Glimpse of the Warriors’
The Warriors hope their players will emerge fitter and faster from the lockdown period, despite the disadvantages of training in isolation, and with a limited range of equipment.
The NRL club’s head trainer Craig Twentyman says the period is a chance to advance in some vital areas, a consistent message he has been pushing to the playing group.
“This is an opportunity to progress in some key areas, going into what we believe will be a dense, intense, period — a mini pre-season if you like,’’ he said. “They need to be able to prepare themselves to tolerate that, and decrease their risk of injury on return.
“It’s about trying to get them out of the mind set of using this as a maintenance period,” added Twentyman. “It’s really a chance they don’t get — maybe ever — to push fairly hard to improve key areas.
“While we can’t do anything around the wrestle and the contact component, we can push hard with the running and speed side of things and maintain some off the ground [weight training] ability.”
There have been challenges, as some players have much better home training set-ups than others, and some interesting work arounds, with players filling bags with clothes, shoes or canned food, to add extra starch to bodyweight exercises.
The Warriors’ plan kicked into place soon after they returned from Australia on March 23, three days before the lockdown began.
Players piled gym bikes, rowing machines and other equipment into their cars, while staff worked on schedules.
“We are catering for different scenarios, some with equipment, some without,” said Twentyman. ‘‘Everyone has their individual workons that we have prescribed, as well as the broader team stuff.”
The running programmes include some “double days”, with sessions in the morning and afternoon, though mostly structured around a balance of speed one day and endurance the next.
“There are field sessions, focused on speed, repeat speed and changing direction in a bigger space,” said Twentyman.
“Then aerobic development in the afternoon, using runs around the block, stairs or hills, depending on the options they have.”
Complementing those sessions, trainer Ruben Wiki has devised plenty of his notorious “Zuu” based bodyweight exercises (bear crawls, frog squat, duck walk etc) and set challenges for the team.
“For those players without weights there is a home-based conditioning circuit, with body weight,