Brian O’Driscoll gives a unique insight into the sheer grind of pre-season

Two years on from his last pre-season and Brian O'Driscoll still shudders at the thoughts of it.

Ever since he retired, and was gifted a gigantic bar of Toblerone, O'Driscoll has been enjoying life after rugby. Sure, he is still in the thick of it - presenting a Friday night show on Newstalk and providing commentary with BT Sport - but he does not miss the relentless grind of training. Writing on his revamped website, O'Driscoll gives an insight into what Ireland's World Cup hopefuls may be going through at the moment. The former Ireland captain says he bumped into Ian Madigan at a local gym, during his four-week summer break. The out-half was doing an endurance swim 'to keep himself ticking over'. O'Driscoll adds:

'Prior to arriving back at pre-season training, players will have been given set individual targets to aspire to – Jason Cowman who heads up the strength and conditioning coaching team in the national squad is a good guy but a tough task master. Testing would have included a Dexa scan to measure lean muscle mass and fat content. It’s more widely known as a measure of bone density but it’s the make up of fat tissue vs. muscle mass that will interest the trainers. For most outside backs they would be expected to be under 13% body fat at the start of pre season and somewhere closer to 10% when the season starts. Front rowers would be granted far more generous targets – then again, you have the occasional anomaly like Cian Healy.'

O'Driscoll goes into detail about the tailored fitness programs each player undertakes. In the later stages of his career, O'Driscoll avoided Olympic bar lifts [squats, dead lifts, cleans and jerks] and focused on sled-pulling, which he feels is a fine alternative to squatting. Looking at Ireland's World Cup prepartions, O'Driscoll comments:

'Knowing Joe Schmidt’s need for ball players, skill work will be incorporated from day one. 'A huge amount of cardio training will be done through rugby fitness games with the idea to keep high skill levels as fatigue increases – something he puts huge pressure on players to achieve. 'If you make it harder in training, then it becomes easier in games. A skill becomes a habit.'

[H/t: BrianODriscoll.com]