Team sports and their potential correlation with crazy running training

TheRoadRunner

I have been out running lately and seen a load of soccer teams preparing for the upcoming season. They have fancy cones and from what I can see are doing lots of drills, sprints, laps of pitches and in some cases hill repeats. I think this is all great and will really stand to the teams involved.

However once the season starts training for these footballs does not seem to be as intense. For example I never see the same teams doing the hill repeats and long laps during the winter. Maybe they are still doing them but I don't think so. This and my own personal experience of playing soccer leads me to believe that as the season progresses the players will get less fit. I never played a really decent standard of football myself but my brother in law plays Leinster senior and he reckons they still put in hard work during the winter but it pales in comparison to what they do in July/August. I know this is not the case for every team (for example I know of one team who train like 400 metre runners) but I think, in general it is probably true

I have a theory that this type of preseason/bootcamp training has an adverse effect on individuals who retire from team sports and take up individual sports such a running or triathlon. I have nothing to back this up apart fro my own observation. It is quite obvious from some of the questions posted by neewbies that their ideas of how to train are very different from what experienced runners would prescribe (this is not a snoby question I would probably post similar questions in swimming or rugby forums if I was new to those games)

The one example that exemplifies my little theory occurred last year. A friend of mine works with two footballers who had recently stopped playing and decided to do a marathon. He asked them how many long runs they had done and their answer was 4*20 miles. He thought this was great until he found out these were completed in July and the lads were tapering for their October marathon (it was early September by this time). They were still getting out 5 times a week but nothing over 6-7 miles. Their rationale was that they would get a load of base work in early and tick over nicely until race day.

So my question is to runners who have come from a team sport background be it soccer/GAA/Rugby (not tag:D) do you think preseason training as I've described above had any negative impact on your initial foray into running ? Did it help you develop running plans/routines that you would now consider crazy ?

RoyMcC

Can't really answer that from a personal viewpoint RR. I played cricket for 35 years before taking up running and the very idea of fitness work pre-season never occurred to us. And only the bowlers warmed up before action by twirling their bowling arm a few times

I guess it's the case that team sport players (soccer, GAA, rugby) do their pre-season to achieve a certain level of fitness, which is then maintained by playing matches. And I guess training nights, though less intense, must be sufficient for the requirements of most teams.

On the track & field front most youngsters are flying in April after cross-country and pre-season physical work - a lot of PBs are set early in the summer. But inevitably the fitness levels fall off as the season goes on and holidays kick in etc. Of course once an athlete becomes older they ought, with their coach, to be recognising this and periodising appropriately.

Sorry, veered off your point a little there.

shels4ever

Nice topic there, After a few years of running I took up football at the time I was the fittest player on the team by far. Preseason in my opinion is not long enough to get a team to the level needed most clubs not pro) usually meet up 4 week prior to the start of the season where double that would be needed.

What I found was the training was usually too hard remember sitting getting sick after the first session of a particalar pre-season.

Once the season started it was a case of holding what you have , With one game a week you would need to do some sort of extra training but in ireland there tends to be a backlong of games come spring and at this point you may have 2 -3 games a week, where there would be no time for anything extra. But the loss of fittness from early season doesnt help.

christeb

Interesting topic. From my own club's point of view (I'm still involved, not playing this season), the lads do put in a god amount of running training pre-season, a 1 mile run to warm up then straight into sprints / drills. This, however, does continue on throughout the season, there might be an easier session after a hard match etc, but come the end of the seasson we do seem to be one of the fitter teams in the league, we tend go come back at many teams if we are behind late in games.
But in general I would agree with RR, the other guys have little concept of peaking / tapering and consistency of training.

Krusty_Clown

Just commenting on the lads marathon training program - it just sounds like ignorance (as in lack of awareness - I'm not calling them ignorant). There are so many programs available (free or published) and so may people with marathon running experience, that following a makey-uppey program would suggest they sought and got no advice.

Sosa

I would agree with you, road runner.

I played national league basketball up until 3 years ago and pre-season was always cruel but really got us ready for the start of the season,i always played my best up to christmas,then we had a 2 week break from matches,in that period we just had a couple of the handiest training sessions you ever had in your life...started back in the new year and never got back to that level of fitness again.

When i took up running,i was not ignorant about it,quite the opposite...i was really cautious...only starting with 2m runs...then 4...then 5 and so on.

TheRoadRunner

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Just commenting on the lads marathon training program - it just sounds like ignorance (as in lack of awareness - I'm not calling them ignorant). There are so many programs available (free or published) and so may people with marathon running experience, that following a makey-uppey program would suggest they sought and got no advice.

I'm not too sure if they had asked anyone for a program. My friend did set them straight though and got them to throw in an extra few long runs before the big day and they did OK in the end.

eliwallach

From my (limited) experience of the whole soccer pre-season training regime - yes it was designed to get you into shape rapidly after the excesses of the summer (no training, holidays etc.).
But alot of the drill seargent routine carried out by the team manager/trainer was an exercise in "I'm the boss and do what I tell you to do", as much as getting the team into shape.
i.e. you feared them, and generally did what you were told for the rest of the season.
Led to a harmonised and fit team. nonetheless.

buck65

I come from a GAA backround and our season would have started in March. !st week in Feb we would hit the field (not a pitch but a cross country style field) in the dark. Maybe twice a week with some hurling at the weekend. On those 2 nights it would have been pretty savage. Something like - 1mile warm-up, stretching, 2 miles kinda fartlek where we would jog the length and sprint the width of the field, more stretching, sit ups, piggy back races, wheelbarrow races, wrestling! basiclly everything goes etc. And a mile cool down.
Once the games started our training would switch to match specific fitness, sprints , drills , less long running. Even though fitness would be maintained I would certainly be fitter in April than August where you might have had a break or a few slow weeks in training. Everyone gets lazy!