Ping.
You know you’re alive when you’re doing these hamstring exercises because you’re so close to death.
You’re on your knees, a partner is holding your ankles down and you have to drop – face first – to the ground as slowly as possible, trying to keep yourself up as you aim to level out your torso with the ground more and more.
The muscle is as prominent as it ever was, a sharp pain runs through the back of your leg and conditioning coaches love it. You? You just hate the shakes and love the relief of the ground touching your face.
The rewards are obvious though.
Former Leinster player Andrew Conway is just one of the Munster lads now who looks like he’s really hit his stride in the gym. Even more so.
In a fascinating pre-season video released by the province, strength and conditioning coach Adam Sheehan talks through what the team have done since meeting up four weeks ago and what they’ll continue to do going forward now that the internationals have rejoined the squad.
He also talks about the hamstring tests that the players were put through to assess the stress each player’s muscle was able to take.
So they used the NordBord but it’s safe to say that Andrew Conway’s hammies are in pretty good nick. The depth at which he’s able to hold himself up is ridiculous.
Anybody who’s ever tried this will understand the difficulties of not buckling way before the level he gets to.
The video is excellent in general though. You don’t just get to see big men shifting serious timber in a variety of different exercises, but Sheehan’s explanation of IRFU protocols, injury-prevention methods and the progression of the pre-season programme is definitely worth a watch.
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