Who the heck is Freddy Adu?
Who the heck is Freddy Adu?
face it. soccer players are in really good shape. ever heard of the beep test? cause most of them kill that.
Im willing to bet there are several pro soccer players that could he trained to a sub 4 mile.
who gives a shit?
well.... wrote:
Im willing to bet there are several pro soccer players that could he trained to a sub 4 mile.
No chance, soccer is a 2nd rate sport, popular in Europe (france) and a bunch of third world countries. From what i've seen, they are a bunch of drama queens, real men don't play soccer. it takes more than just talent to run under 4:00 min. for a mile, it takes balls, soccer players have no balls.
If soccer is a 2nd rate sport then what is track? Soccer undeniably gets more of the athletic talent than middle distance running. Track is full of scrub athletes. College and professional soccer are crawling with sub 1:50/4:00 talents.
People underestimate the awful genepool that track is working with.
soccer sux wrote:
well.... wrote:Im willing to bet there are several pro soccer players that could he trained to a sub 4 mile.
No chance, soccer is a 2nd rate sport, popular in Europe (france) and a bunch of third world countries. From what i've seen, they are a bunch of drama queens, real men don't play soccer. it takes more than just talent to run under 4:00 min. for a mile, it takes balls, soccer players have no balls.
Soccer is the number one most popular sport on earth.
tj123 wrote:
I think you're overestimating what soccer players are capable of running based on the fact that a few of them might have the talent to be decent mid distance runners. Most of them are fast sprinters and could probably crack 5 in the mile. That doesn't not mean that any of them could be trained to a sub 4 mile or that they are in the "wrong" sport.
I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying they are in the wrong sport, or that there are tons of sub 4 milers out there playing soccer.
What im saying is this:
As a rule of thumb soccer players will have more running talent/cardiovascular developement than the general population,or the population of atheletes in general.
I have a sibling who is a rather good high school soccer player, and plays for an average premier level team. I watch them play every now and then, and gaurantee at least half, if not all of that team can break 20 for 5k if they need to. Considering tops 3-4 of those kids run track, thats a pretty good ratio. Not spectacular, but with little traditional training, id say its pretty damn impressive. (I'll wait for the comment on 20 min 5k being slow for even a non runner).
The top speed recorded at the last world cup was on pace for a 22.3 200. Nobody averaged more than 9 miles a game, either. The top total distances and the top speeds were obviously not from the same players, either. As much as I believe the world's best athletes play soccer, you are giving them way too much credit. They aren't gods.
Freddy Adu : Epic BUST. Thats nice he can run 6min. pace for 1 or 2 miles, he almost sucks at soccer as much as running.
It is IDIOTIC not to think that college and professional soccer (for example) are littered with potential sub 4:00 milers and sub 1:50 800 runners. How can anyone deny that? For some reason it's assumed that talented 800/milers just magically find their way into track and field.
Think about this:
The 100 meter world record is about 9.6, and yet there isn't a single elite miler (or 800 runner besides maybe Rudisha) capable of running a 10.6 for the 100m. 99% of them couldn't even run 11 seconds flat. Now, I find it very hard to believe that there don't exist any 10.6 runners who have the potential to break 4:00 in the mile, and yet that's what most track people believe. How many 10.6 guys have ever even run under 4:30? Very few, but does that mean they lack the ability? No.
The above represents a pervasive misunderstanding in the track world. Track nerds separate runners into "sprint types" and "distance types," so effectively if you run 11.6 for the 100m, its assumed that you have better potential to run a 4:00 mile than someone who can run 10.6, which is simply non-sensical.
What that means is that a guy like Rudisha is not 1 in 7 billion. Not even close.
come on now... wrote:
The 100 meter world record is about 9.6, and yet there isn't a single elite miler (or 800 runner besides maybe Rudisha) capable of running a 10.6 for the 100m. 99% of them couldn't even run 11 seconds flat. Now, I find it very hard to believe that there don't exist any 10.6 runners who have the potential to break 4:00 in the mile, and yet that's what most track people believe. How many 10.6 guys have ever even run under 4:30? Very few, but does that mean they lack the ability? No.
I agree. Just look at any elite decathlon event. So many mediocre runners pride themselves on being 4:30 milers when there are plenty of decathletes who can run in the 10.5 range and also blast a 4:10-4:15 1500. What it really comes down to is that there just aren't a lot of athletic people who focus solely on distance running, and this skews our perception when it comes to what is a good distance performance and what isn't. For someone to think that running 6:00 mile pace in training runs for a soccer player is unreasonable and probably an exaggeration, it just doesn't make sense...6:00 miles aren't fast whatsoever for someone with even an ounce of distance talent.
uh wrote:
face it. soccer players are in really good shape. ever heard of the beep test? cause most of them kill that.
No they don't. The average level achieved in the premiership was 13.7 out of 20. Seb Coe famously completed the test and got to level 20. I think David Beckham reached 18 or so during a world cup once but most footballers get no where near. Again, these guys are SPRINTERS. Great over short distances but other than that it's not happening.
Author: Nashville
umm, no. They may be good athletes, but if they lined up against the average college 400/800 runner they would get destroyed.
Haha, that is so true!
My little brother is a good player for a good college team - he can run about a five minute mile (I think he was timed at a 5:04 on the track during his freshman year tryouts, and with some wicked funky splits). And, he just started doing some training runs over 2-3 miles this summer. Soccer fitness translates over really well to running fitness, at least up until 5k or so.
I'm sure Freddy Adu can hold 6 minute pace without too much trouble. High school soccer players do their distance runs that fast.
Just wanted to let everybody know that if he was actually doing his easy run at 6 minutes/mile, that equates to a 14:15 5K and 2:19 marathon time. The 2:19 marathon time would qualify him for the olympic trials. Thus, without specific training, he would be an elite runner. This kind of puts his ridiculous claim in perspective. More likely that not, he is just running 1 or 2 miles at 6 minutes/mile pace.
Also, just because some soccer players can run fast does not mean that all do so. Its not very important for them in soccer to be able to continuously (15 to 30 minutes, for example) run at 5 minute/mile pace. They are sprinting/jogging most of the time.
So... all you need to do to run a 2:19 marathon is run your easy days at 6 minute pace? Every guy you know that hammers their easy days is a realistic Olympic hopeful?
That puts tons of shit in perspective!
dean moriarty wrote:
My little brother is a good player for a good college team - he can run about a five minute mile (I think he was timed at a 5:04 on the track during his freshman year tryouts, and with some wicked funky splits). And, he just started doing some training runs over 2-3 miles this summer. Soccer fitness translates over really well to running fitness, at least up until 5k or so.
I'm sure Freddy Adu can hold 6 minute pace without too much trouble. High school soccer players do their distance runs that fast.
Sorry Dean, calling BS on this. HS soccer players don't do their distance runs at 6:00 pace. I coached at your HS and the soccer team didn't run 8:00 pace on their occasional distance runs. Every once in a while one of those soccer players would run the 5th of july Road Race at about 8:00 pace. I'm also guessing your brother plays Div. 3 soccer which is about the highest level that those kids can reach.
At about the time I left the school record in the boys 200 was slower than than the girls 200 school record. The boy soccer players that did come out for track were nothing special, one of the better players on the team came out his senior year, was considered really fast by soccer standards, he never broke 26 for 200 or 12.3 for 100.