So just thought would start a journal to keep track and others to input as well. Currently in off season trying to prepare to join the varsity team at my college… might get a chance to come out during the winter in indoor practices and/or in the spring season.
Currently been just playing indoor/intramural/pickup games to keep up on the game and the level of play is usually pretty good. I try to do strength/speed twice a week and am thinking of adding one extra upper body session as I want to add muscle, but get stronger as well and also balance out my upper body horizontal vs vertical lifts. I also want to be a tougher physical player as I play forward/winger and gotta face bigger/taller defenders usually but don’t want to hinder my speed as that’s what I mainly rely on in my game. Currently I’m around 141 pounds and around 14% bodyfat I think so I have a lot of work to do.
Saturday 10/19/13 - Played indoor in the evening for 2 hrs. It was intense and went pretty good.
Sunday 10/20/13 - Felt tired from the indoor session yesterday, but had a 30 minute intramural game today and I decided to just go as I thought it won’t be too tough (my team and i have been dominating intramurals). The ground was horrible today as we did not play on the turf and the team that we faced was playing rough and real tough. I clearly did not play well and the team did not either (it was more like 7 v 7) and later got subbed off.
Monday 10/21/13 - Tried to get a good amount of sleep from last night, but took me some time to fall asleep even though I was tired. I think I will just rest today and need to catch up on school work also.
Yeah for the next 6-8 weeks I will try to do 6-8 reps in 3-4 sets for my exercises and keep the RDL to 5-6 reps x 2 sets on both leg days so I don’t overwork my legs muscularly. If I use this newfound hypertrophy for strength and speed gains later I suppose the extra muscle weight won’t slow me down in any way as a soccer player right?
Haven’t updated this for a while… but been sick recently and needed to catch up on school. I’ve just been doing a bit of lifting and some indoor soccer games in the meantime. How would you gus suggest to do tempo in the winter when it’s snowing with a soccer athlete. I need to improve m aerobic capacity through tempo so tempo is more than a recovery tool for me. I have an indoor track that I can use during the winter so I’ll use this for my speed sessions and I just use indoor soccer shoes to sprint. I also play indoor soccer during the winter here and I feel like if i tried to do tempo on the indoor track my shins would start to flare up. How do you suggest I do tempo to increase my aerobic capacity in the winter?
Nice but I don’t have much of a choice I have to go with nike to use my credit :p. I owned a merells barefoot running shoes. If I reduced my tempo volume and say did like 1k and builded that up on on the indoor track do you think I could use those barefoot shoes on the harder surface? The reason is I am a believer in barefoot and natural running where the achilles is not limited because of the heel lift that running shoes causes and it strengthens the foot and arches as well and good for overall foot strength.
If you’re suffering lower leg pain - wear joggers…
I use barefoot type shoes - only because i can. I don’t wear them on tempo days though, Tempo makes you tired, and tired makes your form sloppy sometimes, all it takes is one bad foot landing when tired and bam… there goes your lower leg.
I love my barefoot shoes - but sometimes you just can’t wear them. It’s no big deal. I can run perfectly in just about any shoe. It’s not as much about the shoes, as it is about your form. As shown in the video
Barefoot shoes I use for hill sprints right now. I was using for time trials also but my legs are finding it a bit too harsh right now.
I don’t have easy access to tracks so tts are done on the road. Short tts I’ll use barefoot shoes though, anything under 300m that is.
Nice I just a soccer indoor shoe that has a lot of cushioning in it like a running shoe the nike fc247 lunar gato 2 so I suppose that’s an option also and I can save money as well as I feel my current indoor pair is wearing out. If there is no mechanisms problem that a cushioned shoe in the midfoot causes and I can get a bit more cushioning on the track to decrease the pounding then it’s a win win. Were you trying to prove in the video that the person was striking midfoot when he was running faster? I suppose slower speed obviously you would strike heel.
I haven’t had the best of weeks recently because of sickness and school, but I went to play yesterday and felt slow and unresponsive. It was a 9v9 mini game. i think I have gained a bit of bodyfat too so this is not good and my weight hasn’t seemed to really change. I felt miserable out there trying to play yesterday both mentally and physically as I was far below my potential. I have a speed and weights session to carry out today. I really need to focus on my physical aspect of my training and will go play like once maximum later on just to stay in touch.
Dreambig,
Try not to let small set backs define you. School is important as is your health and it is not so easy to balance and juggle both with adding in soccer. The most important thing is to not give up but to try and keep prioritizing your goals and if school and soccer are your two most important things then ask yourself if you are spending the majority of your time doing these two things? If so great and if not than perhaps you need to plan a bit differently.
You will not feel great if you have been off sick and or are maybe still sick? Sometimes coming back after sickness you might feel great if the reason for sickness was getting run down physcially. Sometimes after you are sick you might need a day or even a small type warm up to activate your muscles in order to feel better during a game.
Training properly can be a full time job. It might be a good idea to start doing routine push ups and sit ups in your room as baseline exerises. Build the numbers of both and you will be suprised how this will help your soccer. Keep yourself loose with regenerative activities such as constrast baths. You may not be able to play soccer as often as you wish but do the best you can with what you have.
Hey Ange good to hear from you again. Yes you are right. I just need to get my consistency in training back and just keep working and being disciplined and judging my progress and make adjustments as needed. It’s so easy to give up when things don’t go your way but I know when things start going your way one day it will all be worth it or at least that is what I tell myself lol. I try to do contrast showers in the dorm shower here. It is not the best, but I try to make use of what I got and do what I can with what I have.
Today I had a good proper session and I felt good doing it. It feels like I am back now and looking forward to continuing improving and not looking back.
It was already dark outside and cold so I went and used the indoor track today. This is the first time actually I did a dedicated track workout on it. It was really low volume though and I did not want to flare my lower legs as I have still been dealing with my lower leg problem where my lower leg muscle (usually my tibialis anterior) just starts tightening up and feeling fatigued quickly when I just start my warm up and stuff. I actually felt my lower legs felt better after the speed work.
10x10m
Then went and lifted. I need to get my strength back up as I’ve been off of it but I don’t want to rush it so today I did not push on the numbers.
Squats 3x5 - 185 lbs
RDL 2x6 - 115 lbs
DB Bench 3x6 - 40 lbs each side
DB Rows 2x6 - 50 lbs each side
Skull crushers and EZ Bar curls - 2x10 on each 35 lbs
I was gonna do one more full set on the rows but the callus that I was getting from using the dumbbells made it painfully horrible to even grip the dumbbell. I think I need to get a pair of lifting gloves for my school’s gym.
Looking forward to tempo and skill work tomorrow and increasing my numbers on Wednesday.
3/2/15
Had a bad stomach flu today but still did bike tempo doing the 4 sets of 10 bike tempo the other day. I did 45 sec on/ 15 sec slow pedal for 20 reps then took a break and stretched. Then did another 10 reps and stretched again and another 10 reps. At the end of it, I did not feel really worked hard or tired, and I ended the way I started so that was a good sign. My cardiovascular endurance was better than I thought as well.
3/3/15
My legs and body felt pretty good in the morning, but the stomach flu was still there and was feeling a bit sick, but still trained in the afternoon. Warmed up well and did some soccer specific skill work for 5 min. Then did 10x10m, but felt sluggish and tired very quickly most likely due to being sick. After that, I knew my lifting probably wouldn’t have been great.
Squats - 225 lbs x2 (really got stuck a while on the 2nd rep and barely got it up), 215 lbs x1 (did one rep of this and this was pretty tough too, so I thought today was just done for squats and intense lifting)
I went easy on the bench and did 2 sets of 5 reps of 135 lbs and did some arm work and called it a day.
Will be doing tempo running tomorrow on indoor track (it’s still snowing here in Ohio ). I’ve had compartment syndrome surgery past summer and still have trouble running a good mileage consistently without starting to get shin pain but the past 6 days of training has been good, so hopefully tomorrow is a good tempo session on ground.
Any thoughts or input on my training and routine is welcomed. I am currently doing 3x3 for my strength work with squats and bench as the 2 lifts I go 3x3 on and other lifts such as military press, t-bar rows, weighted pull ups, and rdls I go 5 reps 2 sets.
I alternate my lifting with squats, bench, t-bar rows and squats, rdl, weighted pull ups, military press the next high intensity day. Right now doing 3 high intensity days (2 of them where I’m just sprinting 10x10m (can’t stress the lower legs too much yet have to be very careful) before lifting. The other 3 recovery days I either play some soccer or do tempo work on bike or ground depending on how my lower legs are feeling. One day is for full rest.
Did tempo on indoor track today. 2x10x100m. It felt tough as I was still really sick, but I got it done and most importantly my shins were able to take back to back running days and were fine. I will definitely only lift tomorrow and do no speed work as I will need to give my lower legs a break. I will do a dynamic warm up though.
). I’ve had compartment syndrome surgery past summer and still have trouble running a good mileage consistently without starting to get shin pain but the past 6 days of training has been good, so hopefully tomorrow is a good tempo session on ground.