15 Mins With…

RUGBY SEVENS STAR DAN NORTON

Rugby sevens legend Dan Norton

Legend is a term vastly overused in sport, but for England and GB rugby sevens player Dan Norton, there’s no argument that his stellar career warrants legendary status – and then some. Since his introduction to the England side more than a decade ago, Norton has sprinted, side-stepped and swerved his way into the record books, becoming the all-time leading try-scorer in international sevens history.

Speed is everything

in sevens. In our team, there’s always the out-and-out quick guys, but generally people have a good turn of pace about them, and the ability to use their angles and decisionmaking to chase people down. Fitness is a big part of it as well. Being able to repeat those sprints, changes of direction, and the pure endurance element.

Generally, we do speed work once a week. It consists of running drills to prime the body and correct any technical aws you might have, and to make sure all your energy is moving in the right direction. From there, we do di erent change-ofdirection drills, along with accelerations and races over 20 or 40 metres.

Leg strength and power is fundamental. So we do things like squats, weighted step-ups, and Olympic lifts like hang cleans, power cleans and split jerks. It’s seasonal, so what we do would depend on where we are in the season, and where we are in our programme. We do exercises where you’re forced to exert your energy and speed in a very quick, switched-on manner, because that resembles the rst couple of steps of an acceleration phase when you’re sprinting.

e hardest thing about being a sevens player is the jetlag. We once went to New Zealand, which is 12 hours ahead of the UK, and the following Monday we ew to Las Vegas, which is eight hours behind the UK, so there are massive swings in the time di erences. It can be tough to get enough sleep.

But to be able to y around the world and play a sport in di erent countries, with the sun on your back, is pretty special.