If you have any questions about fitness, email our fitness chair Chris Fountain.
REMEMBER: Train like a rugby player, not a bodybuilder or powerlifter! You need mobility in your hips and shoulders, as well as agility, power, and endurance!

Fitness will help you in almost every aspect of your life. Take time for fitness as often as you can manage.
Your mile time is something that serves well as a judge of overall fitness for rugby. While probably the best way to get better at running the mile is to run the mile, almost anything you do to increase your aerobic (exercise with oxygen) capacity will help you run a faster mile. This can be lifting with complexes, shorter rest intervals, or jumping rope between sets, running high or medium intervals with varying recovery periods in between, running distances further than a mile, or cross-training with other aerobic activities (rowing, swimming, etc...). Work some of these options into your weekly training, and you will see your mile time get better. 

Here is a link to a Fitness Tracker to keep tracking of various lifts, running times etc... to create a little competition in working out amongst the team.

Weight Training 
Here is a good routine for those just starting out: Strong Lifts

Here is the Westside for Skinny Bastards PDF: West Side for Skinny Bastards put out by Joe Defranco, who trains professional athletes from many sports from all over the world. 

USA Rugby Pre-season Lifting Routine, Designed to keep your joints moving in a healthy range of motion and muscle groups balanced (quads/hamstrings, chest/back). 

Get as much strength/mass training in as possible. Once the season starts, you'll want to focus on recovery and maintenance. For now, get in your deadlifts, bench presses, squats, and chinups. There's a page in the  fitness tracker for inputting your max on these lifts. If you do not feel comfortable going for your max, do 5 or so reps and go here: Max Calculator.
 If you're trying to gain mass, eat like a fat kid and watch too much tv. If you want to gain LEAN body mass, eat clean, but eat a lot. Figure out how many calories you get on an average day, and then increase that by 500. When you stop gaining (or if you somehow don't gain), add another 500. Focus on lifting and high intensity interval sprints, with minimal aerobic work. The weight will come.
 If you're trying to slim down to fit into your wedding dress, base your training on this. Get your clean diet on with a protein source, as many fruits and veggies as you want, and a low-calorie sauce. Remember that exercise burns relatively few calories, so you either have to be strict on the dieting or do a shitload of activity.
For everyone, consider peri-workout nutrition. Invest in a protein supplement that you can drink before, during, and after exercise. If you're skinny like me and want to be a boyscout, add some maltodextrin, waxy maize, etc... Other good additions are glutamine and BCAA's (branched chain amino acids), both available in powder (cheaper) and pill form. While I'm not convinced that it's safe for us, caffeine is a performance enhancing drug, so use it as necessary. Finally, try to have your biggest meal of the day after exercising. That will put it to the best use.

Get fit,
Tall Chris

Winter Fitness Tips from Tall Chris:
1. When doing unilateral exercises and you are not alternating (i.e. one-arm dumbbell row), do your weak side first and then match that number of reps with your stronger side.
2. Workout what you need the most improvement on first
3. Avoid solid food from 60min before your workout to 30min after (but DO use liquid nutrition - protein shakes, carb drinks, etc)
4. You can work out for multiple days in a row or multiple times per day if you plan it right (i.e. AM sprints PM Upper Body Lifting; AM Jog PM Total Body Lifting; Monday Lift Tuesday Run Wednesday Lift etc)
5. Work various repetition ranges to stimulate muscular strength, size, & endurance (At least cover 4-6, 6-8, & 8-12 depending on the exercise)
6. 2 Sets per exercise with work for those newer to lifting. 3 or more might be necessary for the experienced.
7. Research shows that one can maintain cardio fitness with one intense cardio/interval workout per week, but you'll need to do at least 2/wk if you want to get better.
8. Since we want to transfer this to a sport, make sure to include exercises that work multiple joints (deadlift, squat, clean, bench press, chinup)
9. Continue to increase intensity by adding weight, repetitions, sets, or decreasing rest between sets.
10. You can facilitate fat loss by lifting in the 10-15 rep range with little to no rest between exercises (circuit training or supersets)
11. Another great one for getting in better shape is Tabata. Do as many dumbbell thrusters (or front squats or barbell thrusters) as you can in 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. Repeat 7 more times.
12. Do mobility exercises before training and static stretching after.
13. If you can't lift as much as you did last workout, you either waited too long between workouts or not long enough. Try to find the sweet spot.