By Cameron Sinclair ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

All warm up sequences should incorporate joint mobility and conditioning, in addition to conventional stretching. Most rugby players have been taught from a young age to develop an awareness of the importance of stretching, but few appreciate this flexibility should primarily be to maintain a healthy range of motion at the joints.

Ensuring joints move and have been trained to withstand a range of external forces will assist with both the development of strength and movement capacity on the field, but also the capacity to withstand the inevitable collision and trauma stresses of a regular rugby season.

Shoulders
Roll the right arm forward through a full range of motion… left arm forward, right arm back, left arm back, both arms together forward and backward. Swing arms in an exaggerated hugging motion, with a focus on movement of the scapular, swing arms up above the head in unison. A normal range of movement at the shoulder joint is the capacity to get within one fist length of being able to touch the fists together behind your back.

Hips
Exaggerated lateral movement, twists, forward and back, rotation clockwise, and anticlockwise. A normal range of motion is the capacity to both comfortably touch the toes while standing or seated, and to comfortably lie with the hips on the ground, with arms straightened, propping up the shoulders.

Knees and ankles
The knee and ankle joints are obviously not designed to accommodate substantial tortional or lateral forces , but standing rotations and multi-directional hops, bounds, lunges and squats are all effective ways of conditioning the knee and ankle joints for the inevitable forces they will encounter in rugby.