Manu Samoa muscle up.

While most people are turning over in bed and catching up on sleep, the Samoan rugby team was at the gym early pumping weights.

Saturday mornings are so good, normally it means no work and most options are lazy and relaxed, it is not the case when you want to win in rugby. The Samoan team are grafting it to do well in the ANZ Pacific Nations Cup, this tax called hard work is what separates the men from the boys.

In a game that at times comes down to a point difference, this stint spent on the difficult things, like bench pressing 150 kilos and curling dumbbells is what can create a winner over the other option. It is way easier to sleep, watch a movie & eat something fatty, than it is to go for a run, or hit the gym. To create the seconds that make a difference on the footy field is literally hours and hours of sacrifice off the field to earn it. This morning the Manu Samoa side put a lot of credit the teams bank with a swift weights session.

The location was the High Performance Unit in Nadi, with the latest of Europe’s dance music blasting from an i-pod, these men went about their task.

The big brutes were like clockwork as they went about the business, lifting big steel, jumping and pumping at speed and medicine balls being thrown around like they were tennis balls, was all done with ease.

The whole idea is to improve on functional power, working on speed and power movements gets the huge men in tip top condition for test matches. Seeing the arms walking bye that looked so awesome and rippling makes thoughts of rugby retirement come to the surface, and stay on the surface.