Fit for Rugby?

There are a bewildering number of highly scientific and specifically tailored fitness programmes out there for would-be rugby players, but I must admit that I find myself agreeing with The Times' Stephen Jones (and THAT doesn't happen very often) in his Rolling Maul column this week.

"To get endurance fit for rugby," he says, "you have to run a long way till you are very tired, and to get sharp and faster for rugby you have to run a short way lots of times, and that there is no way round it."

Genius!

Sadly the state of my fitness currently is that I can run a short way not very often and get very tired very quickly!

In fact running is pretty much about all I can do at the moment (and even that's difficult with an increasingly sore right hip) as I've been struggling over the summer with a succession of neck and shoulder problems, the latest of which involves a debilitating pain in my right shoulder which is restricting movement of the joint somewhat. I've had it about 10 days and rest is making absolutely no difference, so a trip to the physio is now looking all but inevitable.

What is also looking almost certain is that, without dramatic improvement, there's going to be little chance of me making the first Vets fixture of the season against Fullerians on 26th September (although given the beatings we've suffered at their hands over the past couple of seasons, maybe that's no bad thing!)