Is this the way to get healthy and fit again?

Morpheus

Hi everyone,

well i returned to soccer training last night and boy was ai shocked. Last year i was known as Forest. fastest runner, easily endured long 20 minute high speed runs, but last night i came in almost last in every part of training. I havent trained in 6 months due to work constraints, ive managed to keep my weight around 12 stone (im 5'10", 30 yrs of age) but would ideally like to make it to 11.5stone.

Starting today im back to my "healthier" diet, im also planning on running 2 - 3times per week for 35 - 45 minutes, initially at a v slow pace until i can get back into it.

New diet (you wouldnt believe how atrociously bad my old one was)

Breakfast: Porridge and 2 slices wholemeal brown bread toast with marmalade

Elevenses - piece of fruit maybe a mueller rice

Lunch - Sandwich

threeish - more fruit

home and standard meat 2 veg dinner

plenty of water throughout the day, down to 3 cups of tea a day and no sugar (hermasetas suplement) I take cod liver oil and vitamin C supplement every morning.

I still do 3 * 30 situps and 3 * 30 pressups every night, exercises for my back and hamstrings, 3 * 30 is actually good for me, 8 weeks ago i couldnt manage 3 * 10 of either.

6.5 - 7hrs sleep a night.


my first question is, is this newer diet complete crap? Im trying to begin a healthier lifestyle, combined with running and playing soccer i should manage

secondly, do you think im doing enough exercise?

thirdly, whats the healthiest sandwich that can be bought near stephens green as i forgot my home made sandwich today after going to the bother of making it. I always eat either chicken or tuna, no ham, usually lettuce, red onion, butter (they always ask butter or mayo).

cheers for all opinions, abuse, support, slagging.

justsomebloke

I would try and get more protein into your diet. Try and add some boiled or scrambled eggs at breakfast and also as snacks eat some nuts and seeds. Other then that the diet seems fine, maybe lacking on the calorie front so you may want to use a fitday account for a while to make sure you are eating enough and not starving yourself.

Also with the exercise I would go with some HIIT training twice a week with maybe one long resonably paced jog as oppose to trying to do 3 medium high intensity runs. As you may see better and quicker results from this

So for the HIIT you could do some sprint work, so warm up and then do approx 6 intervals of sprinting for 30 seconds and then walkign for 30-45 secs and over time build up the sprint times to around 45-60 sec and up the amount of intervals to around 10-12.


edit: also don't worry about doing situps and press ups every night as your muscles need time to recover to actaully grow, so your probably best only doing them 3 times a week. Also try and do some weight training

thirtyfoot

Morph&#233 wrote: »

Starting today im back to my "healthier" diet, im also planning on running 2 - 3times per week for 35 - 45 minutes, initially at a v slow pace until i can get back into it.

.

If I was you I wouldn't do long 35-45 minute runs 3 times a week. Its a misconception that doing such runs will get you "fit". Seb Coe who had probably the greatest endurance of any middle-distance athlete ever only ever did a little over 3 hours of "long" runs a week, and most of this at a ridicolously fast pace. You should aim to get fitter by running at a pace that is closer ultimately to what you run during a football game. You could try the following for your 3 running sessions a week as part of a conditioning programme.

Fartlek - if you google this you will find detailed descriptions and sample sessions. Its speed play, where you do a contionous run that is interspersed with changes of pace at regular or if you wish irregular intervals.

Power Runs (my name for these) - set a distance of 50m, stride at a fast pace to the marker, turn around and skip/jog back to the original marker. Complete 10 burpees. Stride at a fast pace to the marker, turn around and skip/jog back to the original marker. Complete 10 pushups. Stride at a fast pace to the marker, turn around and skip/jog back to the original marker. Complete 10 crunches/situps. Stride at a fast pace to the marker, turn around and skip/jog back to the original marker. Thats one set. You can ease in by doing just 30m and maybe just 1 set. Ultimately build up the distance to 50m and increase sets.

Recovery/Tempo Run - This can take the form of a 35-45m run at a very relaxed pace or set out 100m (length of soccer pitch) and run 100m at very relaxed pace. Stop, take 30secs recovery and go again in the opposite direction, stop, take 30 secs and go again. Aim for maybe 10 lengths to start. Personally I feel you are getting the recovery benefits of such a run but again at a faster pace, but a long continous run will do the same.

All these sessions would be preceded by a dynamic warmups of shuttle runs/drills/(stretches if you wish) and followed by a dynamic warmdown, easy jog if needs be.

I set a programme similar to this for a group in a 10 week pre-season for team sports last spring and they found it excellent and more beneficial that slogging through 5k runs 3 times a week. Ideally you would do speed and speed endurance work but your footie will probably take care of a lot of this. Looking into a good core programme (maybe twice a week) would also help, there are lots of links to these here.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

quozl

You're not really trying to reproduce match conditions with longer runs you're more trying to get some useful physiological benefits.

http://www.pfitzinger.com/labreports/longruns.shtml

I'm fairly sure professional footballers do a lot of aerobic training. They do have a stupid amount of time to do it in though, you're probably better off using what limited time you have for the drills previously mentioned and adding more runs if you have the time.

By the way, when pfitzinger et al are talking about long runs, they're talking 90+ minutes. Though any distance will improve your aerobic base, and an improved aerobic base helps endurance at all the speeds you'll be running in a football match.

Morpheus

i initially want to do long slow runs to burn fat, ive read that if you run say 30mins but at a pace below where you begn to burn carbs, that your body burns fat as its a slower burning fuel. That if you pick up the pace, it begins to burn carbohydrates as these can be turned into energy quicker than fat cells?

Only thing is that i know if i run in evenings after eating, ill initially burn more carbs and then start eathing into the fat, whereas if i do the slow burn run exercises in the morning thres not really any carbs available to burn so its mostly fat.

quozl

It's not really an either/or situtation. You'll burn a certain amount of fat and a certain amount of carbs at any given pace. Sprinting full out it'll be almost fully carbs, and at a nice easy pace there'll be a significant fat component.

I think, and I could well be wrong, that even at my easy pace that it's by a large margin mostly carbs, just there is a decent contribution from fat. One of the key parts of marathon training for example is to increase the amount of fat you burn at a given pace.

I think you've the right idea about not doing your longer runs fast. If you have the time for it I'd suggest increasing the distance and not worrying about the speed. This is assuming you do some seperate speed drills for football.

justsomebloke

Morph&#233 wrote: »

i initially want to do long slow runs to burn fat

I wouldn't be to worried about this at the moment cause as you are starting back to football getting back to match fitness should take priority, especially with you only being half a stone over weight. That and with a good diet and the drills already posted this excess weight should come off pretty easy by itself

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

thirtyfoot

http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/energy.htm

Here is an article on energy pathways for various sports. Not sure of its validity but it makes sense at a quick look.

From the table at the end of his article you can see how far away distance running is from the energy requirements for football.

Basically soccer is 50% very short sprints, 20% med-long sprints and 30% long slogging.
Distance running is 10% very short sprints, 20% med-long sprints and 70% slogging, while sprinting is 90% very short sprints and 10% med-long sprints.

From the table, a breakdown of 50/20/30 is very hard to train for but you could say that 70% of your training should be speed based, while the remaining 30% endurance requirement could be gained as part of your speed sessions, hence no need to slog through 35 mins runs.

Morpheus

i will give it a try, resting off tonight as i trained a heavy team session yesterday. It will be hard going to my local pitch at 1030pm with a couple of cones and setting up my own shuttle runs though!!!