For the last few summers, once rugby and school sport stopped, I mainly just enjoyed the break. This summer I decided I needed to use the time to improve.

This September I’ll be starting sixth form and hoping to push for first-team rugby. I’ve become much more aware of how much work other players are doing outside normal training.

It isn’t enough just to turn up to the same sessions as everyone else and expect natural ability to get you into the team.

The players spending extra time in the gym, running sprint sessions, working on their fitness and practising their skills are the ones giving themselves the best chance of making the team.

With no school gym and no regular rugby training over the summer, I joined Westminster Lodge so I could start doing more of that work myself.

Why Westminster Lodge?

I didn’t spend ages comparing gyms.

Westminster Lodge had everything I needed, plenty of my mates went there already and it was close enough to walk to.

That last part is important. It takes me about twenty minutes to walk there through Verulamium Park. If I had to arrange a lift every time, I definitely wouldn’t go as much.

We normally decide in a group chat on the day, depending on who is free and what else everyone is doing. I can then pick up my bag and go rather than having to organise it in advance.

“If someone had to drive me every time, I definitely wouldn’t go as much. It had to be somewhere I could just walk to.”

The gym has all the machines and weights I need and, at the times I’ve been going, it hasn’t been too busy. The membership also includes swimming, which could be useful as I count swimming as part of my conditioning, but at the moment I swim at the school pool on my street on Saturdays.

Training for Rugby, Not Bodybuilding

A lot of people train in the gym mainly for their physique or because they want to do bodybuilding.

That isn’t what I’m training for.

I’m trying to get bigger, stronger, fitter and more powerful for rugby. I’ll be one of the smaller players competing for a first-team place, and rugby becomes more physical every year as everyone gets older and fills out.

From where I am now, rugby feels about 70% physical. How strong, fast and powerful you are has a massive effect on how far you can get.

I don’t focus as much on speed inside the gym. For that, I go down to the park and run my own sprint sessions.

I split my off-season work into four areas:

They are four different types of work, but they all support each other.

The gym part is also different from standard bodybuilding training. Sometimes I use a slightly lower weight and focus on moving it quickly rather than just getting it from one place to another. For rugby, it’s about being able to produce power quickly.

Getting Better Every Week

I already had programmes from school and an off-season programme from my rugby coach, so I didn’t need someone to design a completely new workout for me.

What I do keep track of is the weight, sets and reps for each exercise.

When I go back, I can see exactly what I did in the previous session.

If I think I can move up, I have to make myself try. Even if I can’t complete all the reps at the next weight, I still need to test it sometimes. Otherwise I’m just repeating something I already know I can do.

I don’t follow exactly the same session every time, though. Doing the same exercises over and over gets boring, so I switch some of them while still training for the same things.

Training With Friends Helps

I nearly always go with my mates because it’s just more fun.

We normally train for about an hour and a half. We talk between sets, but there’s also a bit of competition. If someone is lifting a similar weight to you, you naturally want to push a bit further or lift more than them.

That makes it easier to work harder than you might on your own.

On the walk there, I’ll often take a rugby ball and throw it around, kick it or practise spinning it in my left hand because that side isn’t as good as my right.

It’s only a small thing, but it means I’m working on rugby before I’ve even reached the gym.

What I’ve Learned Already

I’ve only been going regularly for a couple of weeks, so I’m not pretending that everything has changed already.

At the start, progress is quite easy to notice. You can increase weights fairly quickly because almost everything is new. I know that will slow down over time, and that’s probably when keeping yourself motivated becomes more important.

I’ve also learned that leg day really is as bad as everyone says.

Some people put off joining because they think everyone in the gym will be watching them or judging what they can lift.

So if feeling self-conscious is stopping you from joining, it shouldn’t. Everyone else is concentrating on what they came there to do.

Would I Recommend It?

Yes, especially if your normal sport or training stops over the summer and you want something you can organise yourself.

You don’t need to be an experienced athlete before you join. Most gyms offer an induction, and you can normally get a day pass or trial before paying for a membership.

If I were choosing a gym, I’d mainly look at three things:

The main thing I’d say is not to keep putting it off. Try a session, see whether you like it and work out whether it fits what you are trying to achieve.