Weight Training for Running/Soccer

[theBruiser500]

So I'm running a marathon, and I want to be an amazing frissbee and soccer player. What sort of weight training should I do in the gym? Right now I do deadlift (is that lower back or legs?), front squats and normal squats with weights, and without weights. For calves pylos seems like a better thing to do then calf raises.

[Green Kool Aid]

there is no reason for a marathoner to do plyometrics.

training to be a marathoner and a soccer/frisbee player really aren't very complementary. maybe change your goal to running a relatively fast 5k or something, as i think that would be a better way to go about things.

[theBruiser500]

my maingoal is frisbee soccer, runningfast,jumping high. but i think i can do the marathon also without hurting that training

[SmileyEH]

[ QUOTE ]
my maingoal is frisbee soccer, runningfast,jumping high. but i think i can do the marathon also without hurting that training

[/ QUOTE ]

you can't. DANNY STOP TRYING TO RUN A MARATHON.

[skunkworks]

You can't train for a marathon without hurting that training. Trust me, I've done both. Running long distances beats up your body and depletes energy stores, which gives you less explosiveness and performance when you hit the weights and forces you to take more time to recover. I think it really affects it most in the recovery, not to mention the fact that marathons require slow-twitch muscles and you're looking to improve the fast-twitch stuff.

[tdarko]

Bruise,

Running a marathon typically takes 12 weeks of building a base. Once your base is built it is 16 weeks of marathon training and during your mileage your weight training will be necessary and certainly enough to keep you strong but not nearly enough to physically change your body. A runners weight workout is done only for the resistance training.

You need to also know that soccer and I am assuming frisbee (I don't know that sport) will suffer form marathon training b/c of the type of training you would then be doing. When you go on long runs for months and months you will have trained your slow-twitch muscles and actually have become slower, until you train you fast-twitch muscles again with sprints etc. You can curb this somewhat this speed training during your base building with 400 meter repeats once a week but once you get into your marathon training its going to be all about logging the miles and not necessarily all about how fast and because of this your quickness and speed on the soccer field will suffer.

[tdarko]

skunkworks,

blah.

[Colt McCoy]

Bruiser,

As pointed out by others, this is a far from ideal way to run a marathon or optimize frisbee/soccer performance. Howqever, if you insist on doing this, there are a number of low-mileage running programs on the web for marathons and ultramarathons.

Typically when training for long races, most of the real work is really done in one long training run at the end of the week, with a few shorter maintenance runs done during the week. A good compromise for your purposes might be to just replace some or all of those shorter runs with other speed training like sprints and shuttle runs. At the end of the week do your endurance run, starting with a shorter run (depending on your current fitness level) and making that one weekly run longer over time until it's at least 20 miles before you run the marathon.

[Thremp]

Bruiser,

For soccer/frisbee keep doing squats except just start doing more with maximal weight. Drop the unweighted. You'll get enough of that from once of a week of plyo.

[Green Kool Aid]

bruiser,

i had the same dillemma for three years in high school between being a miler and a basketball player. i finally realized you can't train for both at the same time, and i wasnt very good at basketball.

if you want to do the marathon, train for the next few months, then decide to focus on soccer/frisbee. or, just ditch the whole marathon idea.

[skunkworks]

tdarko, /images/graemlins/heart.gif. I was quicker to the punch because I didn't write it as goot as you.

[skunkworks]

Another thing to note when lifting and doing lots of miles is that the lifting will tire out your muscles and decrease their performance. It's one thing to not be able to run as fast or as far or as long because you're tired, but when your muscles are fatigued and compromised you'll start doing stupid things like adjusting your form to compensate. This is a [censored] disaster and is very, very likely to get your ass injured.

[cbloom]

I recommend the book "Explosive Power & Strength".

A simple way to train your sprinting/explosive power is to do squats with heavy weight just like you usually would. Do the negative (down) at a normal steady pace, but explode up as fast as you possibly can.

Also Olympic lifts like the clean & jerk are very good.

[mattnxtc]

Weight training when it comes to soccer is important but not all that necessary...I played up through college and rarely ever did squats or anything of that nature...

Also being in distance running shape and being in soccer shape are 2 different animals...Soccer shape doesnt necessarily mean running 5:30 miles...Soccer is about short bursts..so when doing exercises like leg press, leg extensions work on explosive movements upward/outward and so forth...

As always work on making sure ur core is solid as well

Really teh best "training" for soccer is to do a lot of various distances sprints on the soccer field working on foward, backwards, and sideways sprints

[theBruiser500]

thanks for the responses all. mattnxtc, what is leg presses and leg extensions? all i've been doing, and all that was recommended before you was Squats

[mattnxtc]

http://www.getreligion.org/wp-content/photos/2006/05/Silver.Reclining.Leg.Press.jpg

that should be an example of a leg press machine...

leg extensions are the machines where u sit down and have a cross pad near ur ankles that you extend out that works ur quads pretty good

The workout for the leg press is pretty simple...u move the weight down at a slow steady rate and then u push it up as fast as possible to work on that explosion step u want for soccer

[SmileyEH]

Danny, the olympic lifting I showed you is what you want to be doing.

[mrTEA]

Bruiser,
Playing competitive soccer requires a lot of core strength/balance exercises to deal with physical play. Try to incorporate stability balls into your weight lifting.

You also want to do exercises that help with the explosive power. I'm sure others can elaborate.

[MicroBob]

I don't know anything about the slow-twitch and fast-twitch stuff.
But I'm a little surprised that the training for soccer would be so different from distance running.

The amount of distance one runs in a 90-minute soccer match, especially for a midfielder, isn't exactly insignificant.

Yeah, you need the bursts of speed too.
But you spend a lot of the game just hustling up and down the field for defense/offense.

The field is longer than an American football field.
Usually 120 yards long or so.
Mid-fielders sometimes have to cover quite a good chunk of that.


I have a husband/wife duo on my coed team who have also been training for a half-marathon.

We have unlimited subs in our league so everyone gets to play and we rotate players in and out.
Our philosophy is to push yourself until you're exhausted and then get a sub.

But the two players who are training for the half-marathon are also the two players who pretty much never have to sub-out because they just don't get tired out there no matter how ridiculously hard they've been working.

[kyleb]

I guess I forgot this thread existed.

In HS and College soccer, an example of our preseason conditioning would be as follows:

Morning Practice (typically 5:30 AM):
-Stretching, walking around while we wait for everyone to show up
-2 mile run followed by rest
-10 Turkey runs (ball in your hands behind your back as you run sprints)
-10 50-yard Ladder runs
-20 20 yard wind sprints
-Plyometrics and overload training (box jumps, sprints with crazy medicine ball work)
-Sit-up / Push-up dynamos (typically 4x25 in blocks)
-1 mile jog

You never touch a ball with your feet in the morning.

Go home, die inside, come back...

Evening Practice (typically 6 PM):
-1 mile run
-Skills training:
--Strikers: Around the world goal shots, target shooting, form practice on ball reception, foot skills
--Midfielders: Around the world goal shots, pass training, foot skills, long distance passing/shooting, marking up, overlapping runs, a lot of work on changing tempo/speed of the game
--Defensemen: Line drills (using the line as another defender), controlling the middle third of the field, marking up, overlapping runs, 2v1 situations
--Keepers: Take 100-150 shots from varying distances from strikers/midfielders, work on side shuffle, positioning drills, core exercises
-Team scrimmages or team drills (give and go work, passing, changing speeds, counterattacking)
-Cone drills with a ball
-Corner kick work
-Wall ball game

Repeat for 5 days per week for 6 weeks.

[mattnxtc]

Microbob...Distance running is good for soccer, but shouldnt be over emphasized. Throughout HS and College I would probably have 1 day where i ran between 3-5 miles but that was about it. Distance running does help the overall system so its not harmful by any means. (outside mids need to be decent in this category)

The big thing is that in soccer you wont run more than 100 yards and generally most players might run 50 yards at at time. When you do make these runs though they are generally all out sprints or involving a lot of cutting. Distance running wont improve the necessary muscles to help with these.

[MicroBob]

I've thought about this some more regarding my husband/wife duo on the coed team who are trying for the half-marathon.

The girl is my center-mid actually (yes, she's that good) and it seems to me she's not quite as sharp and quick as I think she had been before.
Still an awesome player, but her speed just seems to be slightly less.

Thought it was maybe from her being a bit tired from working all day or is playing on too many teams.
But now I wonder if that slow-twitch/fast-twitch stuff from her distance running (up to 7-8 mile runs she tells me) is perhaps making a difference too.

[mattnxtc]

I think what youll see the most is that they can run for a while but their cutting wont be as sharp nor will they be able to get up to speed as fast..thats a different style of running

[kyleb]

The idea that distance running hurts sprinting is a common sentiment on baseball forums - that somehow it screws up your 60' time. There isn't really any evidence to the idea that you are "training your body to run slow" at all. Distance running will not hurt your ability to sprint.

However, distance running alone will not increase your ability to sprint, either.

[Rearden]

[ QUOTE ]
Bruiser,
Playing competitive soccer requires a lot of core strength/balance exercises to deal with physical play. Try to incorporate stability balls into your weight lifting.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ugh,

Any kind of sport requires balance and a strong midsection
Anything requires balance and a strong midsection
Doing random movements that somehow incorporate balls is not the best way to that goal

Core training is simply the newest buzzword which seems to demand and imply that folks exercise, eat, and sleep on stability balls. It's sadly even invading gyms (as opposed to the standard frat curl [curls with a full bar done inside a power rack] Ive recently seen guys doing weak (90lbs total?!?) deadlifts while standing on bosu balls... come on).

Working on your "core" would be great. You need midsection strength to do everything/anything with maximum efficiency. For many people I think lower back/Abs are problems when it comes to power production; increased focus on that area is the sole positive of the "core" movement.

IMO (and I think Im backed up by a number of reasonable posters/facts) if you want a stronger mid section its time for complex lifts with challenging weight. All the stability balls in the world will not give you the level of functional strength improvement you would see from quality Olympic lifting, heavy(ier) squatting and deadlifting, etc.

I ran high school cross country and lifted recreationally during that time (so as not to be a twig). Hardcore running and lifting are taxing on the body by themselves; in tandem preventing over training and straight out depletion/damage from over training will be a challenge. If you have your heart set on a marathon I would suggest focusing on that at the expense (because no matter what it will cut in to) your frisbee.

Summary: Dont be sucked in by a fad. Holding a heavy weight over your head and controlling its movement will demand far more from your "core" than any balls can provide and such heavy complex and explosive lifting is pretty much the nuts as far as gaining functional strength. Clean and Jerk your way to a truly stronger midsection; leave the squats done on stability balls for other people.

And good luck with the marathon goal just realize in the mean time that it may hurt your other pursuits a bit and subject you to a lot more physical stress.

[Victor]

bruiser, kyleb has a pretty good plan. a lot of the others stuff is dumb. squats and in general leg lifting isn necessary imo.

to really increase your explosiveness, jumping rope and lunges worked the best for me. the improvement was very drastic as i went from average to one of the quickest on the field.

also, strengthening your abs will do wonders on your soccer game esp your ability to strike the ball for power. power shots is all about the torque generated from your midsection. powerful quads is secondary.

a great way to incorporate skills and explosiveness is to set cones up about 8 yards apart. then dribble back and forth between the cones changing directions with different techniques. do each move with both feet.
1) cut with the inside of the foot
2) cut with the outside
3) cut behind your leg
4) scissors and cut
5) pull ball back

the most important thing to concentrate on is your first step after you change directions. really focus on exploding here. this should tire you out. also, concentrate on cutting as quickly and sharply as possible.

once your ball skills and comfort level increase throw a shoulder/head fake into your cuts.

google coerver coaching methods for more great moves.

[guids]

Bruiseface,

checkout meltdown training 1 and 2, a workout where you have little or no rest, between exercises, keeping your heart rate up, is the best way to go. Along with jingle jangles (suicides I think some call it) on a steep hill, and a lot of actual soccer playing, is the way to go. I played in college and at a top rated HS, it wasnt until I started weight training (after I quit college soccer) that I really started to perform at max capacity.