Starting Strength Programming and Sports Competition

[Raleighwood]

Mark,

I am currently on the Starting Strength Routine and making gains each new work out. The workout plan is A (Squat, Bench, Deadlift) B (Squats, Press, power clean), alternating on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am a 25 y/old male, 5'8'' 178 lbs.

I recently began playing indoor soccer on Tuesday nights. I made the mistake of hitting a 3x5 squat PR (275lbs) on Monday, and it negatively affected my game day performance. My legs were tight, and on the verge of cramping the whole game. The games are a total of 46 minutes, with constant high intensity intervals of sprinting in varied directions.

I really enjoy the current set up of lifting MWF, but now with competitive soccer on Tuesdays, it simply isn't compatible if I want to be at my best.

In your opinion, would it be better to reprogram to lift Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday; With a modification to lower intensity on Wednesdays squat, possibly light front squat, to aid in recovery from the previous night's soccer match?

Thank you in advance for your insight and guidance.

[Mark Rippetoe]

In my opinion, it would be better to quit playing indoor soccer while you try to get strong.

[Jeroen]

You got to make a choice. Either play soccer or lift weights and get stronger. In my experience doing both the same time one will suffer.



Lift weights in the off-season. Try to maintain your gains during inseason by performing each lift once a week at 90-95 % of your last 5rm. That was Mark his advice regarding the same subject in previous posts.

[Raleighwood]

In my opinion, it would be better to quit playing indoor soccer while you try to get strong.

No offense, but that is a lame answer. I hope was hoping for more practical guidance.

Strength training and athletic competition/performance should not, and do not have to be, mutually exclusive.

If I am out of line, so be it. However, I am under the idea that there is a best case strategy to accomplish a goal. In this case; it is to get stronger and effectively perform better in indoor soccer.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The fact that it would be better to quit playing indoor soccer while you try to get strong is not arguable. Sorry. If you'd like to do both, you have my permission, but the metabolic conditions created by training for soccer are not compatible with optimum strength improvement and muscular bodyweight gain.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you eat?

[GianMilano]

As a former soccer player, I would just like to add that I always found indoor to be brutal on my legs. Astroturf is just not very forgiving. I also think that indoor soccer presents a greater risk of injury than outdoor. It's a tighter playing area and there are boards, the pace of play is more frantic and I always thought that guys played a little too recklessly.

I don't know how serious you are about your soccer. I think that if you want to take advantage of linear progression and maximize the benefits of your program, don't play indoor soccer. If you do, you'll be sacrificing any way you cut it.

[Blairbob]

Interesting, Rip. I just started thinking this month that soccer was not conducive to gymnastics training recently.

One of my gymnasts plays soccer and I have been thinking it has been affecting his recovery. He practiced on Tu and Th (season is nearly done and it's too dark to practice) and plays on Sat. Our workouts are MWF so basically on his rest days he is playing soccer. It's only rec soccer so it's 60-90m practices. He is 10 1/2 but maybe 55lbs.

In fact, I've been trying to figure out his dismal performance for months now. At first we could tell it was the GERD/acid reflux. Mom tells me school really stresses him out as well. I personally don't think he eats enough but dunno.

I've also figured out our workout ends roughly 1 hour before he goes to bed which probably has something to do with it as well.

He also has GERD/Acid Reflux so this affects how much he can eat at a time. Mom is on the route to tweaking this and isn't as bad as it was 6 months ago. I also got him to just down antiacid caps whenever he gets it during practice instead of just sitting until it goes away.

Fuck, soccer. Fun game but...

[Raleighwood]

Just out of curiosity, how much do you eat?

I should be tracking it more closely, but I believe I am in the right zone... I've put on 20+ lbs in the past 7 weeks. (I dieted down to 159, began SS and shot up to 180)

I aim to get at least 1g of protein per pound of body weight. Beyond that I tend to eat lean. I know this is vague, but I have yet to fully log all my intake.

My rough intake is around this much food...

Breakfast 1: 2 pieces of bacon, 2 eggs, slice of toast and ~10 oz of whole milk.

Breakfast 2: 22g whey protein shake, 6oz water + 6oz whole milk

Lunch 1: 1 can Tuna melt, or a large turkey/ham/cheese sandwhich. ~10 oz of whole milk

Lunch 2: Banana, sliced, topped with peanut butter. ~10 oz of whole milk.

Dinner: ~10 oz steak, chicken, or pork. With veges. ~10 oz of whole milk.

Late snack: If im hungry, i'll put down another 22g whey protein shake.


On my work out days, I will have a ~50g protein shake immediately after I lift.


Like I said, I am not sure of my total kcal intake. But I am seeing a 1-3 lbs gain every 2-3 days, so I think I am getting enough.

Also, I am not doing any conditioning for soccer. Besides game days, the only training I am doing is focusing on strength with a slightly modified Starting Strength routine.

[drecar]

Sheeeeit. I'm guessing this advice applies to Recreational Hockey and explains why i've seen a change in my progress. For a novice, is working out 2x/week and 1x/week game play make sense as compared to just stopping recreational sport play while strength training? Is the advice different for an intermediate trainee, once I get there?

[Mark Rippetoe]

The program as written is optimal for strength training, and all other versions are less than optimal. It all depends on your training goals.

[TPrewittMD]

In fact, I've been trying to figure out his dismal performance for months now. At first we could tell it was the GERD/acid reflux. Mom tells me school really stresses him out as well.


Hey Blair.

I read this post with interest and concern.

Admittedly, I am a million miles away and have no information other than the scant bit mentioned in this post, but I am quite familiar with GERD having spent several years early in my career doing laparoscopic surgery for reflux.

This seems to be an unusual presentation of GERD. The age doesn't seem right, the presentation doesn't seem right, and it just seems strange for someone his age to be having reflux so badly that he can't perform athletically.

I don't take care of kids, but I do know that emotional/psychological issues often manifest as GI disease in young folks. And there may be a hint of this from the observation that schools stresses him out.

Again, none of my business, and please feel free to tell me to "butt out". I am sure you work with kids all the time and are fully capable of assessing the situation.

But this story made me pause. Be careful with this little guy. There may be more here than is immediately obvious.

TPrewitt

[Paul Sousa]

I actually just quit my indoor team to focus on strength. You NEED the scheduled rest days to continue making gains on SS. Indoor soccer is way too taxing to try and fit in. I would suggest maybe trying Wendler's 5/3/1 as the volume and weights used allows for some conditioning.

[ion]

Raleighwood,

I'm a runner and I've been doing (sort of) SS succesfully for almost half a year now.

Heavy squatting and lifting 3 times a week didn't work for me either. Legs were zapped, run sessions became sluggish and so on, so I experimented quite a lot trying to find a good balance.

By removing some runs from the schedule and doing my SS routine less often I found something that worked for me. For me focus was fresh legs for the running sessions and preceding key days with a off day accomplished just that.

My current template:
Mon: short run, SS <-- (Notice the order)
Tues: off
Wedn: Speed / tempo run <-- Key workout
Thurs: short run, SS
Fri: off
Sat or Sun: Long / trail run <-- Key workout

Strengthwise I'm still adding same weights to the bar each time and have not changed my progression yet. Runningwise; so far the strength gains seems to somewhat compensate for my reduced mileage.

My last race for this year was past weekend so I'll be going into offseason now and probably focus more on strength for a while before going into preseason. So to conclude: Experiment! Find out what works for you, hopefully I've given you some pointers at least.

Cheers,
J