Xc vs football (need your opinion)

On one hand, you should definitely keep playing football. On the other hand, you should probably switch to XC. In conclusion, both options have their pros and cons.

Here's Jeff Adkins Friday/Saturday double from the fall of 1977. On Friday, as a high school junior, he played DB on Woodrow Wilson's (Beckley, WV) football team that defeated Fairmont Senior 6-0 for the State Championship (all classes) title.

On Saturday he came back to win the individual crown in XC.

http://www.runwv.com/records/cross.html

As a Senior, Adkins ran 8:52.4 (8:49.0 3200) for the 2 mile, defeating John Ziska in the process.

Coley Candaele was starting quarterback for his high school team which won three straight California state championships with a 38-3-1 overall record. He was named California state football player of the year his senior year in 1989. In 1990 he won the State 1600 in 4:06.26 (he was 2nd in 1989 and 3rd in 1988)

Your times are not going to do much, and your probably not big enough to consider doing much at football long term unless you have some insane sprinting speed that you haven't disclosed. Do what makes you happy. You could always try wrestling or boxing (maybe become a cage fighter), but you would probably want to drop weight for those as well. Ever thought about walking onto the football team at Notre Dame?

Yeah I play for a 1A school. I have like 40 people in my grade. The fball team sort of needs me. I am fast and start as the slot receiver but my qb never hooks me up. Still no TDs this year. The xc team has three guys sub 16 and one sub 17 but the fifth man is like 19s lmao. I feel like if I trained hard enough I can get back in shape and maybe go sub 19 and actually be the fifth man and win a ring next year. But is that possible if I keep lifitng weights almost everyday and staying jacked af?

[quote]ungklt wrote:

Your PR's are embarrasing. Never set foot on a track ever again.

+1

It's hard to tell from this information if you have the talent to be really good at either sport, but I do agree that it is a realistic goal to try to become the 5th man and help your cross country team if you're bored with football. If you want to do this, I would take the winter to gradually get back into running and build up mileage while focusing on strength training specific to distance running. If your goal is to get good at cross country, there is no reason for you to be lifting for muscular hypertrophy. For the best results, you want to match your lifting with the type of run you did that day. So if you're doing a distance workout one day, then you should do more endurance based lifting that day (8-10 exercises with resistance of 10 reps each, 60-90 sec b/w reps hitting all major muscle groups). If you're doing a speed based workout then you should pair that with more explosive lifting that day (1 olympic lift 1-5 reps depending on training phase, 1 lower body static lift and one upper body static lift 1-6 reps depending on training phase for 30-50 reps of each exercise with 3-5 min rest b/w sets.) You could do one speed workout per week (start with acceleration work and progress to absolute speed work) during general prep, but beyond that you should stick to more aerobic base work. If you keep doing football lifting/power lifting all year just for the heck of it, you will probably end up with unnecessary muscle that will weigh you down and make you slower for xc and put you at increased risk for injury which will also limit your miles. You might as well stick with football if you're going to train for the opposite of what we want for cross country running success.

Source: USATF Level 2 Certified Coach for Endurance and Sprints/Hurdles/Relays; USTFCCCA Certified Strength & Conditioning Coach; Former runner for a Power 5 school that won conference championships; BS Kinesiology with Coaching Certification; current college coach- coached multiple national qualifiers

It sounds like you are an OK football player on a not-so-good team, and if you started running seriously again you would be an OK runner on a pretty good team.

What do you enjoy more? Where are your long-term interests? You might want to finish the Football season before you make any major changes. You most likely won't play football after HS, but you can run in college or on a club after HS.

Your running times aren't that good, and if you want to prioritize that for your remainder of high school (especially if you are thinking of running in college after), then you'll want to back off on the weight training to a routine that supports strength and flexibility for distance running but not "bulk" up. Long-term (college) it doesn't sound like you will have a lot of prospects to play football after high school, so if you enjoy this more and want to finish your HS career, then you are already on this path. You may want to switch gears to distance running after HS.

If you want to switch gears to distance running now or after this Fall football season, then be prepared to take one step back to go two steps forward. You'll want to think long-term about this. I don't know that you should expect to be the 7th man on a good HS team that goes to a state championship with a slow 5k time. There may be another faster runner who's on the team next Fall, or the coach may just take 5 (or 6) runners. Even if you are on a state championship team as the 7th man with a much slower time than your teammates, that may be a short-term experience and you will still want to be a faster runner closer to your teammates.

"It's hard to tell from this information if you have the talent to be really good at either sport,"

It's not that hard to tell.

CTE

That is enough of a reason not to ever step on a football field again.

Former so-so football player here, also from a small HS. Glad I stuck with football... you won't be able replicate the Friday Night Lights & related experiences. You still have track & a lifetime of running... not so with football.

Update: I decided to do swimming because the swim team is near the top of the state and I could actually contribute since I’m really good at short freestyles.

Did you keep up with the lifting and are you still jacked af?

sleeeper wrote:

Did you keep up with the lifting and are you still jacked af?

Im flabby cause I couldn’t lift for three months. I got back surgery but I’m slowly getting back into it!

malmo wrote:

Here's Jeff Adkins Friday/Saturday double from the fall of 1977. On Friday, as a high school junior, he played DB on Woodrow Wilson's (Beckley, WV) football team that defeated Fairmont Senior 6-0 for the State Championship (all classes) title.

On Saturday he came back to win the individual crown in XC.

http://www.runwv.com/records/cross.html

As a Senior, Adkins ran 8:52.4 (8:49.0 3200) for the 2 mile, defeating John Ziska in the process.

Coley Candaele was starting quarterback for his high school team which won three straight California state championships with a 38-3-1 overall record. He was named California state football player of the year his senior year in 1989. In 1990 he won the State 1600 in 4:06.26 (he was 2nd in 1989 and 3rd in 1988)

That is great stuff, thanks for posting it.

A current teammate of mine (I'm at a meh D3 college), did the same thing as you and only came back to XC senior year from football, he did run track every year. He dropped like a low 18something 5k and got his 800m down to 2:08 in track from like 2:25 the previous year. He's also 5-11, 180lbs, so he's bigger than you even.