“The Honey Badger” Nick Cummins, Aussie fly-half Quade Cooper and even Kiwi star Sonny Bill Williams are some of the 15-man-game stars to have been lured across to sevens ahead of this year’s Rio Games, but one of the tried and true sensations of the Aussie 7s men’s team is their ultra-speedy and skilful centre Cameron Clark.  

Cam talks to Inside Sport about his preparation for the recent 2016 Rio Olympics. 

DIET

“I wouldn’t say we have a set diet as a team, but a lot of the time we will have lunch on-site as a group. It’s catered, which is great. What’s on offer can change quite a lot, but there’s usually a hit of protein, a hit of carbs, veggies, salads. There’s breads and wraps available as well.

“There’s a big emphasis on snacking around our regimen, especially for our current period of training, where we’re having a few sessions each day. It’s about making sure you’re getting something in before and straight after a training session. Beforehand, I’ll usually have some fruit – half an hour or an hour ahead of training; a banana or something. Between breakfast and our first training session can be quite a long wait if you have to sit through meetings, so we’re encouraged to eat during that period. After training they have protein shakes available. I’ll bring boiled eggs in just to snack on, or a handful of nuts, too.

“As far as supplements are concerned, often I’ll use some creatine. Sevens is all about repeat efforts and creatine helps with your ability to back up after each effort. It’s just a powder; you put a teaspoon in with your water. Also, a lot of the time we’ll use immune tablets and multi-vitamins to protect us during our travels; it can be quite easy to pick up bugs while flying and resetting your body clock and changing time zones. Probiotics are handy for that as well. Especially on hot days like today, there’s usually a mixture of Gatorade at the ready. They encourage us to get that on board, especially during the longer sessions.”

BROOMSTICKS AND BANDS

“The strange-looking exercise with the stretch band and broomstick is part of our extended warm-up. It’s a bit of speed technique-stuff. The broomsticks are used in way that … rugby’s a little bit different in that you’re not always sprinting in a straight line; often you’re having to have your hands up catching balls at full speed, rotating … There’s a big focus here on hip position and feet position, being able to keep that firing while you’re being put in different positions, such as when you’re going for the ball. This is a good warm-up exercise to do before we really start sprinting.”

PADDING UP

“There’s a training station - with the green pads – which focusses on our ball presentation; taking the ball into contact and being able to present the ball back well. It’s a big focus of ours to give our halfback clean ball. If you can get quick ruck ball, it can be very effective. That’s been an area we’ve really been working on. Another exercise in this circuit involves running into two pads. This is more a contested breakdown-type movement. Our focus is to get really long and far away from defenders. If you get tackled from behind and there’s a defender in front of you, you can press the ball down, pick it back up and keep going. The third exercise on this circuit is one where we roll the ball between our legs and try to get up and make our own clean-out. It’s all purely ball presentation, that little circuit.”

If you’re a rugger fan and Cameron happens to look a tad familiar, it’s because you’ve likely seen his dad Greg commentating the odd game over the years. But Cameron is a sensation in his own right. The 185cm, 83kg juggernaut scored 32 tries across the 2014-15 World Sevens Series, finishing equal fourth on the tryscoring list with 32 and fifth in points scored (218).