By OkayGoal 
Remember how your brother would always cry while watching rom-coms every month? Or how your dad needed his monthly chocolate candies, chocolate cake, and chocolate ice cream all at once? What about when that guy in class would sit at his desk with a heat pad on his stomach, asking to go to the bathroom AGAIN? Ringing any bells here?
Nope! Well, mostly no…
But as a woman with monthly hormonal changes, I can DEFINITELY relate to all of those things (especially the chocolate!).
Running is one of the most important things we can do for soccer. It helps us to gain the fitness needed to cover the whole field, from a midfielder switching from offense to defense, a striker hitting shots on goal, and the defenders remaining a steady wall in the back. Having a healthy fitness in cardio and the ability to run is one of the biggest assets a team can have. Women have different hormone systems than men, and we need to understand how to thrive while running, not just survive.
Running can be extremely healthy for our physical and mental health. Having a healthy cardio routine can regulate many biological functions, such as blood sugar, blood pressure, salt levels, mood, and hormones.
When released, Growth Hormone (GH) is what tells the body to adapt and strengthen muscles to perform better in the future. When someone goes on a difficult run, their body will produce GH, and the muscle tissue will begin to strengthen and grow. This is how training results in better performance, because the muscles endure something difficult and learn how to adapt so that the same training feels easier next time.
However, the distance coach for Seattle-based Club Northwest with a biology PHD, Dr. Tom Cotner, states that GH works in two stages; training and rest. “You don’t get faster on hard days,” says Cotner, “You get faster on your recovery days.”
Hard work tells your growth hormones that they need to adapt and strengthen certain muscles and ligaments to do the same work better. But rest allows for this to actually take place.
Everyone loves the so-called “runner’s high” we receive from endorphins. Endorphins are known as the feel-good hormone. This hormone ties into the positive effect of running on one’s mental health. When balanced, running can be a good counter to depression, anxiety, and stress.
When striving to have a healthy approach to running, keeping yourself well-fed plays a vital part in your training. It may seem that exercising without proper nutrition might boost weight loss, but this is not what the science has shown. In fact, exercising without proper fuel not only lowers performance, but heightens the stress hormone in the body– cortisol.
Cortisol is a hormone that regulates your insulin and energy. It essentially breaks down protein and fat during difficult activities. But running too much or without proper nutrition releases excess cortisol into your system. This makes it more difficult to perform well, but does not result in fat burning. Instead, the body enters survival mode, where it actually holds onto fat reserves at the expense of releasing GH. Your body will not prioritize building muscle when it thinks it is fighting to survive. It cannot sustain running without proper nutrition.
In fact, elevated cortisol levels affect other hormones, leading to fat retention and muscle depletion.
We can see how overtraining with running can lead to a decline in health, as well as soccer performance. Luckily, there are a few simple changes we can make to ensure we are training to strengthen our soccer performance, not hinder it.
First of all, fueling yourself for victory is VITAL. How is your body supposed to do amazing things if you don’t give it the energy it needs to perform? Prioritizing your nutrition and including animal and plant protein, healthy fats, vegetables, good starches, and electrolytes will enable you to play your best at the game. Don’t run on an empty stomach, OR potato chips! Perhaps equally important is to focus on productive rest and sleep for your body to rebuild itself, get stronger, and allow hormones to re-regulate themselves. Maybe it’s not a good idea to run that half-marathon the day after playing in a tournament. In addition to distance running, focus on interval training like FARTLEKS, where you are both pushing yourself but also allowing for rest.
Use this information. Don’t be intimidated to run and improve your game fitness. Know that it is essential to listen to your body. It is better in the long run to run healthily.
Featured image via Wikimedia
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