Building power is vital come season kick-off. Building power is vital come season kick-off. Images: Stefan Postles

Staying loose

“For recovery we use anything from ice baths to massages to stretching. The Brumbies have masseuses coming in twice a week and I try to get at least an hour a week on the bench, similar on the physio table. It’s all about working out your tightness. And, of course, recovering from weights has a lot to do with supplement taking as well. Your body has to heal from the load you’ve just put it under and that’s where supplements help.“When you’re doing a lot of weights, the flexibility of your gluts and your hamstrings really decreases. Generally, if you’re going to do an injury to yourself, it’s mainly as a result of tight gluts and hammies. So before the session there’ll be a quick stretch and after the session there’ll be a warm-down followed by another stretch.”

The scales say ...

“Obviously in the pre-season my workload is a lot higher, so it comes back to the old equation: if you’re going to build weight, your calories in have got to be higher than your calories out. But during the season, where the training backs off and I need to feel recovered, I taper my calories off, so the in and out is roughly equal. Some blokes, on the other hand, need to reduce their skinnies (skin folds), so their calories in are less than the calories out. It sounds very technical, but realistically – if you’re smart with what you eat and you’re aware of your training loads and what’s required on the park – you can generally work your nutrition quite easily.“I couldn’t give you my specific calorie intakes, but during the pre-season, with all the protein drinks and the supplements, I might be punching around five meals a day into my body. That sounds a lot, but in saying that, I’m burning a hell of a lot of that off.“The only issue I have with my weight is that I’ve got a specifically designated playing weight that really does dictate how I perform. If I’m heavier than 115kg going into a game, I’ll generally feel like I’m lagging on the field. So that mean weight for me – where I like to train and play at – is somewhere between 113-115kg. That’s ideal. In the pre-season, where I’m in a muscle-building phase, I’ll obviously go over 115kg. It’s just a matter of timing; when I hit the season, I also hit my premium playing weight.”

– Aaron Scott