Probably not, but that’s one of the ways our fantastic strength coach, Bryce Cavanagh, keeps us enjoying our weights sessions in the gym.
Most of us really enjoy doing weights, but Bryce sets up different games to keep it new.
So the way the Monopoly works is that you throw the dice, and instead of landing on Mayfair, the board instead reads “bench press’’.
Or if you go to the Monopoly jail, you might have to do extra chin-ups.
Weights are an important part of our training week and most of us do them two or three times a week, with the young guys definitely doing three as they build themselves up.
Everyone has their own program tailored by Bryce and there are a lot of strong bodies around, so you’re always looking to make sure you’re competitive!
We have three different groups - the young guys, the middle sized guys such as myself and then the big players. That includes the ruckmen, and the key forwards such as Jesse White and Daniel Bradshaw.
Our Canadian ruckman, Mike Pyke, or Pykey as he’s widely known, is a standout in the gym, because of his rugby background.
And Taylor Gilchrist who’s on our rookie list, stands out too…but maybe for the opposite reasons to Pykey!
Jude Bolton is as competitive in the gym as he is on the field but I can reveal that he hasn’t passed his bench press PB for 10 years. You could say he’s plateaued.
But in general you see huge amounts of improvement in yourself over the years of doing weights.
You can improve so much, even in a short time.
When I came to the club I weighed just 69 kilos - and my then long curly hair probably weighed at least 2kgs of that!
Now I weigh 82 kilos and much of it is due to our weights programs.
So, back to the Monopoly board!
