Warming up

This is not an accurate description of the British weather as we move into Day Two of a 4 day weekend to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, who is a matter of months away from being declared the longest reigning monarch in British history. It is intended to describe the warm up I have developed over the last 4 years or so of training for refereeing games at my level. The comments below are not an expert view but they have been gleaned from working with others who have benefited from professional fitness coaching

Regular readers will know that I trained hard a few years ago, in an attempt to pass the FA's fitness test so I could be considered for assessment and perhaps recommendation to officiate at Level 4. Unfortunately 10 years of playing rugby (union and league) at a reasonable level, 15 years of sitting around on my backside doing no physical activity at all, apart from walking to and from the car parked up at work, meant my body was in no fit state for the rigours of training 3 times a week and being involved in up to 3 games a week as well. I suffered recurring injuries and eventually gave up refereeing for a couple of years. Since then I have decided to take up the whistle once more, but limit my ambitions to making sure I do the best I can on Sunday mornings in the local league.

So on to the warm up. The important thing to remember is that it is just that - a warm-up. It is intended to wake up your muscles, raise your pulse so that your heart becomes gradually ready for the exertions of the main session and increase your respiration rate so your lungs are ready to feed your muscles with the energy they need. Therefore we need to start off gently with a jog ...

The jog should last around 5-6 minutes. During this time you should be able to carry out a conversation with any running partner you may have, you shouldn't be experiencing any muscle pain and your pulse should remain at or below 75% of maximum. Your maximum heart rate is generally calculated as 220 minus your age, so in my case 172, but soon to be 171. To find out your pulse you will need to invest in a heart rate monitor.

Personally I wear a Polar RS400 which lets me download date which I can analyse. It is quite expensive (10 match fees at my level). There are less expensive models available but these may not provide the same level of detail as the RS400, nevertheless they will let you track your pulse to check how hard you are working.

Once your jog is completed, allow your pulse to drop to around 66% of maximum and then start on some shuttles. You'll notice I haven't mentioned any stretching of any kind and that's because stretching does not warm up the muscles, it actually tightens the muscle which can lead to damage and lower levels of performance during your exercise.

With your pulse at 66% of maximum, it's time to begin doing some work designed to warm up specific muscle groups in your legs. Below I refer to markings on the football field as I believe you should train in the arena in which you will be putting your fitness to work - the field. If you train by running pavements or at an athletics track, then you will need to gauge your own markings to help you with distances.

Starting at the goal line, jogging out to the edge of the penalty area parallel to the goal line (this is your turn around point) and running continuously,

1. Jog out, turn around and jog back to your start point
2. Jog out but instead of turning around and jogging back, run backwards to your start point
3. Jog out but on the return to your start point, "crab" back to your start point while facing the nearest touchline, stepping out to the side with your right foot, bringing your left foot alongside your right foot
4. Repeat #3 but this time step out with your left foot first and face the furthest touchline
5. Jog out but on the return to your start point, run while bringing your knees up until they are level with your waist
6. Jog out but on the return to your start point, kick your heels up so that they strike your backside (or your hands behind your back)
7. Jog out but on the return to your start point, take two long strides slightly to the right, take two long strides to the left and repeat this "two to the right, two to the left", zig-zag pattern until you return to your start point
8. If you are feeling confident, you can repeat this exercise but instead of moving forwards while doing the "two to the right, two to the left" you can move backwards (but I always skip this one for fear of falling over!)
9. Jog out but on the return to your start point, lift your right knee  to the side of your body, keeping it level with your waist, swing it around until it is in front of your body and then lower it, take two small steps and repeat the exercise with your left knee
10. Jog out but on the return to your start point, lift your right knee to the front of your body, keeping it level with your waist, swing it around until it is to the side of your body and then lower it, take two small steps and repeat the exercise with your left knee
11. Jog out but on the return to your start point, skip back to the start point
12. Jog out but on the return to your start point, stand still, place your right foot out in front of you by around 15cm, bend your left leg and with a sweeping motion similar to the advantage arm signal, slowly and steadily sweep down whiole bending at the waist, through and up so that you stretch your hamstring. Repeat this exercise with the left foot out in front of you and bending the right leg before doing the sweeping motion
13. Finish by jogging out to your start point before turning around and walking back to your start point

If you do this part of the warm up routine in full and keep your heart rate below 75% of maximum, then it should take around 8-10 minutes meaning your total warm up will take between 13-16 minutes, which is slightly long (and can be shortened a little as your fitness improves), but is a good investment if you are just beginning to work on your fitness, are returning from injury or haven't trained for a while.

Next time I'll be covering the warm down, which is just as important as the warm up and can help reduce the post exercise aches as well as reducing or eliminating the Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness (DOMS), that horrible feeling of not being too bad the day after some exercise but being in agony on the 2nd day.

Running style - how do you plant your "plates"?

With the start of the London 2012 Olympic games only 8 weeks away, the first round of fitness tests only 9 days away and the start of my pre-season fitness training less than a week away, I began considering how I can avoid the type of injuries which plagued my seasons before I "retired" back in December 2009.

I've received advice on my running style before from Andy Madley who refereed on the Football League last season. I also reviewed my style myself by trying to avoid the "landing on my heel and rolling the length of my foot before pushing off" method as a means of avoiding hamstring and Achilles injuries. The problem I have is that carrying around 110Kg means there's a lot to propel around the field ...

So I am planning on taking the advice of a poster to the website linked to A&H International who posts as MattyRef. He says ...

When younger, I was a National Level sprinter, and we spent hours and hours working on the 'mechanics' of running while training.

At a slow pace or jogging, 'flat footed' is the best way to run - by this I mean the weight is evenly distributed across most of the foot. If you are, say, 10st, and plant the heel first, then every stride will receive an impact equivalent to 10st on approx. 1/2 sq. inch of foot - prolonged running like this, especially on hard ground like pavements, will damage not only the foot, but Achilles, calves, shins, hips and spine.

Flat-footed spreads the weight over the whole foot - approx. 12x3" = 36sq inches!

At a slow pace, the muscular requirements are huge as well. 10st of beef and bone to be lifted off the ground, propelled forward, and then lifted again and propelled forward.

When running faster, at a sprint, a whole different technique is required. Here the requirement is to get the weight moving forwards with the muscles and skeleton simply keeping the momentum going.

Therefore, your posture should be weight forward and the feet/leg combo actually take less of a beating - weight on the balls of the feet, and less impact with each stride. In order to keep the momentum moving forwards we rely more on our thigh muscles and upper body strength. Powerful shoulders to pump the arms (think Terminator 2) and higher knees.

During the Olympics, look at the long-distance runners compared to the sprinters:
DISTANCE = small, light wiry.
SPRINTERS = stocky, muscular, heavier.

As referees, we need to strike the balance between the two, with distance covered during a game, we need to be able to jog comfortably yet still have enough power in reserve to sprint full-tilt when required.

So when on training runs, mix it up a bit - two lampposts at a jog then sprint to the third, then jog one, turn and run backwards to the next (reverse jogging is whole different set of mechanics!) etc etc.

We've had a very senior referee retire this season purely due to the training he did - he runs marathons, jogs daily to the top of a small, extinct volcano, so all his 'training' was for distance/cross-country. The result, his Achilles shortened and he can no longer sprint to keep up with play in the higher leagues.

Fit as the proverbial butcher's dog, his body simply cannot cope with the demands football puts on it any more. He is still planning three marathons and a couple of Iron Man comps in the next 12 months though.

So if you see a fat, bald man doing elaborate running patterns between the lampposts on your street, that might just be me ... alternatively I might stick to running on grass (less impact, more endurance from my old legs) making my way around the touchline/goal line of a local football field alternating between running, jogging and sprinting, but all the time planning to get to the end of next season ... injury-free!!!

Return to civilisation

I spent 5 days last week at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset England. The beard continued to be cultivated ...

While I was there England sneaked into the Round of 16 before being humiliated by Germany at the World Cup. I also managed to see quite a few bands and caught a couple of halves of other games at various venues around the site.

As the quarter finals have kicked off today, there's been a couple of shocks. The first came as Brazil were knocked out by Holland. As things stand at the moment (one hour played), Ghana are taking the game to Uruguay with the score at 1-1 after Muntari put Ghana ahead on the stroke of half time with a wonder strike from 35 yards, before Diego Forlan equalised with a sublime free kick.

My new season is shaping up nicely with a spot booked for me to deliver some training at the 7-6 promotion seminar at County HQ on July 22 followed by the RA-FA Meeting on August 9 at the same venue. Some of my friends have completed their PGMO fitness tests today, so well done to Bob, Andy, Ricky and Ross.

Some of the other lads have had their Supply Leagues confirmed for them and I have to admit, I'm beginning to miss being out on the green bit again. I'm sure pre-season training (starting on July 12) will knock that out of me!

Game 23 ... Return of the Baldy

So it was a tentative return to the green stuff assisting Craig in the middle and Chris on the other line.

We had the bottom club against the club who have been bottom for much of the season and with the heavy rain experienced in the local area for the last two weeks, we knew the field would be soft and cut up easily. The warm up was gentle and I was nervous about pushing myself too hard as I was still having twinges in the Achilles damaged in Game 22. Even so, I felt comfortable, if a little hyped up, after the warm up.

The game kicked off at 3 pm and by 20 minutes past I had managed to tweak my soleus tendon in my left leg. It was nothing too serious, certainly not as bad as when I did it 2 years ago on the line in the FA Youth Cup at Farsley Celtic. I was "crabbing" as much as I could as the assessor was my mentor David who picked me up on being out of line with the second rearmost defender a few weeks ago.

The home team took a lead in the first half, taking advantage of a disastrous goalkeeping error and then they fell asleep letting the away side equalise almost immediately. Just before half time, the home team added a second and a few minutes after half time, they added a third. So with the score at 3-1 they seemed to have stamped their authority on the game and as the temperature dropped, settled into a deeper and deeper defending position, letting the away team push on.

The away team took advantage of a bad goalkeeping error and as the ball was lobbed into the goal from around 25 yards, the tempo of the game began to grind up through the gears. The home team continued to strike on the counter attack and re-established their 2 goal cushion following a close "not offside" call right in front of me. So at 4-2 with less than 20 minutes to go, you might expect the team bottom of the league to collapse or at least just play out the game.

Well this team obviously hadn't read the script and pushed hard for a third goal, which they got and then an equaliser with less than 2 minutes left on the clock. Neither team wanted to concede another goal and we finished at 4-4. Craig had cautioned three players, one for dissent and two for USB. All were justified and the player who got his card for dissent was lucky not to pick up an earlier caution for leaving the away goalkeeper in a crumpled heap after he challenged him late for the ball.

So at 4-4, I suspect the away team will have been happier, twice having been behind by two clear goals. Despite this, if you had offered both teams a point before kick off I think they might just have taken it bearing in mind their relative league positions.

Now the big thing for me, having come back to the green stuff after a 5 week break through injury was how did my fitness hold up. Well to be honest not too well. As mentioned I tweaked the tendon in my left leg and my Achilles certainly wasn't happy in the second half, but I'll cope. I burned 1877 calories (which is a lot!!!), average hr 84% and a max of 98%. I intend to train the week after next before deciding whether I take on my next line on December 12.

I think I might have to retire from the line and concentrate solely on refereeing. This will certainly hinder any chances of promotion next season but it might just prolong my career past the 10 year mark.

I have a lot of other things I can do in the game and I certainly don't want to end up refereeing from the centre circle in the lowest division of the lowest league just so I can stay in the game. I'm not instructing on next week's course but I am ear-marked for the course in February (Happy Valentine's Day my dear wife x) and hopefully I'll get picked up for May's course.

After that I'll re-register for next season but probably not operate as an Assistant on a Supply League so I can assess at that level (if accepted). I'm not looking forward to it as my friends have often said, you're retired a long, long time!

Heart stuff

I had the follow up appointment to my heart scan today with my cardiac consultant Dr T.

He said he was pleased that my cardio-myopathy didn't appear to have deteriorated and admitted that he may have to concede that it is just the way I am made. In view of the family history and the symptoms displayed last year, he wants to keep me under observation, but I have been discharged from his care and back into the hands of my local GP.

I have to keep taking the tablets (Ramipril 2.5mg) for now and have an annual scan for at least the next 4 years. If there's no change in that time, then I'll probably be signed off the programme completely or stood down to bi-annual check ups. The thing that made me think is what he said about my heart ... apparently I have dilation in 3 of the 4 chambers. if that's the case, isn't maybe that I have 1 defective chamber?

Anyway I'm now clear to go back in the gym as well, so I might have to do a bit of low weight, high rep resistance training. Just to get trim like, none of that body building stuff I used to do.

Training 2.27

With only 2 weeks to the fitness test, it was time to see if I had closed the gap since my last run out.

A warm up lap of 2m17s was followed by some shuttles, another warm-up lap of 2m16s, with James there to have a run out as well and Fat Lad on the sidelines keeping time and providing encouragement, it was time to go! The first lap went well enough except that James had trotted off into the distance, but I was on course at 1m48s. the second lap was also on track at 1m51s and then the rot set in.

As I hit 3 laps, I was on 6 minutes, possibly a couple of seconds under and as I crossed what should be the finish line 25 seconds later, time was close to perfect. the next 2 laps were very hard (and too slow) and I found myself with 500m to cover in 1m35s - the game was up!

I kept running and finished right on 2300m, an increase of 50m from last week. It still leaves me 200m short which I might find by latching on to some one's shoulder and sticking with them. Alternatively I could go faster on the first two laps before settling into my pace, which seems to have improved on laps 3-5.5 but not by enough. James clocked up 2400m and needs to find just 100m in 54 weeks (he is 20 years younger than me though!).

So it's touch and go. I still need 200m in 2 weeks and that is going to be very tough. Calories 554, average hr 78%, max 99%