soccer

Soccer (aka Football) Training for Over-50s

I've taken a different approach to this piece. The first section highlights the nuts and bolts of my training recommendations while the second section outlines my background thoughts and journey on this subject.

Important Notes: 

• For masters athletes strength and fitness has little memory. Prepare your body for every season and every match and you will enjoy many of each. Don't lean on memories of your younger, fitter self.

• Many athletes make their biggest mistake at the start by doing more than they should on day one. This can trigger excess soreness and possibly injury. On day one do much less than you think you can do then see how you feel the next day. Use that to guide determination of your starting point. 

• Once you start to regularly train, increase your load very slowly or, for some days, just don’t increase at all. You don’t have to increase to continue to gain fitness.

• Recovery time between workouts is another key. If you arrive to run or put other demands on your lower body when there is already tightness or soreness you face a greatly increased likelihood of injury.

Masters Soccer Pre-season Training Plan

• Full body strength workout once to twice per week

  • Focus this workout on a variety of movements as opposed to heavy loads

  • Be cautious in timing your strength training. Avoid doing it the day before the run workout below. You want you body to fully recover before placing the running strain on. 

  • Here’s an simple and effective strength routine: 8 min Follow Along   Full Explanation

  • Give special attention to the calf muscles as they face a high and unique load compared to other physical activities

• A run workout at a local soccer field and track twice per week

  • Optional: 8 Minute activation set (link above)

  • Optional: Dynamic movement warm up walking or jogging

    • Movements such as high knees, butt kicks, shuffle, back pedal

  • One lap very slow jog warm up

  • One lap intervals run at a moderate/comfortable pace, walking 200m between each to recover. Don’t run too hard! Start with one and add one additional 400 each workout if you felt good the day after the last outing. If you can't run a full 400m then jog 100, walk 100 for a lap and work on building up from there.

    • Over time your fitness will build and your run pace will naturally increase. Hold back, though. It’s better to build the number of reps than run faster for fewer laps. Another variable once fitness is building is to drop the walking interval down to 100m then 50m.

    • If running more than 4 laps, change the direction you run around the track to balance your lower body loading.

  • Line Drill

    • This is your key eccentric segment. Running in a straight line out 10m and back, out 20m and back, out 30m and back then rest till recovered before the next rep if there is another. Starting with one easy-paced jogging rep and adding one per workout if you feel good the day after. 

    • When you change direction always face the same direction. That means you are alternating the leg that carries the load when pushing off during the direction change.

    • As you get stronger over time, increase the rate of acceleration and deceleration to increase your strength.

  • Wall kicks: Make sure to train the kicking movement as well. Kicking the ball against a big brick wall at a local school is a great option. As always, start with less than you think you can do and see how you feel the next day. Make sure to warm up before doing so. And use both legs! You can also train for throw-in's by using the wall. If you can get to 35m maybe you can throw in a goal next season :)

Advanced Preparation

• If you have developed a solid base of fitness and are looking for a more advanced training approach try this track workout. You should already be able to run an easy 5k continuously and have a good level of general strength from training like that highlighted in the first section.

• This workout attempts to simulate the physical load of a masters soccer match.

• Run 12 laps of a 400m track, changing direction after 6, for a total distance of 4800m. The change of direction is important as running the corners creates uneven loading and it’s best to balance that out.

• The run pace changes every 40 steps (count one foot for 20 strides). The pace cycles between: walk, slow jog, moderate run, slow jog. 

  • Don’t sprint! The moderate pace is one you know you could maintain for 10 minutes continuously if required. 

• On each lap you will do around 40m of agility work to introduce eccentric loading and changes of direction:

  • Shuffle at 45 degrees for four strides then change direction and do that four times zig zagging down the track, first forward then backward. 

  • Coming out of the shuffle, backpedal for 20 strides then continue on the next lap. Be cautious on the back pedal - pick up your feet and make sure the path is clear.

• The above workout is a good simulation of a soccer match but I still recommend including some Line Drills (description above) in your training as they include acceleration and deceleration in a different and very effective manner. Make sure to do them on a different day, with at least 2-3 days rest between such runs. Alternatively, you could cut the distance on the above track workout and add in a line drill or two.

• One final thought on injury avoidance. No matter how fit you are, performing sprints late in a match (ie after 80 minutes and 6 or 7km) comes with it a very high injury risk for masters athletes. Consider changing your style of play sometime in the second half. For example, choose to hold up play and wait for teammates instead of taking on a back one on one.

Background

The pause in our lives during the pandemic led many into deep reassessment mode. The result of this has been a lot of moving on. From a triathlon perspective, I’ve seen a sea change with many long time triathletes moving on from the sport and a new wave of individuals moving in. 

My own life saw a big shift as well. I decided I needed a distraction and world football (soccer) would be that distraction. My wife has been amazed (horrified?) at the consistency and depth of this new passion. I had been a casual watcher since childhood but mostly only really tuning in for the big tournaments. Now though, I would be a supporter of a premier club, Brighton and Hove Albion, and actively consume football content across TV, newspapers, podcasts and social media. I’ve learned much about the game and the football world, and have become more passionate about a sport than I have been since childhood.

The second phase of this story is my own involvement in the sport. Coming into the pandemic my focus was on decathlon and triathlon. Both of these sports shut down but I continued to train and learn….until I didn’t. I just ran out of motivation. It was time for a new challenge and PLAYING soccer would be it. One of the other motivating factors was the opportunity for more social contact than the other sports provided, specifically with a number of close childhood friends.

As an athlete and coach I’ve always been fascinated by the comparative demands of various sports. The question for me then was what was I missing in my fitness that would help me adjust to the demands of soccer. At 57 years old I am well into the ‘masters’ phase of my athletic life. It didn’t take long on Google to confirm that, like other sports, there is almost no masters-specific training information for soccer on the internet. That’s part of the reason I wanted to share my experience.

What I want to highlight above all is how important eccentric loading is when preparing to play the game, especially for masters athletes. Eccentric loading is the strength a muscle shows as it lengthens as opposed to concentric loading which is when a muscle shortens, like in a biceps curl. Eccentric strength, especially in the hips and legs, is key when we change direction; this is what makes soccer so different than simply running in a straight line as one would in a local 5k. In a road race there are no changes of direction. When you quickly stop yourself your quadriceps (front thigh) will lengthen under force to decrease your speed and bring you to a stop before shortening as you push off in the other direction. If we haven’t trained this movement, those quads can be screaming at you post workout or match and can lead to injury as well.

My major learning from my first season was to develop a pacing approach based on my running experience. 90 minutes is a long time to be in motion. I learned to all but forget about sprinting. If a ball required a sprint then I let it go. My fastest pace soon became my 1500m pace. That is the pace I recommend as top speed for these track workouts. In other words, don’t run at any faster pace than you could maintain for 6 to 9 minutes continuously. (6=high fitness level, 9=basic fitness level).

As an aside, one of the things I enjoyed most about playing soccer was the opportunity to compete every week. The nature of decathlon and triathlon is that you do a lot of preparation and then compete maybe once every month or two. That said, competing every Friday night meant a lot of attention to helping my body recover in the six days between. But I suppose that is a whole other blog post!

As I approach season number two I wanted to further experiment so I have been going to the track for what, in running terms, we call a fartlek workout, which basically means varied paces. This is the advanced workout above. The average elite soccer player covers 8 to 12km per match. I cover 6 to 7k as a midfielder in our old timers league matches. With my existing fitness level allowing me to comfortably run an easy, continuous 5k, I decided to introduce some eccentric loading and pace variation in an attempt to mimic the loading of a soccer match. The day after these 5k track fartlek workouts I felt very similar to after a soccer match so I’m feeling relatively confident about the approach but who really knows how it will all turn out.

For interest sake, I looked online for a breakdown of pace distribution in an elite soccer match. Here’s a simplified summary of one study I found with what I perceive to be some track/run racing equivalencies:

1. 60% walking to easy run

2. 15% steady run (5k pace)

3. 15% hard run (ie 1500m pace)

4. 7% controlled sprint (400m pace)

5. 3% all out sprint (50-100m pace)

So what do we do with this data? Not much really. We’re over 50 and our #1 goal is not high performance, it’s to avoid injury and be able to turn out each week for our match. For that reason I don’t recommend looking beyond the third level in the above paces.

Let me close by reiterating a few philosophies I apply all the time in my coaching and my own training.

1. Starting Out: On day one do much less than you think you can do and see how you feel the next day. We often overestimate ourselves.

2. Increasing: Each time out leave your body wanting more. This feeds consistency and consistency is your fastest way to fitness.

3. Avoid Injury: If you want to play soccer each week, your number one goal in all your physical activity should be to Finish Injury Free Everyday (FIFE). Of course, don’t beat yourself up if injuries come. If they happen to Premier League players, with all their expert trainers and physios, they can happen to us. You learn what you can, rehab, and get back at it.