Busy Week For Trypas

With most of the squad off for the week, there is no such luxury for Munster’s new Head of Fitness, Adam Trypas.

The Australian, who joined the province earlier this month, has a busy few weeks ahead as Munster head into the next phase of the season.

“The majority of the players have been given a week off,” said Trypas.

“Some that need to keep ticking over will continue to train. If they’ve had injuries, they have their own personalised programmes. We also have the guys in rehab who are doing standardised programmes and they’ll be in every day,” he added.

Next week the majority of the squad return from their mini-break ahead of the PRO12 clash against Cardiff Blues on Saturday, 8th of February and that’s when Trypas and the fitness staff will begin preparing the bulk of the squad for the second half of the season.

“The players will be coming back between next Tuesday and Thursday and we’ll lead them in and push them into the next phase. We’re going to do a little bit of testing from our department just to see where the guys are at and just to give us a little bit of information on how we individualise the next phase of training," he said.

“Some guys might need a little bit of extra training in different areas so it’s just a bit of gauge to see where we are at, but the intensity won’t go astray. Because they’ve had a little bit of time off, we’ll ease them back into it and educate them a little bit on what’s going to happen in the next phase,” added Trypas.

Before joining Munster, Trypas was the Physical Performance Manager with Super League outfit Catalan Dragons in France, having previously worked with other league sides including the Newcastle Knights in Australia. The high fitness levels of the players this season has led to the team finishing games strongly with some vital late scores – most notably against Perpignan and Scarlets – and Trypas believes that is a testament to the players and the coaching staff.

“I think, from me coming in and looking at it, some of that has got to do with the experience and the patience of the players. But, I think with how much it’s been happening, it’s a credit to the guys that are here already – Aidan O’Connell, Aled Walters, PJ Wilson and Will Douglas – guys who have looked after this team.

“We’re a lot fresher, we’re actually going into games feeling good, not going into games feeling tired and I think that’s a credit to the coaching staff as well because they understand that from a science point of view.”

With 10 Munster players with the Ireland squad this week ahead of the forthcoming Six Nations, Trypas will liaise closely with the national coaching staff and he's impressed with the detail passed on by the Munster Head of Strength and Conditioning.

“I’m heading into camp with them for two days to have a look at the set-up and touch base with everything there. We keep a very direct line of communication where we get all their time-keeping data, distances, speeds, injuries, how tight they’re feeling – that all comes back and forth," said Trypas.

“For example, Aled [Walters] is pretty awesome at what he does. Basically he will talk to Jason Cowman, the IRFU Head of Strength and Conditioning, and tell him about our guys coming into the Irish camp. He will tell him what those guys can do in the gym, what lifts or exercises they do, if they have any injuries, if they need to be pulled back from this or that because of injuries, and they will adapt that to their programme.”

Munster Rugby will host a one day Strength & Conditioning Conference in association with the Mardyke Arena, University College Cork on Saturday 1st of February 2014 at 9am.

For more details click here.