Physical trainer since May 2020 at Stade Bagnérais, Rémi Drouilhet took charge of the start of training and physical tests on Tuesday evening.
New season and a resumption tonight (last night’s editor’s note) with physics, but already with the ball…
Obviously, we counted on letting the guys relax after the end of last season, who tried, especially to get this qualification, which we thought was almost unexpected. It’s been a few years since we started early again, and this year we decided to let the guys be a bit quiet and independent. We’ll see what happens if they worked well or not. We will therefore attack directly with physical tests in order to be able to adapt to ever being healthy from the start of the season.
A two-block recovery…
Yes, a first block where we lay the foundations for the working and living environment, as we train all year round. We worked on that with the staff in the off-season. But here the goal is to set a demand level from the start, where in previous years we had a slightly more “fat” and gradual increase in power. We will therefore do 15 days of training, then a 15-day break to regenerate, because afterwards it will take a long time, and we will continue until the start of the championship with two preparation matches and a training camp at the end of August, which will allow us to adjust the levels and also quickly resume contacts to be ready by mid-August.
Do you leave them alone for two months or did they have programs?
To be honest, not really. I count on everyone’s autonomy. I have been working on off-season preparation with players for some time. Programs like that don’t always bear fruit, so I let people go to things they enjoy. It doesn’t bother me if the players get out of their box and seek out other activities such as hiking, swimming, padel tennis and also crossfit, which works well in the off-season. The aim is to let them regenerate, to leave them alone in terms of rugby. I think that is the most important thing, so that when we start again, we are immediately ready to fight, and relaxedly, fifteen days less preparation over the summer will perhaps allow us to fill the last year and the beginning of the year, which is to the detriment of each time, not so much on the physical side, but especially because it gave a preparation which was long.
The fact of immediately integrating rugby into the preparation…
It’s a way we’ve been working for a while. It is very interesting for us, as we try to develop the physicality specific to the position, but also with an intensity that we could find during the games. And we integrate this very quickly because it is important to us. We put a lot of balls and phases in the game, we move a little bit away from the type of preparation before where we just run and that, although sometimes we need it…
