Pre-season workout advice

[Back In The Saddle]

Just my personal experience (I'm not a doctor, nurse, trainer, or even very bright)...

The elliptical is a good tool for maintaining cardiovascular fitness. But officiating requires than just cardio fitness. There is all the pounding our legs and joints take, and there is the stress on legs and joints from stops, starts, turns, etc. The elliptical won't train your body for those. Neither will swimming, or any other activity that doesn't work those muscles and joints in a manner similar to basketball.

I run to prepare for those stresses. So my advice, if you're physically okay to do so, take to the track, trail, or roads and add some real running into your workout. As with any fitness program, you need to ease into it. Your body needs time to adapt to the different physical stresses, as you found out. Take it pretty easy the first few times out; for most people, cardio fitness improves a lot faster than their muscles/joints adapt. Most running injuries are overuse injuries...especially in new, eager, motivated runners. So to reap the benefits in November, start slowly today and keep going consistently.

Check out the Runners World forums for lots of helpful advice about starting a program (couch 2 5K is a popular place to start), how often to run (forget what your HS coach said, running hard every day is not good), how quickly to add mileage (the general rule is no more than 10%/week), how to stay safe, how to stay motivated, and lots more.

Beyond that, as long as you don't have any actual injuries...Aleve/Advil/Tylenol is your friend. And the older you get, the better friends you're going to become. It sucks getting old.

Good luck!