GERALD,
You missed the point when it was said that football is not good for aerobic
conditioning. Nobody was impugning the toughness of the football player or
the sport. Both of these things can be tough. Football practice however,
is not an aerobic conditioner.
BTW, most of us who never played football are well aware of how hard
"two-a-days" can be ... we experienced them too.
Mine went something like this:
Monday A.M. 2 mi WU, strides, 10 x 1000m @ faster-than 5k pace, 2 mi WD
weight training, 300 situps, 150 pushups
P.M. stretching and cals, 6 - 8 miles easy in 45-60 minutes
Yeah, that is 17-19 miles a day. I did this when I was just 15 though. You
ought to see what the really hard-workers did.
BTW, I was 5'9" / 125 pounds.
/Brian McEwen
-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Woodward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 12:01 AM
To: Ed and Dana Parrot; "Athletics"
Subject: RE: Re: t-and-f: marathon qualifiers
ED,
You hit the ball on the head in that distance running, football, and
basketball are different sports requiring different types of training. i
will say that distance running and basketball come the closest as to the
aroebic and anaroebic types of conditioning. Football is another matter. I
know the types of training required to go from one to the other and still
remember the pain of the two-a-days in both football and basketball.
Gerald
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ed and Dana Parrot
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 4:29 PM
To: "Athletics"
Subject: Re: Re: t-and-f: marathon qualifiers
> Football and basketball are not sprint for 4 seconds and stand around for
10
> minutes sports! I would like to see how many runners can play football or
> basketball without going through the additional conditioning drills
required
> to play those sports! I can guarantee you you that they would be on the
> sidelines pucking out their guts after the first two-a-day drills!
I can't speak for football, but for three years, I ran 20-30 miles per week
in cross country and then started basketball practice right after the
season. We did not do 2 a days, but early season practices were over 2.5
hours, much of which was conditioning drills - "suicides", etc. While I
certainly was sore after doing exercises to which I was not accustomed, it
wasd much easier than cross country practices. 30 seconds to 1:00 repeats
of all out drills certainly raised my pulse rate, but it would come down
immediately when I stopped. I didn't have a lot of speed or jumping ability
compared to others on the team, but I along with the other cross country
runner on the team had to hold back in order to keep the other players from
geting pissed at us. I have on a few occasions coached cross country
runners in the same situation and they had the same experience once
basketball practice started.
That's not to say cross country made me a good basketball player. But far
from puking my guts out over my drills, my cross country training gave me a
big advantage over all but the very best players. I have had this
experience to some extent in other sports, including soccer. I have also
coached plenty of football and basketball players in track, and they showed
pretty much no basic aerobic capacity from their training in football and
basketball. Part of that, of course, could be because they were mostly
sprinters and jumpers who did not need to have much aerobic capacity.
I'm not saying football and basketball are easy - they are different. But
other than the contact, which is challenging in a different sort of way, the
types of conditioning work done by football and basketball teams are not as
difficult for runners as they are for most of those for whom football and
basketball is a primary sport. This shouldn't take away from those sports,
but we have to realize that the kind of conditioning gained from them is all
but useless for distance running. Just like distance running is all but
useless for doing the things that really matter in football and basketball -
passing, tackling, shooting, dribbling, etc.
- Ed Parrot
