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Simon White
November 29, 2011 - 2:09PM
WAtoday sports writer Simon White has finished a week from hell, as he undertakes the pre-season training with the Western Force.
Last week, WAtoday.com.au sports reporter Simon "The Waterboy" White bumbled his way through the first two days of pre-season training with the Western Force. He's back this week - if not exactly bigger and better, then at least more exposed, in a hastily purchased pair of Speedos.
Day six of my first week of pre-season training with the Western Force and I'm suddenly afraid...very afraid.
As always, there's the fear that comes with the fact I'm about to embark on a training session that I know nothing about.
But mostly, given that we are gathered for a beach session at City Beach, there's the fear of being made to wear budgie smugglers in public for the first time since Year 8 swimming.
The following is a cumulative list of what is running through my mind: Is all my equipment going to stay where it should? Why didn't I get an all-over spray tan before I signed up for this gig? Why is my teammate Paddy Dellit asking for Vaseline before the session? Oh no, this is going to chafe, isn't it? When did the memo about waxing/shaving/plucking before these beach sessions go out? How could I have missed it so badly? Would I have got it if I had a pigeon hole at the club like the other players?
If I was brave enough to bring any of this to the attention of coach Richard Graham, he'd probably tell me I'm suffering from "the demons".
And that's what these pre-season sessions are all about – taking you to the dark places (where your mind starts to ask the hard, body-hair related questions), so that you are prepared for when you go there in a game situation.
David Hasselhoff never looked this good.
As it is, I momentarily forget about pretty much all of my demons as I "travelling burpee", crawl (no use of the legs) and do the frog and, somewhat fittingly, the gorilla through the soft Saturday morning sand..
I'd struggle to adequately describe most of these activities but, suffice to say, they take it out of you.
So too, a little surprisingly, does the other half of the 40-minute session, an "in-and-out" exercise that involves running into the water chest deep, waiting 30 seconds and then running back out of the water again.
I probably take a slight advantage into this one, as I've bodysurfed at City Beach every summer for the last 25 years.
But there's a tricky swell working this morning and, in running out of the water, I'm required to ignore my instincts and turn my back on the ocean. I end up eating sand a couple of times.
I've also, by now, deduced that the ironmen who do those knees-up runs out of the water are simply making it look easy. It ain't actually easy at all.
But I've come too far in the past six days to give up and I soldier on and get the job done – if not spectacularly then at least semi-competently.
When I get home I gaze longingly at the six lonely Heinekens in the fridge, then decide that, at 10am, a nap might be a better idea.
Once I've cleared a kilogram of sand and shells out of the seat of my Speedos, I actually sleep pretty well.
A benchmark for badness
I'd love to sugarcoat this part of the blog and say I surprise the boys on day five, unleashing hidden power during my sole strength session of the week at the Force gym.
But there's only so much fiction I can write. And thanks to my new mate James "Chucky" Stannard and his Twitter account (@chuckystannard), it's already public knowledge that I have the worst bench press technique seen in the history of professional rugby.
Chucky and most of the squad get a good laugh out of me trying to bench a hefty 30kg as part of a circuit that involves four consecutive lots of 10 push-ups leading into 10 bench presses.
The one bloke who isn't laughing so much is Cam Shepherd, maybe out of politeness but also because he's spotting for me – which, in the case of The Waterboy, means shouldering half the weight and preventing me dropping the bar on my face.
The rest of the session, through two other torturous stations continues in a similar vein.
Yep, fair to say that's hurting.
Me pulling ridiculous faces – constipated men have looked less inconvenienced – while Shep, in between lifting his own, far heavier weights with what seems to be relative ease and impressively consistent technique, alternates between being chief of my cheer squad and protecting me from accidental, self-induced harm.
I'm not sure that I would have got through that session without him. Unfortunately, once finished, I'm equally unsure whether I will ever regain a sense of feeling in my forearms.
I retire, shoulder-deep, into the ice bath for 10 minutes to see if the situation is repairable.
Ice, ice baby
If there's one, surprising thing I learn in my first week with the Force, it's that a small pool of water chilled to 11C is my new best friend.
When I first jump in the ice bath, after the horror of day two's Strongman session, I'm too afraid to a) fully immerse myself in the water and b) stay in there more than a couple of minutes.
For the next two days, my tender pecs – or whatever it is that I have where other guys have pecs – tell me that the ice bath is another demon I have to get over.
Come the end of day four, I'm jumping in there with what, if it isn't actually a smile, is at least less of a grimace.
I need it too. Day four is God's (or maybe strength and conditioning coach Charlie Higgins') way of telling me that I did too well in the running drills on day one.
I find myself bumped up to the elite running group with Chucky for company and a program that involves running 60m in 10 seconds, having 10 seconds' break and then running back in 10 seconds.
This up-and-back process is repeated seven times in each block. And we do four blocks of them (although we drop back to 55m for the final two).
I quickly find out that Chucky, who has a rugby sevens background, is a running machine. Physics can't explain why Chucky, who is 174cm, seems to be taking half as many steps as I do at 187cm.
By the time we finish off the session with four repetitions of a 20m x 40m x 60m shuttle run against a running clock, Chucky still seems to going strong, while my lungs and my brain are crying out for a break.
Still, in hindsight, at least I know that I wouldn't have looked as bad as I did in the gym a day later.
One piece of grilled fish please
What a difference a week makes.
Only a few days before I start my pre-season training, I'm in Lancelin with my best mate Macca.
We're ordering fish and chips and I have to counsel Macca when he tries to order grilled fish – my thought is that if you are going to order something unhealthy, you may as well do it proper unhealthy.
Fast forward a week (the night before my City Beach session) and I'm in my local fish and chips store ordering, you guessed it, grilled snapper.
A week into my own pre-season and I've got a whole new level of respect for rugby union players and their strength (which I'd expected) and stamina (which, with probably at least half the squad at 100kg-plus was less expected).
I've also got plenty of admiration for their discipline. No hands on hips at training. Run to your next station. Keep moving between drills. Cross-train between run-throughs.
It's been a long, long week.
So far, my own discipline has extended to resisting being seduced by the Heinekens winking at me from the fridge at home.
Now, with a week off ahead of me, I wonder whether my resistance can hold.
Not that I'm the only one in this boat. Outside centre Rory Sidey, whose orange SVU I've decided is the coolest out of all my teammates' wheels (better than my 95 Honda, at any rate), tells me that the playing group faces exactly the same dilemma on its seven-day break.
Wow, I guess I really am part of the way to becoming a professional rugby player!
***Simon White - AKA The Waterboy - will resume pre-season training with the Force next week. Tune in for more updates but, hopefully, no more budgie smugglers. Please note, The Waterboy does not have a contractual agreement with Heineken but is open to offers. But probably not from Emu Export.***
Follow Simon White on Twitter @simmowhite
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Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/rugby-unio...#ixzz1f5V65jGm
Amen to that.The Waterboy does not have a contractual agreement with Heineken but is open to offers. But probably not from Emu Export.![]()
"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David
And Simon's experiencing pre-season training without Bam Bam sprinting to the weights and doing lifting sessions between running drills!