Building leg strength and stamina

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Jonny

Jonny

Midfield
I've been out injured for nearly a year with a niggling knee ligament issue.
It looks like thats pretty much recovered and I'm now getting ready to go back to football.
I do however want to make my legs as strong as possible to try and limit a recurrence.
I've been to the physio through out all of this and they are happy for me to get back to football training (light kick abouts) in November. I'd ideally like to be back competitively in Jan.

So I'm no trying to bulk up, mostly my legs. To this end I'm doing the usual squats and lunges. Now that I'm pretty much recovered I was going to add dumbbells (thats all the equipment, I have and I cant do a gym). But I have a few questions.

Can I also work a bleep test into my regime or will that be counter productive to building the leg mass?

I'm about to start taking protein shakes as well, and I've also bought some creatine. Is the Creatine overkill for the amount I'm going to be doing?

Also I'm guessing from the small amount of reading I've been doing that I should try and use as heavy a weight as possible. This sounds crazy but would a heavy backpack as well as the dumbbells be odd?

Apologies for my naivety, total newbie to this. The last time I tried to gain mass I lost half a stone in 2 weeks!
 


You could just run a general strength training programme alongside your football training for a while. Everything will be stronger.

And eat a couple of hundred extra calories a day.
 
So are the squats and lunges with your body weight? You probably won't build much mass but I imagine they'll be somewhat useful in injury prevention.

With protein supplements there's only value in them if they're supplementing a deficiency in your diet. Are they? Have you worked that out?

Creatine when taken in sufficient dosage will make you gain some weight and improve your capacity to train. Probably not necessary for the intensity of resistance training you'll be doing but might be useful for football.

Is there a reason you can't go to a gym?
 
Charmless Man said:
So are the squats and lunges with your body weight? You probably won't build much mass but I imagine they'll be somewhat useful in injury prevention.

With protein supplements there's only value in them if they're supplementing a deficiency in your diet. Are they? Have you worked that out?

Creatine when taken in sufficient dosage will make you gain some weight and improve your capacity to train. Probably not necessary for the intensity of resistance training you'll be doing but might be useful for football.

Is there a reason you can't go to a gym?
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With the gym it’s a cost thing also I ended up not going as much as I should it was too easy to just not bother.

All the squats and lunges etc have been with body weight. So I hoped a bit of extra weight would help speed up the mass gain.

I haven’t worked anything out regarding the protein, but I’d assume I don’t get enough.
I eat plenty of white meat, but not a huge amount of eggs.
 
Jonny said:
With the gym it’s a cost thing also I ended up not going as much as I should it was too easy to just not bother.

All the squats and lunges etc have been with body weight. So I hoped a bit of extra weight would help speed up the mass gain.

I haven’t worked anything out regarding the protein, but I’d assume I don’t get enough.
I eat plenty of white meat, but not a huge amount of eggs.
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You'd be surprised at how little protein you actually need.

That said, it's quite difficult to add an appreciable amount of mass without weight training relatively seriously. It's not a trivial process.
 
Stevie Freestein II said:
You could just run a general strength training programme alongside your football training for a while. Everything will be stronger.

And eat a couple of hundred extra calories a day.
Click to expand...
The last time I just ate extra I lost weight. I doubled the amount of calories I was eating and did a very light circuit training Bodyweight thing. I was eating every 2 hours but the weight was dropping off me. I had to stop because I didn’t have the weight to lose in the first place.
 
Jonny said:
The last time I just ate extra I lost weight. I doubled the amount of calories I was eating and did a very light circuit training Bodyweight thing. I was eating every 2 hours but the weight was dropping off me. I had to stop because I didn’t have the weight to lose in the first place.
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You and I shall form a business! This time next year we’ll be millionaires jonners!

Eat as much as you want and lose weight!
 
Charmless Man said:
You'd be surprised at how little protein you actually need.

That said, it's quite difficult to add an appreciable amount of mass without weight training relatively seriously. It's not a trivial process.
Click to expand...
I’m looking at doing about half an hour of legs every other day. With the bleep tests on the off days with a little bit of upper body work.
 
Jonny said:
I’m looking at doing about half an hour of legs every other day. With the bleep tests on the off days with a little bit of upper body work.
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Were you playing at a decent level? Any coaches that you can discuss ideas with? Or ask your physio if they have contacts in sports conditioning? You may be able to pay a one off fee at a gym or local football club.

If your knee ligaments are weak or susceptible to injury then you may build up strength by simple things like walking up hills or walking with a heavy rucksack. For upper body you can do pull ups and chin ups, press ups etc. without equipment.

Re: protein and stuff keep a diary on myfitnesspal to gauge what you eat over a week or month and compare it to suggested intake on iifym.com

I’d have thought that by training and playing football again your strength and stamina would return or improve by default eventually through increased match fitness. When you see players recuperating from injury they seem to be in swimming pools and then on leg curl machines in a gym. Maybe you could find a rehabilitation plan on the interweb.
 
Stevie Freestein II said:
Were you playing at a decent level? Any coaches that you can discuss ideas with? Or ask your physio if they have contacts in sports conditioning? You may be able to pay a one off fee at a gym or local football club.

If your knee ligaments are weak or susceptible to injury then you may build up strength by simple things like walking up hills or walking with a heavy rucksack. For upper body you can do pull ups and chin ups, press ups etc. without equipment.

Re: protein and stuff keep a diary on myfitnesspal to gauge what you eat over a week or month and compare it to suggested intake on iifym.com

I’d have thought that by training and playing football again your strength and stamina would return or improve by default eventually through increased match fitness. When you see players recuperating from injury they seem to be in swimming pools and then on leg curl machines in a gym. Maybe you could find a rehabilitation plan on the interweb.
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Thanks for your time I appreciate it.

Only Sunday league now, I should be retiring really but just miss my football too much.
As you say I’m assuming by just getting back to it that I’ll get back to where I was. However I’d like to be a bit bigger and also to do it quickly!
Once I’ve worked out my full routine I’ll put it up here and see if anyone can recommend any changes.
 
Jonny said:
Thanks for your time I appreciate it.

Only Sunday league now, I should be retiring really but just miss my football too much.
As you say I’m assuming by just getting back to it that I’ll get back to where I was. However I’d like to be a bit bigger and also to do it quickly!
Once I’ve worked out my full routine I’ll put it up here and see if anyone can recommend any changes.
Click to expand...

Smolov or gtfo.
 
Jonny said:
Thanks for your time I appreciate it.

Only Sunday league now, I should be retiring really but just miss my football too much.
As you say I’m assuming by just getting back to it that I’ll get back to where I was. However I’d like to be a bit bigger and also to do it quickly!
Once I’ve worked out my full routine I’ll put it up here and see if anyone can recommend any changes.
Click to expand...
No probs I’ve attempted several come backs of my own! Age catches up with all of us eventually, I’m 45 and packed in football when I was only about 28, now I try to exercise 3 times a week and try to avoid injuries.
 
Charmless Man said:
So are the squats and lunges with your body weight? You probably won't build much mass but I imagine they'll be somewhat useful in injury prevention.

With protein supplements there's only value in them if they're supplementing a deficiency in your diet. Are they? Have you worked that out?

Creatine when taken in sufficient dosage will make you gain some weight and improve your capacity to train. Probably not necessary for the intensity of resistance training you'll be doing but might be useful for football.

Is there a reason you can't go to a gym?
Click to expand...
Can you give me some additional info on creatine? I got a bag free with an order I made recently but don't really know much about it bar a few short articles I read online...
 
Lexingtongue said:
Can you give me some additional info on creatine? I got a bag free with an order I made recently but don't really know much about it bar a few short articles I read online...
Click to expand...

Basically it's a compound that you (and all vertebrates) produce naturally which is involved in the recycling of ATP.

It's one of the few supplements where sound evidence for its claimed effects actually exist - that is that it increases maximal force production. It won't happen after a few uses though, you need to take it in sufficient doses over a fair period of time.
 
Charmless Man said:
Basically it's a compound that you (and all vertebrates) produce naturally which is involved in the recycling of ATP.

It's one of the few supplements where sound evidence for its claimed effects actually exist - that is that it increases maximal force production. It won't happen after a few uses though, you need to take it in sufficient doses over a fair period of time.
Click to expand...
The pack says 3g a day will lead to results but online I've seen articles about overloading and also of taking 5g a day. Which should I go for? How long are we talking for results to become noticeable exactly? Cheers in advance.
 
Lexingtongue said:
The pack says 3g a day will lead to results but online I've seen articles about overloading and also of taking 5g a day. Which should I go for? How long are we talking for results to become noticeable exactly? Cheers in advance.
Click to expand...
Will step aside to CM on this , but if I had to answer I would say that to try and zone in on an exact answer to your question isn't really possible.

Creatine is broadly accepted to have he benefits mentioned earlier in the thread, but exact dosage & impact will be subjective to each individual , and trial and error within the boundaries of what you posted would be the reasonable thing to do.
 
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