Rest Days

Morninglory

How many rest days should be looking at a week if you train hard. Went back playing Gaa this year and in my effort in getting back fit I feel I overtrained as my performance deteriorated.
How do you know you have recovering on your rest days? Looking back I feel I may have trained through fatigue. You see I got so use to the fatigue I felt it was part and parcel of it.

IrishLad1996

It depends on how hard you train I guess. I suppose, like most GAA clubs you train Tuesday and Thursday and a match at the weekend. That is 4 rest days. Instead of just sitting down doing nothing. Try going for a light jog or a gym session. Also try using recovery drinks. They work pretty well for me.

Morninglory

IrishLad1996 wrote: »

It depends on how hard you train I guess. I suppose, like most GAA clubs you train Tuesday and Thursday and a match at the weekend. That is 4 rest days. Instead of just sitting down doing nothing. Try going for a light jog or a gym session. Also try using recovery drinks. They work pretty well for me.

My training consisted of
monday-gym
tuesday- train
wednesday- gym
thursday - train
friday- core
saturday/sunday game


I was either going too hard in the gym or I just wasn't resting enough. What do you think?

SRFC

Excuses why put limits on yourself with this overtraining idea,cant never over do it unless your living in a gym an not sleeping :pac:

LuckyLloyd

You don't get stronger, faster and fitter by doing the work. You get better by doing the work AND recovering from having done it.

It's very hard to achieve a genuine 'overtrained' state, but in the schedule example you've provided you're looking at seven day training weeks. Throw in work and life on top of that and it's probably not ideal.

I think amateur GAA / Soccer players need to be flexible and adaptive with their training as games frequently get cancelled / called off and often it isn't very well communicated with them in advance when they will be doing conditioning work in sessions and how much, etc.

On weekends where you've had two matches you probably want to be taking the Monday off. And in season, you probably need to trust that your training and matches will cater for your conditioning needs and focus your gym sessions on other training areas. I see football players mid season down the gym twice a week hammering away at cardio machines and think they might be hindering rather than helping themselves sometimes. You also see guys doing the same stuff on their own time all year round - not thinking about whether they might want to have strength cycles or spend an offseason working on weaknesses, etc.

Zillah

Morninglory wrote: »

My training consisted of
monday-gym
tuesday- train
wednesday- gym
thursday - train
friday- core
saturday/sunday game


I was either going too hard in the gym or I just wasn't resting enough. What do you think?

Well, according to my calculations you have zero rest days in your schedule so I might have found your problem.

What are you doing at the gym? Cardio seems like a bad idea if you're doing GAA training twice a week and playing two matches as well.

donnbradman

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

You don't get stronger, faster and fitter by doing the work. You get better by doing the work AND recovering from having done it.

It's very hard to achieve a genuine 'overtrained' state, but in the schedule example you've provided you're looking at seven day training weeks. Throw in work and life on top of that and it's probably not ideal.

I think amateur GAA / Soccer players need to be flexible and adaptive with their training as games frequently get cancelled / called off and often it isn't very well communicated with them in advance when they will be doing conditioning work in sessions and how much, etc.

On weekends where you've had two matches you probably want to be taking the Monday off. And in season, you probably need to trust that your training and matches will cater for your conditioning needs and focus your gym sessions on other training areas. I see football players mid season down the gym twice a week hammering away at cardio machines and think they might be hindering rather than helping themselves sometimes. You also see guys doing the same stuff on their own time all year round - not thinking about whether they might want to have strength cycles or spend an offseason working on weaknesses, etc.

Good post, makes a lot of sense

donnbradman

Zillah wrote: »

Well, according to my calculations you have zero rest days in your schedule so I might have found your problem.

What are you doing at the gym? Cardio seems like a bad idea if you're doing GAA training twice a week and playing two matches as well.

At the gym I could be there for between an hour to an hour half. Going heavy and training to failure(which I learned is wrong!) while doing exercises. One day would be legs and back and the other chest, arms and shoulders, would this be wrong? I am in a similar situation to morninglory

LuckyLloyd

donnbradman wrote: »

At the gym I could be there for between an hour to an hour half. Going heavy and training to failure(which I learned is wrong!) while doing exercises. One day would be legs and back and the other chest, arms and shoulders, would this be wrong? I am in a similar situation to morninglory

Are you doing that training to look good or doing it in the hope that it will support your play?

BadCharlie

You would train the day before a game?
Well i just know from my self if i had a game Saturday i would not do anything on Friday for example. And then later i found if i did little on thursday and noting on friday... on Saturday i would be jumping out of my skin & ready to go. If you had a game also on Sunday i would rest Monday.

So for me if i had a game saturday (do the club training thursday"but not push my self" and noting friday)
If i only had a game Sunday (i would push my self on Thursday and do noting on both Friday & Sat) Maybe just hit a ball off a wall is all.

Also make sure you have a good diet and stop eating lots of Junk food, get plenty of sleep & drink lots of water.

heroics

I do a fairly similiar training routine.

Mon - Gym and hurling
Tue - Gaelic Football
Wed - Gym
Thurs - Gaelic Football
Fri - Gym
Sat or Sun - match (hurling or football)

If I have important match on Saturday I will skip the Friday gym session.

Generally find if I get enough sleep and eat reasonably I am fine with the above. Rugby has started back now as well so getting harder to keep a free day every week.

Every so often if I am feeling really wrecked I will take a rest week with just light training

siochain

Personally if i get quality sleep and nutrition is dialed in I can train away with a well structured training plan.