Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s freakish gym performance behind game-breaking ability

Few players in history have established themselves as suddenly and as emphatically on the international stage as Immanuel Feyi-Waboso. Even fewer have gone from amateurism to starring against the likes of Ireland and New Zealand in as little as 18 months, as Feyi-Waboso has since Wasps’ demise in October 2022.

At the tender age of just 21, after just one full season of Premiership rugby and a stint with Taunton Titans in National One, Feyi-Waboso has become a crucial cog in both the England and Exeter Chiefs machine, starting the season in fine form despite defeat to Leicester on the opening weekend.

The Cardiff-born medical student is a physical specimen. He is not the heaviest, even for a wing, and he is able to plough through defenders as easily as he rounds them; a potent combination.

At Sandy Park, the strength-and-conditioning team are acutely aware of his prodigious talent. Genetically, he is blessed, but he is assiduous and erudite with it, which makes him a dream to work with. As explained by Rob Beddard, Exeter’s senior S&C coach of 14 seasons, the pressure is on to not waste such a gift.

“Some of the things you’re after from rugby players – strength, power – are already ticked off,” Beddard tells Telegraph Sport. “But, in some ways it makes it harder because when you have a player who is not too developed, unlike Manny, you know what you have to work on: you need to get them stronger, more powerful. When you have someone who ticks all of the boxes already, you’re at the stage of trying to figure out their weakness and wondering where they can improve.

“In terms of out-and-out athletes, he’s right up there. He is one of the best we’ve ever had. Manny is athletic but he also has a rugby brain around that, with rugby ability. But, in pure physical output on a pitch, and the ability to replicate that in rugby, he’s probably the most natural we’ve ever had. That comes with a bit of responsibility because when you get players like that you want to get it right! You don’t want to waste that talent because they come round once in a blue moon.

“There are bigger lads but pound for pound Manny – at 90kg – would be right up there in terms of the strongest, most powerful player in the squad. In terms of out-and-out physical ability and the whole package, Manny is up there with the best I’ve seen over the past 15 years.”

Last season, Feyi-Waboso recorded a 160kg bench press – the best of any back at the club, and not far from double his body weight – while also setting the standard on the counter movement jump (a vertical jump that measures lower body power) with 66.5 watts per kilogram generated.

Going forward, Feyi-Waboso’s target areas are three-fold. The Chiefs want to prioritise his “robustness and repeatability”. In other words, the wing’s ability to perform every week at the highest level and not pick up “niggles”, as well as his capacity to perform the same in minute 80 as he does at minute one.

To improve this duo, Feyi-Waboso’s speed is the focus: not necessarily increasing it, but more limiting the damage of it. The wing does plenty of neck strengthening owing to the high force with which he hits contact; almost rugby whiplash prevention. His core, posterior – and glutes – are also regularly put through their paces to inure his hamstrings to the demands of repeatedly sprinting flat out. Beddard explains that it is about concentrating on the things that hold him together: “It’s like a tractor with big tyres but if there’s no engine, nuts or bolts, they’re going to fall off.”

Concurrently, there is no need for Feyi-Waboso to be put onto a “hypertrophy” weights programme all year round. Some players, Beddard explains, will have a hypertrophy “get big” thread in their weights programme all year “because they battle with trying to keep weight and muscle mass on”. But with Feyi-Waboso, just as it was with Manu Tuilagi, it is about balance: “If Manny always did ‘get big’ weights, like everyone wants to do, he would quite quickly put a lot of weight and muscle on,” he adds. “With that, you have more weight to move, you become slower and less powerful.”

The third field of focus for the 21-year-old is nutrition, a concept which is far easier to master the longer a career stretches. In 18 months, Feyi-Waboso has had to adapt his nutrition from an amateur-rugby-playing medical student to a player who would not be out of place in a World XV conversation.

“Manny could probably eat what he wanted and he’d still be quite lean,” Beddard says. “With players who are blessed, it becomes about fueling for performance. We don’t need to fuel so that his body shape is right, we need to fuel so that when he is playing at the weekend, he has the right amount of energy and the right source of carbohydrate and the right level of hydration. That’s something we’ve worked on with Manny a lot because it takes a while. Those with the best strategies tend to be the ones in the latter part of their careers – because they’ve figured things out.

“With Manny, we do a lot around how much carbohydrate he needs, because he understandably doesn’t like to feel full when he plays. But he needs to understand that he’s one of our best players and we want him on the pitch for 80 minutes. We need to fuel that correctly. We do a lot of liquid-based carbohydrate stuff with him on matchday, getting the right caffeine intake, the right sodium intake. We’re still learning – he’s only been playing Premiership rugby for a year!

“But if he gets that elite mentality right... some people have that but don’t have the physical capabilities to back it up. If you get the elite mentality with the physical capabilities then you get a once-in-a-generation player.”