35 years old and trying to return to football

J

Jamesinmadrid

0
Hi all. I was hoping that someone might have some advice for me. I am nearly 36 years old. I played football in my youth, competitively until the age of 18 and then just on and off with friends for a few years. I stipped almost any excercise when I was about 22. I started the social scene and did a fair bit of drinking and smoking throughout my 20´s. I quit smoking at 31 and haven´t been going out that much for the last 5 years, so alcohol intake is virtually nothing now. I am 6ft tall and weigh 85 kg (187lb). Two years ago, I was playing football with a few friends and broke my foot. This took nearly a year before I could even consider excercise again.
Two months ago, I joined the local veterans football team. The first few training sessions were very hard. However, every week now, I am getting a bit more used to it. The problem is that, although my cardiovascular fitness is improving alot, I have very weak legs. Especially when kicking the ball, I notice that I don´t have anyhting close to the power that the other guys have. Also, after each game or training session, my legs are very heavy and lethargic.
We train twice during the week (90minutes per session) and have a full 90 minute game at the weekend.
We have a good trainer who puts us through the warm ups and excercises. Its just that I feel that my legs are getting almost weaker intead of stronger.
Can anyone give me some advise please as I am desperately keen to improve so that I can keep a place on the team and comand some respect from the other players, most of whom are in the same age group as me.
Thanks in advance for your help.
 
I'm assuming you're referring to soccer, rather than what most on here refer to as football?

If not, then ignore the rest of my post.

Ultimately, vets football is a lot less about fitness and a lot more about awareness of the game and letting the ball do the work - you'll find the odd very fit player at this level but to be honest most won't be - its all about knowing the game at that age.

I'd suggest working on long distance runs with some slight sprints in the middle - build it up - maybe start at 3km with 5 x 50m sprints throughout, and then when you've done that, make it 3.5km with 6 x 50m sprints...

That will get you more than fit enough to play vets football, but of course, the respect from your team mates will come from commitment to the club - rather than proving you can run in your free time. :)

Enjoy it, thats what vets is all about!
 
Thanks alot for the advice Chris. Yes it is soccer. Will keep going and hope the legs get a bit stronger. I´m probably expecting too much too soon. After a long period of inactivity, I can´t expect too much.
 
If i were you I would start going for regular runs, maybe during your lunch break go for a twenty minute interval run? if you do this 3 times over the week then youve already got a solid hour of intervals, on top of your training.
In respect to 'weak' legs you might want to start doing some weights and remember to focus on doing the weights at speed (like you would for the kick) rather than large weights
 
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