Soccer Tournament: Bad idea?

meadows6

 Hey All,

I've been asked to play in an all day outdoor soccer tournament on Saturday.  Probably 3 games minimum. 35 to 40 min. halves.  Soooo I'm very tempted, but have not played in about 9 months.  Just fearing the amount of soreness I will most likely incur. I was thinking of using that as my "run" day. Then doing the bike on Sunday. Might not be the best idea... But I played competitively growing up, in college, and 5 days a week up until I had my two babies a couple years ago so there is a part of me that would love to get back out there.  

I guess I"m sort of wondering if this anaerobic work (playing soccer) would help me at all, assuming I played more often.  I guess if it did work, more people would sprinkle soccer, hockey, whatever in.  

Stop me from pulling a Brett Favre!  

Chris G

Play and have fun. Likely won't help or hurt. Falls in the category of doing cool stuff with your fitness.

Steven Ford

What Chris said, have fun with your fitness and let us know how you do.

kurshing

Just a heads up...you will probably struggle to get your main sets done on Tues and Wed the week following the tournament, but, do it anyways. It will be good to hit your system in a different way, and, like everyone said, it is "doing something cool with your fitness"...and some fun is as important as anything!

William Jenks

The one hazard just to be aware of is that all the quick changes require fast twitch muscle, which you may have beaten into the ground into being slowtwitch. You may want to be a little careful on your cuts and accelerations so as to avoid pulling something.

Have fun!

Scott Alexander

If you only ever work out linearly (straight lines, like triathletes s/b/r), Soccer will prob tax your lateral and stabilizer muscles.

After I did one game of indoor soccer a few years back, all those littlemuscles hurt BAD...for days. But, I'm a wimp!

tri_antelope

Melissa, all comments above are spot on.  I also played competitively growing up, played in college, and pretty frequently for several years after college until I switched over to tri and endurance sports as my main focus.  I;ve been training with EN or (Crucible Fitness before that) since 2006 and twice have gone back to playing a season of adult league soccer with some of my buddies while continuing to train and race.

I will say that it is difficult to do both well (tri training and soccer) at the same time for extended periods.  However, I still love to play soccer so much that I have to get out there and do it every once in awhile.  As a couple of others said, I typically am very sore from the difference in muscle stress after playing soccer from all of the cutting and acceleration/deceleration.  This gives a whole new meaning to R n' P's mantra of "fitness is in the muscles."  Also, as one of the others said, I typically have a hard time doing interval work for the key bike or run workouts for a couple of days after a soccer game - but typically by Wednesday after a Sunday game, I am feeling back to normal.

Go do it and have fun!  But be prepared to be sore for a couple of days in the muscles that are not used as much for endurance sports, and don;t be disappointed if you are not able to hit intervals for a couple of days after the tournament.  You will lose nothing from a fitness perspective, and will be good for mental sanity to go and play.

chuckg

Melissa, Go for it, you can NEVER play too much soccer! I have played soccer growing up in and college. I love it too much to stop. I still do my daily workouts according to the plan and then throw soccer on top of that a couple nights a week. Actually, last weekend I played in a hockey tourny. 5 games in 3 days and I counted that as my weekend workouts. Stephen's comment was pretty spot on with having trouble hitting necessary zones the week following my hockey weekend. Go play, have a ton of fun, don't get hurt and enjoy playing again!

pepe

Melissa, x alot on play! Same boat, played thorugh college and have played in several men's leagues since. You will feel sore but what it always shows me is how unbalanced we mainly sagital plane endurance junkies can get. After a solid tri season I can run fast - straight. Ask me to cut? Well...

From a pure fitness perspective soccer will improve your overall fitness level. You will feel sore but it's a good sore. The only time I would back off is if it was close enough to a race that you would be concerned about soreness or injury on race day. Felt bad last fall to skip out on the annual coaches game (I coach my boys' U4 and U6 teams) but it was a week before Beach2Battleship - my first Iron distance race. No brainer but I still really wanted to play.

meadows6

Thanks everyone! Wow, how did you know that's what i wanted to hear? I have come to terms with the fact that I know I will be super sore, and will just do my best with the workouts next week. Like Logan was saying, if it were actually closer to an important race, I wouldn't play, but my main race isn't until July so I think it's not going to throw anything off.

And Michael, totally understand that I can't do as well as I want in both sports. I switched to triathlon last year after I realized I couldn't keep up with the youngsters out of college anymore since I just can't commit to being at practices and all kinds of games since having kids. Push comes to shove, I would forego soccer to keep the training up, but since this is a one day thing, no further commitment, I will just go for it.

Thanks again everyone for weighing in!

Paul Hough

Well then, the crowd has spoken. But I'll go against the grain and say this -- hugely bad idea! Back in my competitive days, I occassionally got sucked into a softball game. I was always incredibly sore the next few days, and it did hinder my training, although only a little. Then, in one game, I broke my wrist as I ran over the catcher on the way to home plate ... went sailing with my arm outreached. From then on, I told myself to never jeopardize my primary sport by playing other sports that were meaningless to me. The odds may be slim, but if you sprain an ankle, pull your hamstring, or slam into another player on the field and cause an injury that significantly impedes your training for Vineman will you still be glad that you went out and had a little fun?

chuckg

Melissa, "after I realized I couldn't keep up with the youngsters out of college anymore", thats a TOUGH pill to swallow. I have walked a mile in those shoes, although in my mind, my body can still do what it did (and at the level it did it) when I have 23. You will be fine, enjoy. Let us know how you do and better yet how you recover and perform next week.

meadows6

well, unfortunately we had a bunch of rain this weekend and the tournament got canceled. But I just wanted to say thanks to everyone again for your advice.