Abstract
This study explored the physical and fitness characteristics of elite professional rugby union players and examined the relationships between these characteristics within forwards and backs. Thirty-nine elite professional rugby union players from the New Zealand Super Rugby Championship participated in this study. Body composition was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry alongside anthropometrics. Fitness characteristics included various strength, power, speed, and aerobic fitness measures. Forwards were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) taller and heavier than backs, and possessed greater lean mass, fat mass, fat percentage, bone mass, and skinfolds. Forwards demonstrated greater strength and absolute power measures than backs (p = 0.02), but were slower and possessed less aerobic fitness (p ≤ 0.01). Skinfolds demonstrated very large correlations with relative power (r = −0.84) and speed (r = 0.75) measures within forwards, while backs demonstrated large correlations between skinfolds and aerobic fitness (r = −0.54). Fat mass and fat percentage demonstrated very large correlations with speed (r = 0.71) and aerobic fitness (r = −0.70) measures within forwards. Skinfolds, fat mass, and fat percentage relate strongly to key fitness characteristics required for elite professional rugby union performance. Individual and positional monitoring is important due to the clear differences between positions.
Highlights
Rugby union (RU) is a high contact field-based team sport which consists of an 80-min game consisting of two 40-min halves separated by a break no longer than 15 min
Backs demonstrated large to very large correlations for body mass, lean mass and fat mass in relation to strength and relative power measures
Less fat mass and percent body fat were observed in Australian players [11,12,13]. These findings suggest that anthropometric, body composition, and fitness characteristic differences between forwards and backs are very similar within northern and southern hemisphere teams, though variances may be due to differences in environmental conditions, game-play [35,36], strength and conditioning practices [37], and ethnic/cultural make-up [11,12,13,19]
Summary
Rugby union (RU) is a high contact field-based team sport which consists of an 80-min game consisting of two 40-min halves separated by a break no longer than 15 min. Each team has 15 players on the field at a time, comprising eight forwards (numbers 1–8) and seven backs (numbers 9–15). The game itself is composed of collisions and intermittent exercise, where short periods of maximal or high intensity activity (e.g., sprinting, tackling, rucking, scrummaging, mauling) last between 5 and 15 s, interspersed with activity of lower intensities (e.g., standing, walking, jogging) of up to 40 s [2]. Players will generally cover approximately 6500 to 7500 m, with an average heart rate around 172 bpm [3,4].
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