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Pre-Season Running

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Breakthelines

Breakthelines

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Just finished my season of footy and wanting to increase my running output for next year.

Running 5km interval running in morning.

Running 3km 65%-75% in the arvos.

Monday - Friday.

This ok or what should I be doing? :D
 
looks pretty solid, though i'm more a fan myself a rest day during the week and adding a run on saturdays.

i think it's better to split them rather than have them on consecutive days (in a 5 day a week exercise program).... but i guess it's partly a lifestyle/work and what time you have available. which is easy for me to say because i'm now at uni so i don't exactly have many time committments. not everyone has that luxury.

but yeah that would get you working pretty hard. 10 runs a week is going to be bloody tough on the body, depending on your age. but it is doable.

interval training is best. 5km of interval might be a bit too long, but give it a go and see how you go. if you were going to do something like 12 x 400 metres you'd be absolutely ****ed. would be very tough to go on another run in the afternoon.

my general aim for interval training is to do between 2 and 3 k's, mixing each session up. a) 6 x 400's, b) 12 x 200's, c) 20 x 100's, d) 5 x 300, 5 x 100, 10 x 20 or any sort of combination you want... i also like to try and replicate a game where you're sprints could be anything between 10 and 200 metres.

as long as your work periods are at 95%+ of what you can get to (probably not when doing 400's, maybe 85-90%) and try to get my rest periods the same time as the previous work period.

3km run is pretty much perfect.

for others reading as has been said to a couple of people with your "normal" runs, you don't really wanna be going much beyond 3km. whilst a 5-6km isn't going to hurt you, it's not going to give you the benefit that people think it will. nor is it going to be that much more beneficial than a 3km run. it's all about time efficiency i guess.

for someone who takes 30 mins for a 6km run, they will probably take 13 mins for a 3km run. so they've spent over twice as long but they're certainly not getting twice the benefit. in fact it's probably hardly better at all.
 
This more off season than preseason though.

This is a standard Sydney Swans off season program which they talked about in one of their videos last year:

3km Time Trial
6x350m
6x200m
10-15min Fartlek

Pretty intense!

I am a firm believer that doing repeat sprints/runs and fartleks is much much better for your aerobic base than anything else. 3km made of of 400s, 200s and 50s is going to do a lot more for you than 3km straight off the bat.
 
Fartlek is a great way to improve overall speed.
As Lakey91 said, intervals and fartlek is much better for your aerobic base, it stops the adaptation that you get from long steady runs.
Its fine to do steady runs if you are training for distance running, but as you are training for footy all its going to do is make you run well at a certain pace - which is no good for a footy player.

Only thing is, be careful with doing too much consecutive running days as you might put a fair bit of strain on your body.
Ensure you have a decent rest day or two, I would even suggest to move one week run day to the weekend so you have a rest day on say wed-thurs and another one sunday.

Are you mixing it up with weight training as well or just purely running?
Because doing too much running will increase the likleyhood of muscle loss.
 

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Any idea what sort of break to take when running intervals?
I'd mainly been doing either fartlek or 2km, 15 x 40m hill sprints, 2km run home

Would like to change it up over summer with some 200m & 400m intervals (there's an inner boundary line at Arden St that makes these easy to measure).
 
Mofra said:
Any idea what sort of break to take when running intervals?.
Click to expand...

i like to rest for the same period i've been running for.

60 secs on (around 350-400 metres), 60 secs off
30 secs on (around 220-250 metres), 30 secs off

etc,.
 
Black Thunder said:
i like to rest for the same period i've been running for.

60 secs on (around 350-400 metres), 60 secs off
30 secs on (around 220-250 metres), 30 secs off

etc,.
Click to expand...

Yeah generally the same time on and off it good - thats generally a fartlek session if you are doing it for time.

You can take it up a notch and do your recovery run at half the time, ie 60 on 30 off as well if you really want to hammer yourself, but personally I prefer the same on and off as it allows you to run harder and recover well to run hard again.

One of my fav is the Mona fartlek session:
2x 90 on 90 off
4x 60/30/15 on and off

10 min warmup run and cool down run, off jogging to be a nice easy pace and on as fast as possible.
Great for a quick 40 min session.

According to my GPS watch it ends up about 8 - 9 ish ks for the session, but I am going to start stepping up the recovery jog a little.
 
Mofra said:
Any idea what sort of break to take when running intervals?
I'd mainly been doing either fartlek or 2km, 15 x 40m hill sprints, 2km run home

Would like to change it up over summer with some 200m & 400m intervals (there's an inner boundary line at Arden St that makes these easy to measure).
Click to expand...

Appropriate breaks really depend on what your level of fitness is. Surely, you could do 400m intervals with a 60-90 second break - for someone realtively overweight, that would be a challenge, but for jarryd mcveigh or brent stanton (ie elite AFL athletes) that probably wouldn't push them too hard.

They say that the best time to 'go again' (ie start another sprint) is just before you feel recovered. I hope you know what I mean. If you go and run 100m, you know that after a minute or so you will have caught your breath back and be feeling ok again - it is about 10-15 seconds before this that you should go again.

Some people do complete rests between movements, others do slow jogging, etc.
 
Here is a link to an article thats the final part of a big series on endurance training.. At the bottom of this page there is a table that I think is an accurate work/rest/intensity ratio for the different goals of HIIT. Have a look/read and hopefully it helps you decide what you are looking for in your workouts..

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/methods-of-endurance-training-part-5-interval-training-part-2.html

Typically I try to include running that hits at least 3 of these goals on a running day.
 
Cheers for the replies all - my hill sprint sessions have "rest" periods longer than the sprint, simply because I have to jog back to the start again.

Shouldn't be too hard to find some decent running space in the parklands nearby to mix the running sessions up a bit.
 
hey lads what pre season running exercises would you suggest for me?

I am 184 cm weigh 105 kilo pretty overweight probably could say I am fat but I need to lose it and get fit again for next season. Took the last 5 weeks off footy and gained a bit of weight.

Thanks heaps.
 
hey guys round 1 this year i broke my ankle and missed a majority of the season.

i was fairly fit before i did this injury,

i did alot of rehab and fitness work, during the year i just couldnt get back to my full fitness, now that the footy season has finished, i went for a run just before and was buggered after 1.5 km, yeh i know unbelieable.

i really want to be able to cover 3-5km very easy, does anyone know any tips for me to increase my endurance?
 

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Black Thunder said:
i like to rest for the same period i've been running for.

60 secs on (around 350-400 metres), 60 secs off
30 secs on (around 220-250 metres), 30 secs off

etc,.
Click to expand...

how about rest in between sets like after doing 4x400 and then 4x200, wats the recommended time to recover?
 
how about rest in between sets like after doing 4x400 and then 4x200, wats the recommended time to recover?
Click to expand...
:confused: How fast? How intense? If you flat out sprint the 200 you will need more rest than if you 75% it.

For those who dont want to goto the article:
G9KBO.png


For footy we need all of these energetic pathways at different times so I work on improving all of these goals, some sessions I do them all, some I do 2 or 3 or just 1 if I want to target my weakest pathway.
 
you could have the best pre-season of your life, be as fit as hell, clock 5 minutes on a 3k run, get a score of 20 on a beep test etc.

as fit as you are, the first game of a footy season, you go into a contest, and your already buggered, struggling breathing

this is perfectally normal for any footballer at any age

its just you never train at such an intensity as football, and when the balls on the ground, you have to go for it, if its at training, its not as intense, and its a bit of a yes or no to pick up the ball.
 
Hey guys, just thought I would shed my ideas.

For the first month, try and build a base.
Mon -1 x 30mins & 5 x 50m
Wed- 1 x 40mins & 5 x 50m
Sat - 1 x 50mins & 5 x 50m
The 50's are to keep a speed element to the session.
**Another session when you feel you have developed a strong enough base: 8 x 1km in 4mins. 2 min break.


Mon - 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 1km jog recovery.
Wed - 10 x 200's on 2 mins - jog recovery
Friday - 40min Fartleg = 5min warm up (10 x 20secs on 40secs off)/(30 on 30 off)/(40 on 20 off) 5 min warm down.
Sat or Sun - Recovery run throughs or easy jog to tick the legs over.

Test your 3km first session back, last session before chrissie, first session after chrissie..just as an indicator as to your progress. You can take away alot of confidence out of these.
 
eastlakes rule said:
Hey guys, just thought I would shed my ideas.

For the first month, try and build a base.
Mon -1 x 30mins & 5 x 50m
Wed- 1 x 40mins & 5 x 50m
Sat - 1 x 50mins & 5 x 50m
The 50's are to keep a speed element to the session.
**Another session when you feel you have developed a strong enough base: 8 x 1km in 4mins. 2 min break.


Mon - 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 1km jog recovery.
Wed - 10 x 200's on 2 mins - jog recovery
Friday - 40min Fartleg = 5min warm up (10 x 20secs on 40secs off)/(30 on 30 off)/(40 on 20 off) 5 min warm down.
Sat or Sun - Recovery run throughs or easy jog to tick the legs over.

Test your 3km first session back, last session before chrissie, first session after chrissie..just as an indicator as to your progress. You can take away alot of confidence out of these.
Click to expand...
Speed training should be at the start.
 

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eastlakes rule said:
Hey guys, just thought I would shed my ideas.

For the first month, try and build a base.
Mon -1 x 30mins & 5 x 50m
Wed- 1 x 40mins & 5 x 50m
Sat - 1 x 50mins & 5 x 50m
The 50's are to keep a speed element to the session.
**Another session when you feel you have developed a strong enough base: 8 x 1km in 4mins. 2 min break.


Mon - 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 3km (5min rest jog recovery) 1km jog recovery.
Wed - 10 x 200's on 2 mins - jog recovery
Friday - 40min Fartleg = 5min warm up (10 x 20secs on 40secs off)/(30 on 30 off)/(40 on 20 off) 5 min warm down.
Sat or Sun - Recovery run throughs or easy jog to tick the legs over.

Test your 3km first session back, last session before chrissie, first session after chrissie..just as an indicator as to your progress. You can take away alot of confidence out of these.
Click to expand...

i know i sound like a di*khead asking, but do you mean, run for 30 minutes, then after that run 50 metres 5 times?

and also with the 3k run, is it a run or a jog? just because the recovery is also a jog, so how does that get a rest?
 
30 min run, depending on fitness I would suggest 4.30 - 5min kms pace unless you have a serious running background.
After the 30min run, walk around for 2-3 minutes, walk -jog. Then do 5 x 50m with a walk recovery.

The 3km is definitely not a jog.
That session is 2 x 3km with 5min recovery - so that can be a slow jog recovery to make sure the lactate is out, or a walk / jog. You can adjust the recovery towards where you are at with your fitness. Everyone is different where they are at so try and suit the session to where you are at intensity wise.
 
Thanks guys for all your tips and programs. I've been playing underdone, in my opinion, for the last two years and really wanna give it a good crack next year by being the fittest I can be. Show myself how far I can go with good preparation. I play in the midfield as well as forward pocket.

My previous years off-season consisted off doing a 5km run/jog/sprint mixed toghetheron every few days, did not have a program. After reading some of what has been written here, I see how far I am behind in terms of preparing myself well for the actual preseason.

When i was at my fittest, i did the 5km run stopping only once and complemented that with biking, boxing and weights.

This year I plan on doing boxing again, do interval running, biking, rowing (so basically cross training) in order to increase endurance. Need to start having an actual program.

What sort of program do you suggest if I wanted to increase my speed and agility?
 
Hey guys, just like the OP, just finished my footy season, and although i had a solid year playing on the wing, i want to increase my fitness base another 50%, i feel i'm no where near as fit as i should be and going into seniors next year i'll need step up my game. Any training routines like sprints and long runs would be greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone has a good programe on how to increase your core strength and adding more muscle to your body, would be much appreciated also, cheers!
 

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