A member of SSV Ulm 1846 athletics club and trained by Christopher Hallmann, Brugger failed to finish his first international decathlon at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics. He rebounded, however, with a silver medal at the 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships the following season. He did not finish his first senior international at the 2012 European Athletics Championships and it was not until 2015 that he would represent Germany again at the top level, coming eleventh in the heptathlon at the 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships.