Good to hear the job is going well and that you are still able to get some training in (I never doubted it). Excellent news about your sons football and you jumping on board to coach. Its been years and years since I did any football so I will have to think hard to remember any drills.
We are all great down here mate, getting back to normal life now lockdowns are a thing of the past. Stay safe and stay strong.
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Update - birthday was two days ago, my wife’s sisters pitched in and got me a sturdy 60# weight vest that is coming with me to work for my lunchtime walks. Normally that’d be more than enough awesomeness for a birthday but my family got me a new GoPro, which I used yesterday to record our first soccer game as a family, where we won 4-2. Neither of my kids scored any of the 4 but they had fun and did well.
The soccer coaching has been a ton of fun. Last season we didn’t even know the coach’s name for most of the season, haha. Plus, the parents didn’t seem all that interested in improving their kids, besides maybe one other one. Nobody talked to each other or anything. So I got all the parents together at our first practice, which is normally just once a week, got all their numbers, made a group chat, and got half the team there for an extracurricular mid-week practice as well. More are coming next time. They’re all 5-6 years old so it’s not like you can do much beyond some fun games and drills, but I know from my oldest’s last season that a few kids who know each other and play together outside of the one hour a week will demolish a bunch of 6 year olds who barely know each other’s names every time.
Anyways, we have another practice scheduled for tuesday and everyone seems happy, so that’s all I’m looking for. It’s about the least competitive league you could ask for so it’s not like there’s actual pressure, but I was still a bit nervous with all the parents watching me so I’m glad I got involved parents who are willing to do more than the bare minimum.
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Today’s training:
6x15 @ 185 on decline chest press machine
5x12 @ 50’s on incline DB press
5x15 @ “8” on cable crossovers
And then, I’ve been working on getting a proper L-sit and a tuck planche, so I did a bunch of work on my frog stands:
and tucked L-sits, both of which I can hold for ~15-20 seconds.
Came home and went for a mile walk with my new weight vest, and then ate some leftover beef stew.
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Todays training:
Left work and did another extracurricular practice with my kids’ soccer team, lasted an hour and involved a LOT of running around. Went home and went straight to the gym around 8 pm, and did my prowler workout.
I’m up to 3 plates on the prowler, I push it at a fast walk with long strides and arms locked out in front of me for 20-25 meters, and I’m wearing a harness with a long rope I wrap around the push bars, and when I get to the other end I unwrap the rope and bear crawl back to the start, dragging the prowler behind me. That’s 1. 10 rounds and I’m spent, no matter what.
I didn’t think I’d up the weight from 2 plates because I never stopped feeling destroyed after it but I did notice that the pushes and especially the bear crawls were just feeling routine. Once this gets like that I’ll probably try for 4 plates on it.
I think it’s 70# so I’m a few lbs shy of my bodyweight, might just put a few extra lbs on and do it with my bodyweight, which seems like a decent achievement.
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Yesterday’s training:
Hammer Strength Isolateral Row:
Warmed up with 1 and 2 plates per side, and then did 3 plates per side for 6 sets of 10.
Then, Lat Pulldowns for 5 sets of 12 with 12 on the stack, shoulder width grip, and keeping elbows in front of me, aka mostly lats, and superset it with 10 pushups in between every set.
Finished with 4 sets of rope pullovers at 7 on the stack, of 15 reps.
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Yesterdays training was 12 of my prowler rounds (push one way, bear crawl with a harness dragging the prowler back) with just 2 plates on the prowler. Felt light, and I barely rested.
Today was just shoulders and arms. Dumbbell OHP, diamond pushups, close grip chin ups, and some cable work.
In the morning was a soccer game (we tied). Spent the rest of the day at a music festival with the wife and kids and a couple friends.
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Hard work and good times, that is what life is all about.
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Hit upper body twice, 3 more prowler days, and a LOT of soccer this week. My team got absolutely annihilated by some semi-pro group of 6 year olds today, but everyone was in good spirits regardless. Whatcha gonna do, haha.
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This made me chuckle
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The skill gap at this age is such that it can be night and day between teams. The real truth behind this is that their coach was phenomenal and knew exactly what to do and how to instruct them calmly and in an organized manner. I’m brand new at this so it’s no surprise that I’m gonna be outcoached by a bunch of people, haha.
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Today:
8 sets of 15 @ 185 on decline hammer strength chest press
4 sets of 12 with the 55’s on incline bench superset with 5 pseudo planche pushups
5 sets of 15 on cable flys with 27.5lbs each hand, superset with 10 second frog stands
Still been getting after it.
This week was nuts - soccer game saturday, biking and playground hopping sunday, I ran an impromptu goalie practice with a couple kids on my team that were interested on monday after work, I ran a full team soccer practice tuesday after work, and yesterday I left work and took my kid to a minor league baseball game, where the team was down 5-1 in the top of the 4th and by the end of the 4th was up 9-5 after scoring 8 runs, 4 of which were home runs (franchise record). Off today, got to sleep in and hit this simple but gnarly workout.
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Just curious … what was your interest level in soccer (i.e. pros, World Cup, Olympics, etc.) before you began coaching it and has it changed any since then?
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I used to watch a ton of EPL games with my childhood friend who was a Man U fan, and I have always watched the world cup and olympic games. So - probably fall under the category of “casual soccer fan”, or a half step below that, haha. It’s funny you ask though, I’ve been wanting to get my kids into watching more soccer and haven’t gotten around to it yet. Last week was a pretty big wake-up call in terms of me learning to focus a little less on trying to make kids “better” and focusing more on making myself better while having them enjoy the process.
Do you think getting into a routine of watching some soccer games with the kids is a good idea? Seems like it would be.
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(You didn’t ask me, but…)
If you want them to learn to enjoy playing soccer and “enjoy the process,” yes.
It’s the same as any other sport. My basketball-playing friends have posters of MJ, Lebron, etc., and always watch NBA games. Football-playing friends obsessively watch games. (Disclaimer to all: if you play fantasy football, you probably like football too much, haha.)
Soccer was the only sport I played growing up, and while I was never a “nut” about it, I did watch it on TV sometimes and had a couple posters in my room of players I liked. It’s just fun to see the best players in the world play a game that you will be playing tomorrow night, you know? I’d see a dude do a bicycle kick and then try (and fail) to recreate that at practice. Or I’d be inspired to use my head/chest more often, except I usually chickened out when the ball was flying towards me.
Anyway, yeah, I think it’d be cool. Give you guys something to bond over, at the very least. Maybe they won’t play soccer for their whole lives but you guys could still be fans of it and watch the games. World Cup is in 220 days! Soccer is no longer a part of my life at all, but one of my bucket list items is going to a game in South America or Europe someday. I wanna watch a game with people who treat it like Americans do football. (Actually probably 10x more seriously.)
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I agree with @jshaving - I also think that soccer is one of the most watchable team sports in terms of pacing.
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I went to a Man U-Man City game when I lived in England. Americans THINK our football fans are “crazy”, but they just don’t understand how it is over there, haha.
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Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
I’m still training. Hit legs today
Deadlifts
135x10
225x10
315 3x10
Leg Press
200x10
400 3x10
Leg Extensions superset with BW sissy squats
110 3x10, BW 3x10
Hyperextensions
BW 3x25
Simple and easy - back was yesterday, chest the day before, tomorrow is prowler sprints and bike.
Really haven’t missed much training - was down to 2x a week when work got particularly stressful, but during the lull where it wasn’t I found myself slacking and picked it back up, and now that it IS stressful again the workouts are helping.
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Good to see you are still working hard sir.
Chest yesterday
Dips
BW x 10
+25 x 10
+45 x 12 (failure)
Hoist Chest Press
This is such a cool machine - as you press the arms up, the seat moves backwards, effectively altering the resistance curve to drop off more at the top of the movement.
1 plate per side x20
2 plates per side 3x10, dropset to 1 plate to failure on last set
Cable Flys superset with Cable Chest Press (mechanical drop set kinda thingy)
“6” x15
“8” 2x15
OH Cable Tri Extensions
“6” 3x failure
Diamond pushups
3 x failure
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Today: Back
Close grip lat pulldowns
“8” x10
“11” x10
“14” x 14, 12 drop to “8” x20
Chest Supported Plate Loaded Row
1 plate x20
2 plates x10
2 plates and a 25 x10, x8 drop to 2 plates x7 drop to 1 plate x16
Rope Pullovers superset with High rope pulldowns
I do these by setting up a bench far away from the cable station, doing the pullovers standing up and then sitting down, leaning forward and doing the pulldowns super slow
Pullovers on “4” x 10, 10, 10, Rope Pulldowns “6” x10, “7” x 10, “8” x10
One arm cable preacher curls on an incline bench
“3” x10 each arm, “4” x 12 each arm, “4” x failure each arm drop to “2” x failure.
Hammer Curls
35s 3x failure alternating arms
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