well, along with being able to take my shirt off in public...

so after a long unemployment slump the turn in weather has motivated me to start getting back into shape (closer to my high school days when I was playing soccer year round). I figure I need to drop about 30lbs of fat and put on about 10lbs of muscle. I'm not in a rush, and since my goal is fitness for soccer (which i play pickup leages year round) I'll use that and the need to purchase new work shirts as my gauge as to how much to cut and how much muscle to put on.

anyway. I spent last night doing some googling and found my way to this forum and the bodybuilding.com forum and did some reading on diet and HIIT. I've got a couple questions as I start into this.

I've got access to a staircase in the building I live in where I can do a morning HIIT on the stars. Is there a reason not to do one HIIT session every morning? I can easily do it before I get ready for work so I'm hoping to be able to.

One aspect of soccer is being able to run for 45minutes with little down time. Is it ok to go on a 30min run outside along with HIIT every morning? If so, which should I do first to get the most out of it?

As for my diet...
I'm already a pretty healthy eater, so I'm hoping a few changes (ie 6 meals instead of three which shouldn't be a problem) will be enough.
- I've read many places that pineapple helps the body absorb more protein from meats. I love pineapple, and while I appreciate the high sugar content, I'm wondering if its benefits outweigh its negatives? I 'll usually include a slice or a 1/4 cup chopped with my meat consumption which I understand to be enough to benefit.
- Ice tea? I already drink a lot of water, a minimum of 32oz a day, more now that I'm starting to run daily. On the side of this I drink a decent amount of ice tea that I brew myself (no sugar, just boiled water and a couple bags of various natural teas). I mostly drink ice tea when I'm eating a meal. Should I have any reason to stop?
- I love couscous. It's technically a pasta, and the only pasta and bread I consume is whole wheat (unbleached), which I understand to be the type of bread carbs that are good to eat, and the couscous I eat is whole wheat (and organic, but thats just cause its the cheapest whole wheat couscous at the market...). Would it be ok to continue eating couscous in lieu of straight bread for a meal? What about whole wheat pasta?
- grapes? from what I understand berries are the fruit of choice, where to grapes fall?
- I notice a lot of the diet schedules I've seen include an egg white omellete for breakfast. What about a hardboiled egg instead? (minus the yolk if necessary). Also, is "safe" to eat an egg a day? I know theres lots of talk about cholesterol/etc from eating eggs, but I don't know if its something I should worry about?


Finally, any weight or machine training exercises I can base my weight training on that will help with soccer?

sorry for the long post, but I appreciate your answers, thanks!
-Steve

Feel free to do HIIT every day. A lot of people do. I'd do the HIIT before the jogging, as it's known to spike the metabolism.

No need to eat pineapple with your meat. The benefits may be true, but don't get caught up in gimmicky advice like this. Stick to the basics. If you like pineapple, go for it, however.

Drinking tea is fine, it hydrates you as well as water does. Just make sure it's not sweetened with sugar.

Couscous is fine, pasta is also fine. Just eat protein and fibrous vegetables with them to cushion the effects on your blood sugar levels. Anything that's not junk food that helps you stay on track is perfectly acceptable, IMO (as long as you eat protein and veggies with it).

Grapes are also fine. Just make it fit in with your plans. There is no official ranking of fruits. Fruit in general is fine.

Eating a hard boiled egg is fine. One yolk a day is "safe", any more than that and you're surpassing the body's threshold for bad cholesterol (apparently). I'd recommend doing 2-3 eggs, eating one full and the whites from the other two. Hard boiled egg whites are disgusting, though... you've been warned!

There's no reason to focus on any particular muscle group for weight training for soccer. If you're focusing on your legs, for example, you might as well focus on the rest of your body too, since you should be giving each muscle group 100% attack in a full body split anyway. You won't see gains any quicker by only training certain body parts.

Check out bodybuilding.com for a vast library of exercises with photographs and videos showing correct form.

Check out bodybuilding.com for a vast library of exercises with photographs and videos showing correct form.

I would say avoid bb.com at all costs. There are better boards out there without all the rubbish. Try exrx.com for exercises, and t-nation for some more advanced discussion. And search this site for just about every topic, since it's been covered about 500 million times already.

When I used to play soccer plyometrics on the off season and distance running helped a lot, wish I had lifted too though :(

Also From what I read on the Forums dont do Heavy Lifting on ur Legs only do about 2 times a week or 1(again not sure) as U want to be able to do Endurance Running, pretty sure Weight lifting Shortens the Muscles while Running Elogates them which is better for Endurance.

Also From what I read on the Forums dont do Heavy Lifting on ur Legs only do about 2 times a week or 1(again not sure) as U want to be able to do Endurance Running, pretty sure Weight lifting Shortens the Muscles while Running Elogates them which is better for Endurance.

stretching ftw

When I do weights on my legs, I make sure I do it after soccer (FOOTBALL!!!:mad:) training, it feels much better than doing it before and then playing footy after.

Also From what I read on the Forums dont do Heavy Lifting on ur Legs only do about 2 times a week or 1(again not sure) as U want to be able to do Endurance Running, pretty sure Weight lifting Shortens the Muscles while Running Elogates them which is better for Endurance.

Maybe this holds some truth if you're a marathon runner, but soccer players need to have explosive strength and good anaerobic fitness. The best way to get this IMO would be a combination of HIIT and a good weight-training routine.

"Westside for Skinny Bastards" is a great routine for athletes looking to gain strength that has some carry-over to the sports field. You can read about it here:
http://defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/articles_westside.htm

Joe DeFranco, the author of that article, says this about another of his strength programs and soccer players:
I am going to answer your question by asking you another question… “Do you think a soccer player can benefit from increasing his/her strength, explosive power and muscular endurance?” If you answered YES to this question, then my SUPER STRENGTH program would definitely work for soccer players!

As long as you continue to work on your soccer specific skills, you don’t have to change a thing about my Super Strength program.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, “The act of playing your sport is what makes the strength & power that you gain in the weight room sport-specific.”

There's also really no reason you can't combine strength training with some distance running. I'm doing 2 runs of 4-8km length a week at the moment, and I'm also doing WS4SB, and I think there's at least one person on here who's training for a marathon and bulking up at the same time :eek:

Thanks all for your answers,

harry.michaels,
-HIIT before jogging, check.
-ice tea, yea, should have mentioned it, i don't add sugar, good to know it helps as much as straight water, I may up my ice tea intake now :D
-all my pasta is part of a meat diet (pasta is usually with tuna with a tomato based sauce mixed with some canned veggies, corn, beans sprouts and the like), couscous is usually with a cut of chicken or when I'm feeling special lamb and I mix it with some sauteed onions, peppers and broccoli, etc. glad I can keep these in my diet!
-wow, three eggs a day, that may be a bit much for me right now, but i'll keep that in mind as my caloric intake requires an increase. I actually don't mind whole hard boiled eggs so I'll just have one a day for breakfast numero uno.
-I plan on working out my whole body, I was just thinking if there were specific exercises that I would benefit more from for my goals, but it sounds like just getting the workout in will be enough for now.

mattback,
yea, stretching is actually my favorite part, it just feels so good after all the working out =)

Equalies,
yea, I don't plan on doing weight training on the days I play soccer (right now sat/sun/tues) since that usually takes a lot out of me. This may change as I get more fit and my body can handle it.

gazareth,
thanks for the link! sounds like a great way to start my training.
right now I plan on doing HIIT mon-fri mornings before work and my "long distance" run after work along with my weight training. line backers and futbol players have very similar fitness goals from what I've seen, speed and strength being a key to both players, so if he highlights a linebacker in the writeup i figure it will work great for futbol too.

again, thanks for all your help!