READY FORTOUCHPERFORMANCE LABTHE PERFORMANCE LABUnderstand your training.
Our gym, field and mobility sessions support the physical demands of touch rugby. Skills, decision-making, team practice and recovery belong alongside that preparation.
What the research supports
Progressive resistance training, high-quality power practice, recovery between speed efforts and repeatable testing inform our approach. Each session links its purpose and prescription to relevant sources.
Why these sets, reps & rest?
Strength and power need different doses. Your programme uses these research-informed principles, then adjusts for your experience, tests, recovery and touch schedule.
- Strength: usually 2 sets; loaded compound lifts use small controlled sets with full recovery; each exercise shows its own starting dose. Returning players may start with 1 set.
- Power: small sets of crisp throws with full recovery. Jumps use small sets and 2 minutes rest. Quality work comes before conditioning.
- Speed & turning: short efforts with 2–3 minutes recovery. Repeated-effort conditioning is a separate block.
- Progress: keep 3–4 good reps in reserve. Logged effort and next-day recovery guide small increases; fatigue can reduce the dose. Warm-up and recovery fit inside your session limit.
The exact starting percentages (50–70%), 90-day baseline window and progression limits are conservative Ready for Touch rules. Research does not validate this app’s complete programme or guarantee an individual result.
Each session shows its touch purpose and quality target. Two comparable, complete sessions on separate days and normal recovery are needed for an earned increase; missing repetitions or skipped work cannot unlock it.
Studies of other camera apps do not validate Ready for Touch. Its video results are manual estimates of average vertical speed, not peak velocity, force or power.
Exercise library · 30 research references
Research-informed principles for adult players. Studies differ in population and setting; evidence from contact rugby or other sports is identified below. Camera estimates and this complete selection algorithm have not been clinically validated.
Healthy adults; general strength and power training. Supports progressive resistance training and goal-dependent loading. This library’s exact starting doses are coaching choices; it does not validate a complete touch programme.
Healthy adults; foundational prescription guidance. Historical guidance on strength, power and progression, read alongside the newer ACSM statement. Not a rehabilitation or youth prescription.
Elite sprinting; transfer to team sports requires judgement. Supports purposeful sprint practice, technical quality and adequate recovery. Exact drill sequences and distances here are coaching applications.
Dynamic preparation; mixed exercise populations. Dynamic movement can prepare range and performance. It does not establish an injury-prevention effect for each warm-up drill.
Multiple sports; programmes including Nordic hamstring exercise. Programme-level injury reduction supports considering progressive Nordic loading. It is not an individual guarantee or acute-injury treatment instruction.
Male football players; progressive adductor programme. Supports progressive adductor strengthening in the studied programme. Touch, women and alternative doses require cautious transfer.
One male and one female international touch team. Informs touch conditioning context. Team-average differences do not determine an individual athlete’s exercise level, speed threshold or training load.
Court and field sports; planned direction changes. Multiple training methods can support planned turning. Angle, entry speed and task specificity matter; planned cuts are not identical to reactive agility.
Mostly soccer and basketball; female samples underrepresented. Supports practising perception and action together. Evidence certainty and sport transfer limit universal dose claims.
Male touch players; a specified reactive-agility test. Provides touch-specific rationale for reactive demands. It does not validate this library’s games, camera timing or alternative tests.
Amateur mixed-gender touch players. Supports an intermittent, position-aware touch context while showing limited between-position differences for many measures. Avoid rigid positional stereotypes.
Aerobic interval programming across athletic contexts. Work duration, intensity and recovery affect the training stimulus. Example intervals are templates to individualise, not a single optimal touch prescription.
Team-sport repeated-sprint sessions. Repeated sprints create substantial acute fatigue. Keep conditioning goals separate from fresh maximal-speed development.
Female team-sport athletes; certainty varies by outcome. Supports including appropriate plyometric training for women. It does not establish one best contact count, drill or progression ladder.
Female athletes; jump outcomes. Supports potential jump improvement from plyometric programmes. Specific exercise selection and impact readiness still require coaching.
Structured rugby-union physical preparation programmes. Useful physical-preparation reference. Individual borrowed exercise concepts do not confer the injury reductions of the full studied programme, nor establish equivalent effects in touch.
Stretching interventions and joint range. Supports range-of-motion changes with repeated stretching. Extra range is useful only where it serves the athlete’s needs and does not guarantee injury prevention.
Post-exercise cool-down effects. Does not support broad claims that a cool-down prevents soreness or injuries. Use an optional brief transition for comfort and preference.
Post-operative ACL reconstruction; clinician-managed rehabilitation. Supports individual rehabilitation and multidimensional progression. It cannot be generalised to every knee injury or used as app-only clearance.
Acute lateral ankle sprain and chronic instability. Informs clinician-selected loading, balance and functional work after ankle sprain. Severity and restrictions determine the entry point.
Touch playing-rule discussion. Context for seven-metre defensive movement. This is not a current competition rulebook: verify local rules before using drill distances or interchange conventions.
Midportion Achilles tendinopathy. Supports condition-specific management and loading. Do not apply midportion guidance unchanged to insertional pain, rupture or surgery.
Athletes with hamstring strain. Informs injury assessment and rehabilitation. Exercise choice, lengthening demand and running exposure require an individual plan.
Patients with diagnosed patellar tendinopathy. Supports a progressive loading approach in the studied condition. Do not copy it as a universal knee-pain or post-operative pathway.
Adults with suspected or diagnosed rotator-cuff tendinopathy. Supports assessment-led nonsurgical care and rehabilitation. It does not cover every shoulder injury, instability episode or surgical restriction.
Eumenorrheic women; heterogeneous evidence. Does not justify a universal phase-based performance schedule. Use the athlete’s symptoms, preferences and observed response; avoid assumptions based on gender alone.
Children and adolescents under appropriate instruction. Youth need supervision and development-appropriate programming. Adult doses in this catalogue must not be automatically copied to under-18 athletes.
Return to sport after lateral ankle sprain. Readiness includes pain, ankle impairments, perception, sensorimotor control and sport function. A single hop score or elapsed time cannot replace review.
Tendinopathy trials. Isometrics are one loading option, not a guaranteed analgesic or universally superior exercise. Clinicians select angle, load and dose.
Healthy participants undertaking resistance training. Strength work can also support range. A separate mobility drill is not always necessary if the required range is already trained comfortably.
What is a product rule
Our exact starting doses, progression gates and profile adjustments are conservative programming choices. Research on training principles does not validate this app’s complete algorithm. Two comparable, controlled sessions and normal recovery are required before an earned increase; incomplete work does not unlock progression.
How reliable are my results?
Use your own repeatable measurements to guide training. A small change can come from filming or timing differences.
- Repeat the same test, side, surface, footwear and warm-up.
- For video, keep the camera position, frame rate and slow-motion settings consistent. Review the marked frames.
- Retest when fresh. Look for a repeatable change alongside completed sessions and recovery.
Video estimate: calculated from markers you review. This is not automatic technique assessment.
Hand-timed result: includes the timer’s reaction time. Compare like-for-like.
Self-reviewed movement: your assessment of control; it is not a diagnosis or clearance for sport.
Ready for Touch camera tests have not yet been independently validated against timing gates, a jump measurement system or a bar-speed sensor. We do not claim an accuracy percentage or label small changes as certain improvement.
Read our training principles & researchPersonalisation without stereotypes
Your recent training, results, goals, equipment, restrictions and recovery shape your programme. Optional cycle check-ins use symptoms and your training preference. Gender or a predicted cycle phase does not impose an automatic strength ceiling.
Validation status
Independent device-comparison testing and practitioner sign-off of the complete programme engine are pending. We will publish methods and findings when those reviews have actually been completed.
Principles and implementation reviewed for this release: 29 September 2026. This date records our product review, not independent scientific approval.
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