Soccer coach says, "Cross country running ruins explosiveness"

club soccer is going crazy. we lost 2-3 of our top 7 last year due to club soccer. now they can't even play on the school soccer team anymore because the club soccer coach won't let them.

It depends on the training your program does. A program that does a lot of miles without much speedwork (not a bad plan for most HS runners) would sap some of that explosiveness. As you run purely for endurance, fast twitch fibers will be converted to slow twitch fibers and this conversion cannot be reversed. If the athletes add in a little quality and throw in some strides after most runs this can be prevented, but the concern is not that farfetched.

If I were a soccer coach I would prefer my athletes to play club soccer in the offseason rather than XC, and just have them do some running on their own as well.

This coach is right to a certain extent. XC will not improve explosive speed. It can convert fast twitch fibers into "slower" twitch fibers (fibers do not convert from fast to slow or vise versa) with more aerobic capacity although this conversion is reversible. The players are very likely to lose power for endurance. But what this coach is missing is that explosive speed can be regained pretty quickly if he has any idea what his is doing. The upshot is that his players will as you said not be as fatigued late in the game.

Were I a coach, I'd let my halfbacks and forwards run XC but make them maintain weight, lift, and do windsprints regularly.

Not only would they lose explosiveness, but they would also lose agility.

Your argument for having them join the team on account of endurance is fairly weak. Soccer players have to do more than run in a straight line for 5k.

quack wrote:

It depends on the training your program does. A program that does a lot of miles without much speedwork (not a bad plan for most HS runners) would sap some of that explosiveness. As you run purely for endurance, fast twitch fibers will be converted to slow twitch fibers and this conversion cannot be reversed. If the athletes add in a little quality and throw in some strides after most runs this can be prevented, but the concern is not that farfetched.

If I were a soccer coach I would prefer my athletes to play club soccer in the offseason rather than XC, and just have them do some running on their own as well.

This isnt quite true...research is rather limited, but it seems to show now that Type I fibers (slow twitch) tend to stay fairly static, but there is an alteration between the types of fast twitch fibers (they tend to change from Type IIb to Type IIa and Type IIc). And there isn't really any concrete research that says they can't change back.

So you agree with the soccer coach that one day(two at most) of club soccer per week is better for his athletes than a season of XC?

This for the most part is false:

1. Club soccer coaches due this so they don't lose soccer kids to XC. I steal 4-10 club kids a year, so they do this to try to discourage kids from trying XC. Once they try, soccer is usually over for them.

2. A XC program that is working to develop high level athletes will produce very fast and fit kids that are capable of performing at a much higher level on the soccer field compared to just doing speedwork. Speed drills, speedwork, core, weights, etc. is all built on top of the aerobic base that XC runners AND soccer players need. There is a limit to how fast you can make a kid, but aerobic development is nearly unlimited. My seniors can all sprint way faster than they could when they were 9th graders, boys and girls. Why? Because they are better athletes with stronger muscles, tendons, better form, endurance, etc. They have also spent 4 years becoming great athletes.

3. I've coached soccer at the high school level and the club system is set up to teach drills and skills, but a lot of the time fails to adequately focus on physical development.

Ultimately, club soccer players end up much better players if they are on a good XC team, IF they choose to go back to soccer after experiencing a better sport.

You are ridiculously biased.

Soccer coaches know nothing about sports, all they know is that they have to hook kids and their unsuspecting, scholarship hungry parents to year round soccer because they just might like another sport better.

it does ruin explosiveness. no doubt about it.

andy downin and andy wheating both come from soccer backgrounds. both are/were fine 1500 meter runners with XC in their backgrounds. i am certain there are many other good examples throughout the sport. i wish i could cite some more examples but these 2 i know for certain.

people often speak without knowledge. this soccer coach probably knows little about running in general.

Not a bad post -

my personal experience? Went from playing soccer sophomore year and being able to do a ~63 second 400 to my junior year running track/xc and being able to run 54 second 400. Now the 400 ain't exactly explosiveness, but it's still an extremely valuable measure of soccer fitness. My mile time also dropped by a minute. I think going from sophomore year to junior year I would've considered myself a better soccer player - slight loss of technique, huge gain in fitness.

toot toot wrote:

it does ruin explosiveness. no doubt about it.

Quite obviously, from the responses in this post, there are doubts about it.

Can you explain how it does ruin explosiveness? I mean, we're not talking about having a high schooler log years of hundred mile weeks. We're talking about having a few kids run 30-50 mile weeks for 3-5 months(if they put in a good summer), with plenty of plyometrics drills, striders, ankle strengthening exercises, hill bounding/springing, etc.

How do all of those thing kill explosiveness any more than being sedentary for 5 days a week and playing soccer only 2 days per week?

Cross country training itself does not ruin explosiveness by much at all. You have muscle fibers for strength, endurance, and then a few that can handle both. Training the slow twitch may convert a very few of the middle of the road ones to be more slow twitch, true. However, a soccer player is likely way better off doing the xc training so as to get more out of all that slow twitch fiber.

The realistic reason it might ruin explosiveness is that it could fatigue the athlete to the point where they are too busy, tired, or unrecovered to still keep their fast twitch training at the same level. So, the reason they lose the explosiveness is because they stop doing as much work on the fast twitch, but it is false that xc running and explosiveness are at direct cross purposes. That may be true for the 1 or 2% of muscle fiber that can swing either way. If I were a coach, though, I'd want my athletes getting more out of that 50% of muscle fiber that responds well to slow twitch exercise. Soccer players should just keep a relatively low weekly mileage, like not over 40, whereas the true xc guys should be trying to go over that.

This soccer coach may be on to something. I have never seen a cross country runner explode.

Emily Lipari (NY) had an outstanding hs XC and track career, and was always known for her phenomenal kick. And, wasn't she a club soccer player througout high school?

To crib from Canova - distance training does not hurt sprinting speed, as long as you train for both. Canova was talking about guys training for the marathon running a fast 10k but the point stands.

They can run xc to develop endurance, but they should do hill sprints or some other kind of sprint to keep working on their quick speed.

Just a lie due to misunderstanding the science (and not wanting to lose kids).

There are trade-offs (as someone mentioned, agility will probably suffer), but it's not that bad.

I agree -- nothing wrong with XC training as long as they do some supplementary agility or speed training. You won't lose explosiveness from too much distance training, you'll lose it from lack of speed training.

And at a highschool/club level, are you kidding me? The fitness gains from cross will far outweigh any slight speed losses. At a high level where soccer players are endurance training anyway there might be an argument to be had.