Haha, not really. But physical exertion helps sometimes.
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And before running. Also during. The thought of running is a downer as well.
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Strongly agree. Has gotten me through some very difficult times.
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After playing soccer for so long, I needed a new athletic identity of sorts, and I chose running because I already ran cross country in high school for a couple years. It was a beautiful turning point for me when I realized that I didn’t actually like running nor the results of it, at least when it was the only thing I did. I still like the feeling afterwards though, and I like knowing that I can still run decently but am way stronger than I was years ago.
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I always hated running, even when I did lots of it for so many years. I dreaded every single minute and still did it twice a day at times. Running without a ball in sight was always just a necessary evil. Also strength training wasn’t anything anyone did in his youth over here back then, so running was the only form of exercise outside of competitive sports that I knew, haha. Lastly my football coach drilled us A LOT with running because he believed we weren’t good enough at the game to win through tactics and technique, haha. Gotta love the pre season when you run through the snow in the forests. Good times.
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Yeah, I had a coach for a couple years when I was in junior high who decided that we should run stairs, sledding hills, and zig-zag mountain bike trails for two hours, five days per week every preseason. I remember being in school every day during that time period and dreading going to that park. The coach was also stern and would scold us for tiny things. Not a good time, but I have to give him credit for actually doing a lot of the conditioning with us.
It was a very brute force approach to being in better shape than any other team, and it worked.
I was so thankful in my later years when I played for much better teams whose coaches did not waste valuable practice time on this anymore. They expected you to get in shape outside of organized training so that we could focus on tactics instead.
I say this a lot, but I would have benefited immensely from proper, semi-regular strength training at that time. I outskilled most of my peers – I could juggle a ball 3600 times when I was 12, for example – but my athleticism began to lag too much, and being on the smaller side did not help.
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I think your team is fortunate that you didn’t develop overuse injuries during the preseason.
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That sounds brutal!
I think that was the competitive advantage we were going for as well, haha.
Well in our instance our coach might have been right. Or it was a self fulfilling prophecy due to his training style. We weren’t very talented at the game with the exception of some really good or efficient individual players (well how should we function as a team if we never properly practiced tactics?). We were known however as a team that was a very uncomfortable opponent.
Haha I feel you. Ours was widely known because he definitely led every statistic (if something like that actually existed) for getting thrown out of the stadium by the referee. Even on home field he had to regularly leave the premise (which meant he continued shouting from the woods behind the fence). Football is nonsensical violent over here. Ridiculous and stupid stuff if I think back that transpired on and off the field at times (remember I played for 13 years but stopped when I became an adult…).
He also was so known for his idioms and repetitive phrases that he liked to shout in outbursts of anger, that we still get a laugh out of it, reminiscing about it today. He also regularly tore us an absolute new one during half time, unless he was too angry to speak (man we dreaded half time when we were playing a bad game, haha). Also his pre game speech was so repetitive that we all could basically hold it for him. He said the same thing to the same players every time. I think even the order was somewhat consistent.
Quite the charakter, our coach.
I hear you… Over in the USA you’re miles ahead of us on the front of athletic training, especially strength training for sports. I did start strength training but mostly bodybuilding stuff towards the final years of my football days. I became pretty big (I mean close to 100 kg was absolutely massive for a football player) but I would’ve benefitted more from a better structured approach.
That’s ridiculous. All of it. Not quitting because of a cramp, the sheer counting and the feat, haha.
Ah it’s really fun to reminisce about the good old football days! Thanks 
Great way to procrastinate on university work too, haha.
Who says she didn’t (hypothetical presumption)? Injury rates for both impact as well as non impact are mind boggling in football. It’s common to just continue with overuse injuries however.
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Because she wrote
And seeing as I view @Bagsy as highly intelligent and insightful I believe she would’ve added a caveat to that statement if her team seemed plagued by injuries
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Yeah that’s a good point. Although it could mean that the part about conditioning worked without any further evaluation of accompanying factors (I’m just teasing you mate).
I just know a lot of us were in pain quite frequently, although I wouldn’t say that classifies as injured per se. On the hand that’s just sports and on the other people didn’t know shit about nothing.
That’s probably very different for Bagsy because she played at a much higher level than I did.
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@Bagsy I seem to remember you doing a short “essential readings” list in the what are you reading thread, but I’m kinda lazy and it’s 585 posts long at this point. Do you remember what they were?
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3 mile run 23-24ish mins??
Procrastinated getting outside this morning. It ended up feeling not so bad as expected. It’s been cold here the past few days, so 30s felt balmy enough to wear shorts. I fudged my app so didn’t know the exact finish time. Time to stuff myself all day and try to not think about what lies ahead, the most difficult squat workout I’ve probably ever done. Trying to be confident going into it despite everything else.
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A few teammates had tiny injuries here and there but niggles at most, I think – ankle issues that accumulated and reared their heads during preseason conditioning with all of the hills… sometimes used as a cop out to not do another set of hills. Otherwise I think the steep inclines plus very little running on any kind of pavement staved off serious injuries. And after all, it lasted only two weeks. We didn’t touch a ball during this time.
Honestly, the biggest injuries we suffered were to our psyches because this coach took it a little too far sometimes. We weren’t the only team who participated in this biannual ritual; the whole club did it. But it was like hell for the few teams who had my coach. Playing for him made almost every coach I had afterwards seem like a breeze.
The teams in that club overall were not terrible but not playing in any high-level leagues, whose clubs would find wasting this much time on conditioning heinous and useless to an extent.
I do think it made a difference sometimes… until you played against a team whose players were almost all bigger and more skillful than yours and mostly better skilled. It’s hard to combat that.
In my experience, regardless of the level at which I played, the teams that were most successful were those whose players were not only talented and athletic but also grew up playing together for ages. Sure, you can accommodate a couple new players each year – maybe a team scoops up a talented player from a lower league, or players swap clubs for whatever reason (politics, mostly). But the girls who were playing in national leagues were almost always loyal to one club most of their lives.
I still find it fascinating how youth sports, especially soccer, differs so vastly between the US and European countries.
Ahaha, yeah, the coach I mention above and the assistant coach also had issues with this, especially during tournaments. Nothing violent, but it’s comical how much they would get into it. Parents, too. Parents and coaches were crazy in mediocre leagues but became much tamer as I progressed.
Oh my god, I know this feeling all too well. Even during a mediocre game.
Honestly, I never got that impression growing up. It definitely applied to American football, probably ice hockey as well. There were definitely strength and conditioning coaches for soccer, and my mom paid for my private sessions with one because he was nearby another facility where I got additional sport-specific training. But I look back at it, and it wasn’t very good. I suspect that proper strength training was widely used among national level players, and that was all. Also, many but not all of the kids here who become successful D1 college athletes played multiple sports, which probably increased chances of exposure to proper GPP.
You said you were a defender, right? I can’t imagine that size working for any other position besides the goalkeeper, haha.
It was fun to escape into my basement or driveway and practice it. I think I posted a video of myself doing some freestyle a while ago; I should try it again. I’m always surprised when my feet still remember how to do that.
It is nostalgic! I have to say I don’t regret giving it up though, which would shock fourteen year-old me.
If I am thinking of the same thing, I think some of us made a list in a different thread. Let me know if I am wrong.
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The team didn’t change significantly in those 13 years for us. It was frowned upon to change to another village’s team, haha. Only the really good and “morally flexible” ( 
) players did that. I wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years. As I implied… Football is very culturally engrained here.
Oh totally! I love exchanging experiences on that.
To clarify: No physical violence was implied in regards to coaches!! On/ off the field between players, sure. But mainly I was referring to verbal violence and bad sportsmanship. I hated that very present aspect of the sport.
Yes. I started out as a goal keeper but after my cancer hiatus I switched to defense. The exact position doesn’t really exist anymore in modern football and I don’t know the English translation. I was a “Vorstopper” (what would usually be an inner defender). Instead of a 4 man chain we played with 2 outside defenders, Vorstopper and a Libero. Very old school and the product of our trainer’s opinion about our ability to play more sophisticated play styles. It did fit us well though because the Libero and I made a perfect team. He had a good eye and I was a very physical and good at taking key attackers out of the game.
For sure!
Oh fuck no! Me neither. It was nice while ot lasted and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I made life long friends and get to look back with a smile.
My grandfather helped build the sports club up after the war and was honored for his 50 or 60(?) (I can’t remember but 60 would make more sense) year membership a couple of years before his death.
My father and all my uncles played as well.
So even from family side I’d say I was decently biased, haha.
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It is different here in this sense because clubs are not tied to a town. Many of their names do not indicate their locations whatsoever. Though most suburban areas are not too far from a high-level club, parents who are already deep into the travel soccer waters are usually willing to drive their kids a long ways away just to play for X club. My parents were no exception to that rule. That meant long commutes just for team practices. The only way one could be tied to a geographic location was when one was in high school and (usually) played for it in the spring or fall, whichever season it was offered. Some nationally ranked players refused this because the level of play was much lower, and they could still play in their club league.
Oh, for sure. I followed it religiously in junior high and high school, and there was no way American soccer could captivate me in the same way.
Ah, a stopper. Yes, I remember some earlier teams of mine using a stopper in a few situations. You strike me as someone who would be fit for that position, haha.
That’s awesome. I don’t keep in touch with anyone from the sport, haha. There were a lot of highs and a lot of lows for me. I definitely don’t regret it.
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Deep Water Beginner W5D1
Deadlift 160x3x10
SSB squat 110x10x10, 2 min rest
SSB lunge 65x3x10
3x60s plank + 20 situps, no rest
Huge mental win today because I annihilated those squats, so much so that I watch the tenth set and wonder if the weight I chose was too light all along. Though I look back on set 10 from W1D1 and notice a big difference. I thought the two minutes of rest would crush me compared to three but nah.
Feeling a little bloated but not too bad, and the way my belt felt today suggested otherwise – probably the least snug the seventh hole felt this whole time. I haven’t weighed myself since starting DW and don’t think I will change that anytime soon.
Also, my right knee did something weird on the seventh set, and now it’s a little sore… hoping it’ll pass in a few days.
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Hell yes you crushed it!
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That’s awesome Bagsy!!!
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