RIKUS Goosen from Rugga Skills Rugby Academy, gives tips for junior coaches on multi-directional warm-up.
According to Goosen, coaches are much wiser these days – they say things like “always warm up with the ball, because that’s more like the real game”.
But, consider this: some players rarely see the ball, but what they do a lot of is move around in different directions.
“And this is what a wise coach should be saying about the warm up. Running up and down passing is not multi-directional: players should be zigzagging, running sideways, skipping backwards, jumping and falling, getting off the floor, turning 90 or 180 degrees, and so on,” said Goosen.
Goosen said the ball plays a part in all this, but from the kick-off, the defending side could easily be doing all the previous exercises in the first 30 seconds and 90 per cent of them won’t have touched the ball.
