England International Michaela Staniford shares her training diary with us in the run up to the Women’s England match at Twickenham against the All Blacks.

It’s a great time for women’s rugby right now. This weekend the England women’s rugby team will play at Twickenham stadium for the first time. They take on the All Blacks as part of a historic international with both the men’s and women’s team playing a double header for the very first time.

It’s a huge day for the reigning 6 Nations and Nations Cup Champions who will be looking to assert their dominance in the game over New Zealand who are the current World Champions. The last time the sides met was back in 2006 when England lost 25-17.

It’s also hoped that by playing the match as a double header following the men’s match against the All Blacks will help to raise the profile of the women’s game and convert some die hard rugby fans to the sport.

This will be followed on Monday by the official launch of the Women’s Rugby World Cup to be held in England from August 20th - September 5th in South West London.

Michaela became England’s youngest international player when she made her debut aged just 18. A year later she went on to help England finish second in the 2006 Rugby World Cup. She was part of the England side in the Rugby World Cup 7s where England won the Plate.

Here she talks exclusively to Sportsister about her training and preparation for this World Cup campaign.

Heading to the gym:

I’m doing two to three gym sessions, two London wasp club sessions and two running sessions at high intensity or speed a week along with my day-to-day job!

On gym sessions days, I meet Becky Essex, another girl from the England team, after work. I prefer doing training sessions with others. Knowing you’re in it together, you can encourage each other through those pain barriers of training. The motivation and enthusiasm of your training partner or team mates can keep you going.

I’m a winger so I work on speed and power. I do a lot of power-lifting, shoulder and core stability. In a gym session, I start off with three to five hang cleans or power cleans, a type of power-lift that involves all the major muscle groups. I then do back squats, dumbbell bench and then a step-up working my hamstrings.

I do 8-12 reps of an upper body circuit, with smaller upper body movements like a shoulder press or curls. This is more muscle building than power. I do 3-5 sets of each exercise. For my running sessions, it’s about reps, so 22m- 150 m. It’s usually maximum effort and recovery so that you can repeat it.

My diet:

I have been paying attention to diet a lot more as I’m trying to build muscle mass. So I’ve been making sure I have enough protein in my diet and I eat regularly. I also take Maximuscle supplements. They’re one of our sponsors as well so we get them at a discounted price. On the sessions where I can’t quite get a good meal between training sessions, like when I go after work to training, protein shakes are quite handy to give you the calories you need to complete the session.

One of my favourite meals is chicken tortellini and pesto, which is easy and quick to make after work. It ticks all the boxes in terms of protein and carbs. I like my food. I don’t eat stupidly but I like my treats. Lately I’ve started cooking and made some cakes. I’m really good at making carrot cake. When I have a free Saturday morning, I make it, but unfortunately there are only a few of us in the house. So you end up eating quite a lot of it yourself! It doesn’t happen very regularly though, so it’s ok!

On the training pitch:

Juggling being a PE teacher and training every week day is tough, but my school is very accommodating and supportive. You don’t need much motivation to keep going because I enjoy training, playing, travelling and running out in that England shirt.

Training is a little bit of a social, because you see your mates more than you see people outside rugby. So you become very close. A gym session becomes a catch-up. It’s all about the camaraderie of rugby. I played netball and hockey at school, but rugby is such a sport that you really have to look after each other’s back. That’s one of the beauties of the game.

The England team aren’t able to get together that regularly because people live and work all over the country. We’ll get together the weekend before the match and the three days prior to the test. So we have to maximize our time.

When I’m not playing rugby:

When I do get time to relax, like to do less active things, like going to the cinema or shopping. I always spend too much money! In my free time, I like to try to do other sports, like cross-training and badminton. I went snowboarding recently. I’m rubbish at that, but it’s nice to have something different away from rugby.

On the women’s game:

There are a lot of stereotypes about women’s rugby. It’s ignorance, because people don’t really see it on TV or hear about it. They think you’re going to get hurt. If they watched the game they would see that the girls, who are not necessarily all big girls, play a very similar style to the men’s and our skills would break down some of the stereotypes.

Joanne Elull, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine

Michaela Staniford is an ambassador of NikeWomen’s ‘HERE I AM’ campaign encouraging young women to engage in sport (www.nikewomen.com).