I’ve been following the bridge and the bridge v2 for a while now and made great progress.
With rugby season now in full swing I can only train 2 days a week due to team training and rugby conditioning.
As the bridge is a 3 day template, could I perform workout A+B on week 1, C+A on week 2, B+C week 3 and so on and so forth during the season. My initial thoughts were it’s better than not training but I was hoping to either get the seal or approval from you guys or a better way to organise things.
I’m very curious about that as well. I also play rugby (prop) and I’m also running the The Bridge. Obviously, other programming suggestions to work around the weekly match are very welcome as well.
Anytime you’re mixing strength training with an athletic schedule it gets nuanced…
In general, for team sport players, a typical periodization schedule looks something like this:
Offseason: Work on improving general adaptations (strength and hypertrophy would fall in this category) by increasing volume, and reduce volume on sport specific skills to maintenance levels. Any major weight changes happen here. If you want to push for hypertrophy to help you in rugby, slow weight gain happens here, and tapers off (maybe even going into weight loss phase to trim a little of the fat gained along the way) as the pre-season approaches. If someone were in a sport that benefits from lower body weight, the off-season is the time to lose a decent amount of lb’s if they feel it will benefit performance.
Pre-season: Reduce volume on general adaptations, increase volume on sport specific skills (practice usually starts here) and if need be trimming some additional weight prior to the season starting so you have less weight to drag around on the field.
In Season: General adaptation training goes into low volume maintenance mode, sport specific skill training stays high, competitions come into play and any strength & conditioning training especially need to be handled with finesse around competition days (i.e. heavy lifting the day before a game is not advised). Fatigue management requires skillful balancing during the season in order to maintain general adaptations without compromising performance on the field. Maintaining weight is typical in season.
Of course this also assumes that someone is heavily invested in the sport and that this is their highest priority. For someone who’s sport was #1 priority, I would not likely advise running the bridge during the season. That would be more of an off-season kind of program. During season, maybe something more similar to the time-crunch template if you’re on a budget. Optimally, you would hire an experienced coach to program for you around your practice and competition schedule.