Training myths?

[nmbrod]

21
Male
5'9"
141pounds

I play field hockey, last year i did no physical training and went from being player of the year 2years in a row to having a shocker of a season with confidence plummeting. I play as a wingback and felt myself not able to surge forward to attack as i didnt have the energy. My pace dipped hugely as well.

Currently i am paying far more attention to eating healthily and am curious as to what running program i should adopt? I went out for a run for 5miles on Monday and felt ok, but reading through these forms that seems like a mistake.

So to get back to the level i was, i had in my head to blitz a month of hard running maybe, 3 fast short runs (2miles) and 2 long runs (5/6miles), thinking this would work on both speed and endurance. Was also thinking about sprinting up inclines in particular.

I think i have been brought up on myths of running as trawling through these forms makes me realise just i was breaking so many rules. Alllowing recuperation, build up slowly etc.

So is my idea of fitness training stupid or are these myths like the harder smething is the better it is for you true etc

Advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[MrDevine]

Well there is a large differance between a) Someone who has never been active or someone who was active and went far far down hill (grumbles to himself) and b) Someone who was relatively recently active and fit. It doesnt sound lile you need a newbie plan. You quite possibly could hit it quite a bit harder than lets just hypothetically ... me. That being said use common sense and listen to what your body it telling you. Put the effort in but don't try and push through an injury.

 

[tsilcyc]

The advice on this site provides the necessary precautions in order to enable a person to start running and allow them to continue to run successfully. But this doesn't apply to someone who has built up years of fitness and then taken a year off. The strength built up doesn't evaporate and the muslce memory (neuromuscular facilitation) does not forget what it has learned. With this strength and efficiency, you can move to the front of the line. Is the latter description you? I don't know. It depends on how much running you've done in the past.

If you're going to continue with your plan, you could change the 3 fast short runs to 3 short runs and reduce your chance of injury. If you're looking for speed, making those intervals would probably be better anyway.

For something a little more structured, you could look at this plan:

 

[nsoules]

Don't just focus on quantity, focus on quality as well. Once you've got you base up, running 3-5 miles comfortably daily, you should start to mix it up more.

Running for an extended period of time is certainly going to help your general endurance, and should help you in the later stages of your field hockey games, but field hockey is very different from just steady running. There's a lot more dynamic movements, and lot more stop and go. I just remember how tired I felt after playing basketball for the first time in a while - after I had completed a marathon training program.

The point is this - after you have your base, start incorporating more sport-specific running. Fartlek running is pretty specific for the stop & go nature (just google it, you'll find some info). That's probably you're best bet.

You should also consider running on dirt trails, as they're good for building strength, and you do a lot more dynamic, side-to-side movement to avoid obstacles, similar to the way you may move in field hockey.

Hills, as you mentioned are also great for building strength. Find a steep hill that takes you about a minute to get to the top when running at a high speed (should be winded when you get to the top). Run up at this speed, then jog down the hill.

Also, you should probably do some track work, always helps to have good high-end speed. In summary, something like this:

Base phase:

5 2(trail) 5 2 3(trail) 0 0
5 3(trail) 5 3 4(trail) 0 0
5 4(trail) 5 4 5(trail) 0 0
5 5(trail) 5 5 5(trail) 0 0

Strength phase:

10hillrepeats 5(trail) 10hillrepeats 3 5(trail) 0 0
12hillrepeats 5(trail) 12hillrepeats 3 5(trail) 0 0
14hillrepeats 5(trail) 2fartlek 3 5(trail) 0 0
16hillrepeats 5(trail) 2fartlek 3 5(trail) 0 0

Speed/midseason:

2fartlek 5(trail) 1.5speed 3 5(trail) 0 0
2fartlek 5(trail) 2speed 3 5(trail) 0 0
3fartlek 5(trail) 2.5speed 3 5(trail) 0 0
3fartlek 5(trail) 3speed 3 5(trail) 0 0

(all numbers are miles, except for hill repeats. repeat means once up, once down is 1)

Your speed sessions should be heavy on 400m and lower - 4X400,2X200,4X100 for example.

So that should give you a general idea. Don't need to follow it to a T. As MrDevine said, listen to your body. If you feel like you're doing to much, don't be afraid to back off. Also, you should definitely scale it back as your practices get more demanding.

 

[subdude]

Welcome to the forums, nmbrod!

and went from being player of the year 2 years in a row

Just curious---what did you used to do for training? If you were player of the year twice, you must either have had a great training, have great natural ability, and/or play with a lot of not-too-athletic athletes. (I'm not trying to rip on not-too-athletic athletes, given that I have always been one myself.) If you had a great training program before you stopped doing physical training, what did you do? Obviously, it seemed to work.

Regardless of what you did for training in the past, I would recommend high intensity interval training for a sport like field hockey (or soccer or, my favorite, ultimate). Go out for 20 minutes, sprinting for, say, 100 meters and then jogging 200 and repeating. You could maybe do that every other day or so. If you do it right, it will be a super demanding workout. For something like field hockey, it would more closely replicate what you do in a game. In a game, you don't run 2 or 3 or 4 miles all at once at the same speed. You're walking, jogging, and sprinting the whole game, right?

I also recommend working on sprints with fully recoveries, i.e., you sprint and then wait for your body to recover so that you can sprint again just as fast. I think something in the 200 meter or less range would be good, since with the sprints, you're working on maximizing your speed, not your endurance.

Given that you're 21, I'm guessing that you're always tempted to eat and drink unhealthily. Generally speaking, around that age, your body hasn't figured out that you're done growing taller, so you still want to eat the same as you did when you were still in high school, and most people at that age are surrounded by the worst food choices possible. I know when I was that age, living the college dorm life, it was common for me to eat a fatty breakfast, a fatty lunch, a fatty dinner, and then go eat more fatty food right before going to bed around midnight. And I drank a lot of soda pop too. And if you're into beers and hard drinks like many people are at your age, there are a ton of calories in those too. If your worsening field hockey performance is due to increased body fat, then I recommend cutting way back on drinks with calories (especially soda and alcohol), avoiding meals/snacks high in carbs with little or no fiber, fat, or protein, avoiding white bread, white rice, and other high calorie/low nutrition foods, flavoring your food with spices and herbs rather than sweet or fatty things, and filling up on lean meats, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, and nuts. If you think what you eat may be a big part of what's slowing you down, check out the nutrition section for specific advice on which foods are good and which should be avoided.