My Week of Training Like a Footballer (in a Pandemic)
I’m writing this in week four of lockdown in London, which means it’s been a month since I stepped foot in a gym. I’m not a fitness junkie by any means. I go to the gym once, maybe twice a week. But I’m a very active person. I try to walk everywhere I go, to meetings and events rather than take public transport. I regularly play basketball with my boyfriend and five-a-side football with my friends. So, like many people, being told to stay inside is a bit of a challenge. I have been using my allotted one-hour of exercise sparingly, normally going for a walk at the end of the day with my flatmate, nothing more strenuous than that.
A snapshot of my week.
The third week of lockdown was the most challenging for me. I was struggling to get out of bed, had no motivation, and was generally just feeling shit. I was going on my phone all day, looking at Twitter and scrolling through Instagram. I know that when I’ve felt like this before, exercise has helped lift me out of the ‘funk’. I can get myself out of bed and go for a run. I’ve done a few half marathons so I can visualise it, I can think about the amazing feeling afterwards when you push so hard you can feel it in your chest, that slight cough you sometimes get too. But I’m definitely not a runner. I only own one pair of running shirts and I run in a t-shirt I got free when I did Tough Mudder, the endurance obstacle course race. So, I’ve never had to try and motivate myself to exercise strictly solo, indefinitely.
I know that exercise makes me feel better, physically and mentally, but I need some motivational help. So I did what any normal football fan would do, I looked on Instagram to see what (professional) footballers were doing to keep fit. Unlike those guys, I don’t have a fancy Watt bike, spin bike, rowing or running machine, but I do have a smartphone and my body! This is my working week (five days) training like a footballer, with no equipment, in a pandemic, at home. Everything I did was free and I did it because I wanted to, no #spon involved.
Monday: Yoga and a run
I wanted to start my week off positively, so I decided I would do a deep stretch/yoga session and then go for a run. I normally don’t do that, which is pretty criminal and a quick way to make your body ache and eventually get injured.
Yoga has become increasingly popular among footballers, partly thanks to Ryan Giggs, who said that practising help prolong his career, and trainers like Sharon Heidaripour, a football yoga specialist who used to work with Arsenal. I’ve been following Sharon’s Instagram for a while and on it she has posted pictures with clients including Laurent Koscileny and Ashley Young. Yoga has now become a part of every professional footballers training routine, so it has to be part time of mine too.
On the mat waiting to start my yoga class.
So, in order to get into the true professional footballer mindset, I searched ‘football yoga’ YouTube. I found Become Elite YouTube channel’s 30 minute deep stretch yoga routine. The channel is run by Matthew Sheldon who plays for FC Tulsa in the USL Championship, the second-tier men’s professional soccer league in the USA.
Matt delivers around 20 stretches, with each pose lasting between 30 and 60 seconds. His instructions are clear and he also provides a timer on the screen so you know how long is left to go once your hamstring starts screaming. The routine also had a good focus on the abductors/groin area, which, as someone who played a lot of football as a teenager, is vital.
Once I was limbered up, I was ready to run 7.5km from my flat in Finsbury Park to Angel. Here’s a picture of me looking extremely red-faced after completing the run. I wasn’t feeling that energetic, probably because I didn’t eat any food before I went. According to my Apple Watch, I ran an average of 6.06 minutes per km pace, not my best, as I usually hit an average of 5.45.
Tuesday: Rest day/walk
Although I want to live like a professional footballer, I still have a job that requires sitting at a laptop for a lot of the day. So on day two, I decided to go with a low impact option, a 90-minute walk to Stoke Newington and a stroll around Clissold Park. Thanks to yoga the day before, I didn’t feel stiff or sore.
Wednesday: Nike Training Club, Julie Ertz’s Pitch Perfect Abs
I woke up on Wednesday feeling pretty fresh and ready to continue my training. Quite a few people had recommended the Nike Training Club app so I thought I would download it and have a look for a workout. I was flicking through and I quickly found a workout I liked the look of: Julie Ertz’s Pitch Perfect Abs.
There’s not much of a workout description but there is a picture of Ertz, which drew me. Arguably one of the best footballers in the world right now, Ertz, played a key role in the USA’s 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup win and completely outplayed the entire Lionesses starting 11 at the She Believes Cup last month. Sign me up! It was a gruelling 20-minute session of crunches, sit ups, planks, press ups, tough but rewarding.
The app has videos to demonstrate all the movements and also a countdown clock so you know how long to go until the workout is over! You can also alter the difficulty level in order to progress to a tougher challenge. I couldn’t tell you if my abs were ‘pitch perfect’, but they were sore!
Thursday: Run
Red faced after a run.
I was really feeling Ertz’’s ab workout, my abdominal muscles were aching but in that satisfying sadistic way when it feels good. I needed to get some cardio action in again. After those poor times on Monday, I decided to run 5km in the evening instead, hoping I would have more energy. It worked! I hit an average of 5.39 minutes per km, my fastest run in a while! Was this training paying off already?....Probably not, I just shouldn’t run on an empty stomach.
Friday: Jill Scott’s Football Sessions
On the last day of my training schedule, it was finally time to get a football involved. Like many footballers, I don’t have access to a pitch so all my work has to be done in a confined space. A lot of the week’s training had also been about keeping fit and keeping conditioned, so it was high time I kept my feet in check too. Jill Scott, the Manchester City midfielder and Lionesses legend who has nearly 150 caps for England, has been putting her Instagram followers to the test with a series of football training sessions that can easily be done in a small bit of outdoor space.
The drills focus on core skills like touch, control, turning, dribbling, and agility. I decided that I was going to focus on two skills, touch, and turning. After I’d mastered those, I was going to have a go at one of Jill’s challenges - put on a song and have a dance and do some skills.
Here are some images of me practicing my touch, using the rather unstable garden wall as my partner, and also dribbling. By the end of these sessions, you should have managed to soften your touch and become comfortable and relaxed with the ball at your feet.
Practising my touch.
Passing against the wall.
Turning on the ball.
Trying to balance the ball on my foot.
In the final picture, I’m doing some keepie uppies and desperately trying to balance the ball on my foot with some success. It felt great to have the ball at my feet again, the last time I played football was about a month ago, just before lockdown. I played really well in a five-a-side game, even scoring some goals. I hope when I do eventually get to play again I can get back into the swing of things, thanks to Scott!
The Verdict?
I felt exhausted but satisfied at the end of this week. I learned some new exercises and stretches, which I’ll definitely continue doing regularly and most importantly, I reignited my love of exercise. For anyone looking for inspiration, I would recommend the Nike Training App. You can get lost in the app’s infinite workout library and you can tailor it to your fitness levels. Become Elite’s yoga routine reinforced the importance of looking after your body and I’ll definitely be doing it before every run. I don’t think I developed any new football skills, as Jill Scott’s videos were fairly straightforward, but I didn’t expect to, it was about finding the same joy that I would get from playing on the pitch.
Words and photography: Flo Lloyd-Hughes