I would greatly appreciate advise on how to combine indoor football (or similar sport for that matter) with a mid(-ish) TR plan. I do indoor fotball on fixed times on Tuesdays and Sundays and I have tried combining a tough TR workout the same day as my football training and it really does not work. Either a bad fotball session or a bad TR workout. I need both my head and legs rested for the football… it is tough sessions!
I do not think I can handle TSS/lack of rest days from a full Mid plan combined with the football, but I am not satisfied with my current FTP progress so I need advises or feedback if I am on the wrong track. I aim for 4W/kg (currently at 3,5) and below is an example of a training week. It is a lesser version of SSB II Mid vol. (removed 2hour Sweet spot on Sunday, added Sweet spot 1 hour on Monday)
When you’re participating in another strenuous activity like football alongside cycling, it will be a lot tougher to prevent overtraining and still see the improvements you’re expecting. In general, our recommendation is to lighten the cycling training load when you add another sport, so in your case this would mean adhering to the Low Volume plan and/or adding in a rest day. Second, you mentioned that it’s difficult to mix tough TR rides with indoor football sessions, but it could be worth eliminating your Tuesday workout altogether so you spend a large part of the day recovering from cycling and you fee a bit more fresh for the football practice. In any case, progressing faster will be difficult since you aren’t focused on the one sport and have to factor in the other training stress. I’m interested to hear other people’s take on this as well!
I can’t comment on football per se. It’s something I was rubbish at! As a triathlete though I’m used to combining training different sports and I think the reality is you can never optimise all of them.
If you are unhappy with the rate of improvement you are seeing then you need to ask yourself what are your priorities? Football or cycling? Obviously there’s no right answer as it’s entirely up to you and what you want to do. If the football is non-negotiable (and I’m assuming it is) then the question is how best to mange the riding around that to maximise the gains there.
The only thing you can do is to try your sample week and see how it works out over a few weeks and adjust accordingly. You might find that @larry’s suggestion of dropping to a lower volume plan works better with the combined training stress of the two sports - it is often said that the ideal balance in endurance sports is to do the minimum work possible to achieve the improvements you want and somewhere in there your might find a balance which gives you the gains you’re looking for. If not ultimately you have to prioritise somewhere.
I know in training for my sport I could be a better swimmer, cyclist or runner if I focussed on a single sport but that’s not my choice.
Just a quick note (I used to play a lot of indoor football or 5 a side on astro) - depends on your position/style of play etc, but whenever I started to play more intensively (i.e. box-to-box), I would find myself feeling similar to training in cycling vo2max zone.
Sorry in advance for the amount of times you’re about to read the word “soccer” I’ve been trying to come up with a way to mix soccer with my winter training and I gotta say it’s pretty tough. I started off with SSB HV1 while playing twice a week on W/Th nights and found that to be impossible…but in the process it forced me to try and optimize my recovery much as possible in an attempt to complete the sessions. Now that I’ve fallen back to SSB MV1 (now MV2), I’m applying the same recovery strategies to great success. Here is what my current weeks look like:
Sun: AM 90-120 min SS workout
Mon: AM 90-120 min SS workout
Tue: rest
Wed: AM 60 min SS workout, PM 60 min outdoor soccer
Thur: AM 60 min active recovery, PM 60 min indoor soccer
Fri: AM/PM 60 min SS workout
Sat: flexible, anywhere from 0-90 min tempo ride depending on feel
If I’m doing an AM workout that leaves me tired at all and I have soccer later in the day, I’ll drink some kind of post-ride recovery drink immediately after getting off the bike and I’ve found that helps. If I have a late soccer match (sometimes finishes around 11PM), I’ll bring a recovery drink with me to take after the match to prep for the next morning’s cycling session. I’ve also started eating more carbs in the form of nightly sweet potatoes, whole grain bread, rice/quinoa…it’s amazing how many calories get burned when doing both sports, and forcing myself to replenish some of those extra calories with quality carbs seems to help. I bought into the @Nate_Pearson tart cherry craze and it seems to have helped with recovery a bit, but I have been changing many variables so it’s tough to determine how much is attributable to the cherries. I also stopped using my standing desk all day at work and now sit when I feel I need to recover.
I managed to crawl out of the hole I dug myself initially with the high-volume plan and re-tested today at exactly 4W/kg, up from ~3.75W/kg prior to starting the first phase of SSB. I think mixing vo2 work with soccer on the same day would be tough, so when you start to progress into the build/specialty phases maybe try to schedule your workouts in such a way that those don’t overlap. But in the meantime, if you’re finding it hard to balance things right now, scale the cycling back until you figure out how much you can handle and progress steadily from there.
Indeed, it is for sure similar. Intervall session times are also rather similar 2-3minutes hard and then go easier and repeat. Too bad it does not carry over that well to cycling though (at least for me). But it is too fun to give up .
Thanks for sharing! I will take your advise on optimise recovery, I can for sure improve on the nutrition side.
Have you been able to mix in VO2max or other higher intensity within the same week? Or do you consider that being too much stress since there are a lot of sprints etc in soccer? Kudos on your re-test btw. Spot on my target
I’ve been trying to come up with a way to mix soccer with my winter training and I gotta say it’s pretty tough. I started off with SSB HV1 while playing twice a week on W/Th nights and found that to be impossible…but in the process it forced me to try and optimize my recovery much as possible in an attempt to complete the sessions. Now that I’ve fallen back to SSB MV1 (now MV2), I’m applying the same recovery strategies to great success. Here is what my current weeks look like: