I spent my teen and college years playing field sports—football, soccer, even a little bit of rugby. After a litany of injuries, I found my way to endurance sports—mostly cycling, mountain biking, tri, running, swimming.
Anyway, last night I played a pickup game of football with some of the teenagers in my neighborhood—some of whom are even on the local varsity football team (which is usually pretty good). I was surprised to find that I was able to keep up with them—even the fast guys. Granted, I’m kinda sore today. I forgot some of those muscles existed.
So how about you guys? Are any of you veterans of field sports? Have you tried to play a field sport since picking up triathlon? How did it go? Have you completely lost your “fast burst” speed, or do you still have it?
Check out this thread I started a couple of weeks ago:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2293447;search_string=soccer;#2293447
First game was last week, we were short players so I played the full 90 minutes and it was great but it took a good 3-4 days to recover. Like you mention, I had sore muscles that I didn’t know could get sore. Hopefully that goes away as my body gets used to it, I should also probably start stretching ; )
Have Fun!
AW
same here. cyling and running dont seem to use nearly as many muscles as 90 mins on the socccer field. i am in agony for a week after the first game of the season. im cutting back on soccer though, too easy to get an injury that will mess with my tri training. Pulled a calf muscle 4 weeks ago playing, still not 100%.
i used to dance competitively, do gymnastics, play field hockey, lacrosse, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, football with friends, some tennis, and pretty much anything else that came my way…
haven’t played any of them recently, but hubby suggested we go out for a skate at a local rink just to get back on the ice, and i’m hoping to do so this weekend. would love to get some shinny in, but all the sessions near us are while we’re at work. might just have to go out and play some old-fashioned street hockey with the old man!
cheers!
-mistress k
So yeah I get that same feeling. I played soccer and baseball in college and have since taken up multi-sport. I have had very few injuries throughout my playing career and now that I’m doing multi-sport I seem to be a whimp. (Sorry I know I’m going to take slack for this but its true.) We have become whimps. What I mean is now I train so hard to do well in in triathlon and adventure racing that I’m truly scarred to play a pick up game of soccer or basketball or even volleyball b/c I’m scarred of injury and ruining my training.
How many of you have found that we avoid doing other sports just to avoid injury, even though we have done those sports all our lives injury free? I may be the only one who feels this way but I’m thinking I’m not the only one who avoids injury. Those muscles that you mention being sore. WE DON’T USE THOSE ANYMORE! THAT SCARES THE HECK OUT OF ME! It probably doesn’t help that when I do something I want to be great at it, and if I can’t play as well as I used to play I won’t no part of the humiliation.
I played soccer in my childhood very often. But I wasn’t good enough. not because of my technique but rather because of a lack of fitness. And now I go to thriathlon… 8-D