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Scrum Factory - 6. TOP Stick Work

By using sticks and poles, the players are encouraged to self assess their body shape. Peer coaching is also a valuable process in this area and players can work in pairs, quickly learning from each other

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Yeah, the coach is using a stick or broom-handle to demonstrate to the player the angle of their back whilst practicing the Tower of Power this enables the player to gain a visual representation of their body posture. This exercise is particularly useful for fault identification and correction. Okay, what we're going to look to do is use the pole to develop your understanding of where your body feels that it is it flowing position in a strong position moving forward. There's a lot of times in the scrum where I do some video work with props and they say yeah, I'm feeling good position and actually their shoulders are down below the hips. All right. So what we're going to use this for is to get players to understand that that's a flying position moving forward. We want to avoid being in a position where we take off and we want to avoid being in a position where we land. So what we're going to do is to bring you set yourself pleasing your strong power position and we're going to put the Pole right on the base of a waistband right where your hip is down the back so is basically becomes a spine and the head comes into a natural walking position. Okay so feet These pelvic tilt core on scaps elbows tight chest up and out head in a natural walking position. And now what I want you to do. Davinia is going to be a scrum set position little bit lower the chest body weight forward more. Okay cheering down a fraction. Hold that shape. Okay now, Walk away to your left. Hold the pole stand up. Are you in a natural flying position? Yes. Okay. Let's have a look. He's out. He's out Vicky that's better chin down. I'll be there. I'll be there. Okay? Hold that now walk away. That's it. We're going down my hips higher just a fraction Blondie idea that makes my knees don't know it's just bringing the chest of a fraction and then controlling the hips you want to make sure you can pivot from there. Okay, and make sure you don't pull it too much up and down if you're gonna drop everything then the hips and knees are going to work together. Once you've got the confidence ill or I can you know, it's not rocket science. Is it what we're looking for? It's very basic shape, but it's very important and it's making sure that all the muscles are contracted the cause on so when you feel that resistance you can resist. All right couple of things I want us to look at though. Okay, if it's very easy for any in experience to coach to understand that if the pole is rocking we've got no shape. Yeah or get yourself a real good shape now. Yeah, okay or If there's a gap under the shoulders then the head might be the problem. We need to make sure that drop the chin that that there becomes what we're looking for chest up the fraction scabs on pelvic tilt more. Lower hips and knees a fraction and hold now balance. Okay, and ideally we can leave the pole there and I think you're just Landing a fraction Vicki. So we're just good and hold and relax. Excellent. Well done set yourself through the Tower of Power after we're looking at the feet the knees the hips tilt core on elbows scaps head in a natural walking position. I still think you can go a little bit wider and really work the legs. So as you want to avoid the knees collapsing, so make sure that you lock that knee in place over your heel and don't allow the knee to come in front of your toes at any any time. So getting your scrum set position, please Nora and what we're going to look at is developing the core strength here. To stabilize the body under pressure before you use the legs if you use the legs before you've stabilized the body your body will collapse. So the pole goes across the shoulders or is going to take a good grip here and always going to resist with the shoulder and her core not with the hand and all I'm going to do here is put pressure on And not as good a resist with that cool answer sheets have been a lot of tension in their resisting. Keep your chest down chest down. That's better. Alright, once you've stabilized here, you can use the legs. Okay, so we resist this way. I'm on this side. And then we're going to resist. Just imagine if you were to try to prop or the right hand lock this precious coming down that side of your body and you've got to resist here first before you use the legs straighten it up Laura strand it up with your body good better and we resist this side get your chest lower. Okay. So if I push back here and down that's similar to Lou said and you start to straighten your legs you losing stability in the legs modern Laura. Okay, so that's what I'd like you to do in your partner's get yourself set and just work on that resistance.