Why upper body power matters in rugby
Rugby is a collision sport, and the arms, shoulders, and trunk settle a lot of its contests: the fend that buys a metre, the punch of a tackle, the drive of a maul, the fight to keep the ball through contact. Those moments reward force produced fast, not force produced eventually, and that speed of delivery is what a power test measures and a slow gym lift does not.
Strength still sits underneath the quality rather than apart from it. When a men's national rugby sevens squad was profiled, the players' bench press results lined up strongly with the forces they produced in an explosive push up test, so the bench keeps mattering. The power tests earn their place by measuring the fast end directly, and by travelling to places a loaded barbell cannot.
The tests worth running
| Test | What it targets | Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Bench press throw on a Smith machine | Peak pushing power at a known load | Smith machine, safety catches, bar speed sensor |
| Seated medicine ball chest pass | Horizontal pushing power, scored as distance | Medicine ball, tape measure, wall to sit against |
| Plyometric push up | Fast force off the floor through the arms | Force plates, or a contact mat for flight time |
The bench press throw, step by step
The athlete lies on a bench under a Smith machine bar, lowers it to the chest, and throws it upward as explosively as possible, letting go at the top. The guided bar path and the safety catches make a maximal effort repeatable and safe, and a bar speed sensor turns each throw into peak power, velocity, and force.
- Warm up generally first, then take a couple of easy sets of bench presses well below the testing loads.
- Throw at thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty percent of your bench press one repetition maximum, three throws per load, with a minute between throws and a couple of minutes between loads.
- Record peak power at every load rather than assuming where the peak sits, and note the load that produces your highest output.
- Retest every eight to twelve weeks on the same bar, bench height, grip width, and warm up.
What measured groups actually produce
Throw distance separates playing standards even at school age. Among 158 schoolboy players profiled in Zimbabwe, the boys playing competitive rugby out-threw their non-competitive schoolmates with a two kilogram chest throw in both age grades tested, averaging about 7 m against 6 m at under sixteen and about 9 m against 8 m at under nineteen.
At senior level, a men's national rugby sevens squad averaged about 1,260 newtons of peak force on the plyometric push up, and that force score barely moved when the squad retested a week later. The calculated power figure from the same push ups swung far too widely between sessions to trust, so when you test this movement, track the force, and treat any power output your kit produces with suspicion until it has proven it can repeat.
An absolute target borrowed from another squad tells you very little, because the ball, the seating position, the release rules, and the measuring kit all move the number. Test your own players twice in pre season, treat the second session as the baseline, and judge everything afterwards against it. Keep youth players on their own timeline rather than against adult numbers.