Rugby League Coaching Manuals

By Steve Hunt - Penrith’s conditioning coach Carl Jennings is a small but vital cog in the Penrith side. The former British shot putt champion & international athlete, and former Bradford Bulls and Canberra Raiders conditioning coach is busting down the training taboos and presenting the club with a whole new way of going about things in training.

After half a lifetime working with some of the fittest athletes in the world over a range of sports, Carl has formulated his own style of conditioning to create what he calls the super athlete.

And while re-building a side can take a number of years, re-building and re-teaching training techniques is part of his brief to turn to players into a formidable unit in years to come.

Carl speaks to RLCM and gives us an insight into his preferences over a whole range of issues from nutrition to training and diet.

Carl’s foray into learning about the fine art of the human body began at the age of 14 when, in his own words, his champion bodybuilding father dragged ‘a skinny, weakling, ‘asthmatic kid’ into a gym.

“I really responded to it,” he recalls. “By the time I was 17, I was the north of Britain Under 23 British power lifting, and Olympic lifting Champion. Then I got into track and field and at the age of 24 became the British shot putt champion.

“Even though I retired early at the age of 25 I learnt a lot about the body and its relationship to exercise

At that time my cousin was one of the youngest professional cyclists in Europe and we started developing nutritional products.

“Being at the forefront of sports nutritional development gave me the opportunity to mix with some of the best athletes and coaches in the world, I gave many talks on the use of nutritional strategies,
and training methods, in Europe and the USA.

“After 18 months working as the strength coach at Leeds United, I joined the Bradford Bulls at the end of 1996, I felt that my knowledge and expertise, which is about developing power, strength and explosive speed would give me a great platform to develop a winning team.

“Matthew Elliott in 1997 showed me great faith by giving me a six month contract, I only had time to develop a basic strength program, and just worked on getting the players bigger and stronger than the
opposition.

"Based on the philosophy that everything we did training-wise was specific to the sport. The Bradford Bulls that year won 20 games straight to win the title, I spent five 5 great years at the Bulls, developing a team which became physically dominant in the English Super League, and eventual World Club champions.”

“The Bradford coaching staff was very innovative, and developed many new training systems. Other teams in the English game were forced to improve their training methods to stay in touch. Things are changing all the time and sometimes they can change too quickly and people forget about the basics in relation to strength and fitness development. They get too sports science orientated.

Sports science at the end of the day was designed to improve the top four or five percent of elite performers.

“I believe that rugby league is the most physically demanding sport in the world. It’s the only sport where if a player gets injured, he gets up again and is expected to make another tackle. In boxing the
referee will stop the fight.

“The players are spending a lot more time developing their physical prowess, the speed of the game is getting faster and faster all the time, because the physical requirements of the sport are so high, I have to develop world class athletes, that play the game rather than getting players fit.

"Although I don’t look at them as athletes, but rather as warriors of the working class. They are superb specimens, freaks of nature that work hard, are dedicated, focussed, and unique individuals......... Maybe you or other coaches at your club might be interested in the RLCM Monthly Coaching Club ?

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