling sets, the previous week. Maybe they are not feeling so hot about grinding out that 7th and 8th rep as they’d done so easily the previous week, so they stick with 6 for the day. That is still progress, just not necessarily how we think of it. It gives people a bit of freedom to recognize, 'OK maybe I don’t have it to the same degree today. I’m going to stick with this weight, just back down the reps to that lower end of the rep range.'
 
There you have my fairly short and sweet reasoning for liking and using rep ranges. Have good day fam, thanks for reading and see you next time!

Hi again friends, this piece is going to be a bit niche towards the rugby folk, so I won’t be offended if you close out and pass right by. Those that stick around (not rugby fanatics or fans like me) hopefully I can learn ya a thing or two. As I mentioned, this directed at the rugby universe, if you’re new to following me, welcome and be prepared to hear about this sport, like a silly amount.
 
To the point of today’s posting, why the heck is the rugby universe obsessed with the Bronco drill/test? Those not in the know, a Bronco is a fitness test the rugby universe is in LOOOOVE with, I can't emphasize that point enough. It requires running from the goal line on a rugby pitch, to the 22-meter line and back, the near 10-meter line and back, the far 10-meter line and back, 5 times with no rest (see field graphic below) for time. I am going to upset someone with this and without getting into scientific specifics, because I’ll be honest, I’m still not 100% sure I get the scientific defense. From a logistic sense it doesn’t add up though.

A good time for this test is considered 5-6 minutes or about. In rugby it is very rare that you have a passage of play lasting longer than a minute, so even if the justification was to “over prepare”, 5 minutes is over over doing it. Did I mention there’s usually 15 players on the field so 1 player having to be active (running/working) for that ENTIRE minute or so is also very unlikely.
 
The other generic defense chucked out there is that players need to have long lasting lungs. The games are 80 minutes, split in two 40-minute halves, not sure how 5 minutes equals 40. If you’re saying you need to work on that steady state cardio base, wonderful, we can talk about zone 2 bike sessions and such instead of this.
 
For me, and most of my high schoolers have heard this, the sport is separated into two areas for fitness. Sprinting and being able to repeat sprints over and over, yes with rest and the long steady state I mentioned before. There’s not a ton of in-between shit needed, and I’m not convinced makes sense to try to run flat out for 5 minutes, even with the change of direction. Don’t kid yourself either, you aren’t sprinting for that long, it’s just running.
 
I could justify doing one round of a bronco, maybe two with a bit of rest between, not five though. With that idea, I’d go with a yo-yo or beep test over this still. It’s repeated sprints and the rest does get less and less, but it’s still sprints more than just running. I personally bin all testing at the high school level because there are about 300 other things to focus on and the bronco, the beep or any other test isn’t going to tell me how good of a player our kids are. I’ll let their skill set do the talking and when we get to the daily fitness drills, I’ll be able to tell who can keep up and who has issues.

Last note, why are we SO obsessed with tests in general for sports? There's a league here in the U.S. that puts their future players through a litany of tests before they enter said league and it's still a terrible predictor for success. Spoiler alert, some people are horrible test takers, that's a fact of life. It does not mean they can't do the job asked of them or perform tasks required for their career, some brains are just wired different.

I've gone a bit off topic, but point is, Bronco test probably needs to be put under more scrutiny and no longer be just accepted as king of the fitness tests in rugby. If you can't explain why in simple terms, it's probably not needed. That's all for today friends, thanks very much for reading and have yourself a week.

You’d think something like this didn’t need to be written anymore, but that’s not the case. Matter of fact, I'm sure this is at least the 2nd time I've scribbled something down on the subject.

I am 100% of the belief while success breeds success, you can’t grow without failure. There are a couple of examples in each of my coaching roles that come to mind.

Training

The first rep; As Todd Bumgardner has said, "Let the first rep suck." Hell, as long as there’s not some catastrophic issue with someone’s form, I’m willing to let a whole set go with less than perfect technique before making an adjustment. After we’ve made the adjustments between sets, I will cue and coach the next set focusing on the adjustments. About 9 times out of 10, it hits the right note.

Missing; Others that are more power lifters than I can tell you better, but when you miss on a big lift, a PR or whatever the case may be, assuming nothing super bad happened (injury) it benefits you. You can look at the flaws that were the reason the lift was missed, however major or minor we are talking about, and hone in on the technique. Also, does missing a weight not motivate you to train a little harder so you nail it the next time?

Rugby

Losing; Like with missing a lift, when you get beaten, especially either on the last play or hammered into the ground (either end of the spectrum as it were), you learn plenty. When you get beat by a wide gap, there’s tons of issues to be pointed out on the tape both for individuals and for the team. Likewise, when teams lose on the last play, there’s a glaring issue that caused the loss to occur on said last play (the official doesn’t count, as much as I want to blame them sometimes). In either of these cases, it forces you to look internally hard and can get you to bounce back even better,

Trying stuff; When I coach my teams, I’ve come to the point that I want the players to try stuff in our open play portions of practice. If it sounds like something crazy to do on the field, try it in practice and mess it up there. There’s minimal consequence for trying something in practice for us; a bonkers pass, an amazing step (juke move), absurd kick and so on. While all these things will probably take bravery to perform in a game, I’m happy to give players the chance to try this wild stuff in practice so we can talk about how it might be executed better, even if it looks like a bad idea on the field.

So the lesson, once again, is to screw up, mess up, make errors and then learn from them. Understand where things went sideways, address them, try again, maybe mess up some more and then find success. Thanks for reading fam, feel free to comment or message me with questions or just for discussion.