How it works
How Match Ready plans your rugby week
Your club week stays fixed. The app’s job is to fit the right strength, power, speed and conditioning work around it, then adjust each session to how you actually are that day.
Step 1
Tell it how your week runs
Club training nights, fixtures and the end of the season. Mark the big games and the app lines up its heavier, lower-volume weeks before them.
- Season phase is automatic. General prep, specific prep and in-season are set from your first fixture. The app recommends 6–8 weeks of pre-season (4 at the very least) and counts back from game one.
- Late starter? Under 4 weeks to go, you get a compressed plan that never skips contact readiness or the warm-up programme.
- Joining mid-season? A 2–3 week rebuild before normal loading.
Step 2
Pick your position and level
You choose a main position and up to two others. The main position sets the emphasis; a second position adds its one key extra. Forwards tick their lineout role: jumper, lifter, both or neither.
Front row
Max strength, neck and trunk, scrum-specific strength endurance.
Second row
Strength, jumping and landing, overhead strength.
Back row
Strength, power and repeated efforts with contact.
Half backs
Aerobic fitness and repeat speed. Scrum-halves get the highest aerobic priority.
Centres
Power, deceleration and contact.
Back three
Top speed, hamstrings, strength without unwanted size.
Training level comes from years of consistent lifting and your main lifts, shown as Foundation, Novice, Intermediate or Advanced. You move up automatically as you progress, and never drop a level for one bad week. More on position plans.
Step 3
Check in before you train
Three countermovement jumps (same shoes, same surface, hands on hips) and four taps: sleep, soreness, energy, mood and stress. The app compares them only with your own rolling four-week normal.
For the first three weeks it just learns: no readiness flags, only the safety rules. After that, a jump drop bigger than your own day-to-day noise (and at least 5%) is amber; 10% or two ambers in a row is red. Wellness more than one standard deviation below your normal is amber; two is red. It always asks why: work, sleep, kids, a knock.
Step 4
Train, log, and let it adjust
Every change comes with a one-line reason, like “Jump 8% below your normal and poor sleep, so 2 sets instead of 3 today”, and one tap overrides it.
- Weights from how sets felt. Log reps left in the tank. Hit the target and you progress as planned; two or more reps easier and the bar goes up (lower body +5%, upper +2.5%); harder or missed reps and the weight repeats.
- Warm-up check. If your last warm-up set feels far heavier than expected, today’s working weights drop 5–10%.
- Session length you choose. 45, 60 or 75 minutes. The app learns your real pace from logged start and finish times.
- Club sessions count. One tap after club training logs how hard it was and your full-contact minutes, so the week’s total load stays sensible.
Principles
The rules it never breaks
The club week is fixed
The app never tells you to skip club training. If a week looks too heavy, it trims its own sessions: conditioning first, then accessories.
You versus you
Every comparison is against your own history. No leaderboards, no squad rankings, no other players’ raw numbers.
Cut volume, keep intensity
On harder days, sets come out before weight does, because that keeps strength without adding fatigue.
No risk labels
No injury predictions, no load ratios, no risk scores. Weekly load is described as higher, stable or lower, nothing more.
Safety always wins
A possible head injury, pain or illness overrides any green score, every time.
No guilt
No streak punishment, no body-shaming copy. Missed sessions aren’t made up; the plan just carries on.
Frequently asked questions
How long does setup take?
About five minutes. You enter your date of birth (18+ only), position, lineout role if you’re a forward, years of lifting, rough main-lift numbers or a test, your club training days, your fixtures and when the season ends, plus a short health questionnaire (PAR-Q+).
What if my club week changes?
Edit the day in the app. The club week is treated as fixed, so the app moves its own sessions round it. Cancelled training? Log it and the app may add a short top-up.
Do I have to do the morning check-in?
No. With no check-in your session runs as planned, with a gentle reminder. There’s no penalty and no streak to lose.
How does it know how heavy to go?
From an estimated max that updates from your logged sets (or a true 1RM test if you choose), programmed at 90% of that estimate. After each set you log how many reps you had left; the next session’s weights move from the gap between target and reality.
Coming soon
Train for Saturday, not for someone else’s week.
Match Ready: Rugby is coming soon to iPhone and Android. Leave your email and we’ll tell you the day it launches.