Does football count as leg day?
For fatigue, yes. A match tires your legs for days, not hours. A 2018 meta-analysis by Silva and colleagues pooled 77 studies of 1,105 football players. Seventy-two hours after a match, hamstring strength, physical performance (down 2 to 4%), a blood marker of muscle damage, well-being and soreness were all still impaired. The authors concluded that 72 hours is not long enough to recover fully, and that the recovery period cannot be one size fits all.
Real 11-a-side matches also raised soreness and muscle damage more than lab simulations of a match did, although strength and sprint measures straight after did not differ between the two. So a real Saturday game is likely to leave you sorer than a lab study suggests.
For strength, no. Football asks your legs to sprint, jump, turn and kick, but it rarely asks them to move a heavy load. The 2026 position stand of the American College of Sports Medicine, an overview of 137 systematic reviews in healthy adults, links gains in maximal strength to loads of 80% of your one-repetition maximum or more. A match spends your legs without doing the job of a strength session. So the gym has to build what football uses, on the days football is not using it.
Gym before or after football training?
For hamstring work, after. Two studies from the same research group answer both halves of the question: what the order does on the night, and what it does over a season.
On the night
In 2016, Lovell and colleagues had 12 amateur players do six sets of five Nordic hamstring exercises, either before or after 60 minutes of standardised football-specific exercise, a lab simulation of a session. Done before, the Nordics left the hamstrings weaker during the football that followed: eccentric hamstring peak torque was 14 to 19% lower. The same order also softened the decline in 10-metre sprint times, by 2.0 to 3.2%.
Both findings are real, and they point different ways. The authors concluded that Nordics before training reduce eccentric hamstring strength and may add to the risk of hamstring injury. The study measured strength and sprint times, not injuries.
Over a season
In 2018 the same group randomised 35 amateur players for 12 weeks. Ten did a Nordic programme before football training, 14 did it after, and 11 did core stability work instead. Eccentric hamstring strength rose about 12% in both Nordic groups compared with the core group: 11.9% before, 11.6% after. What differed was how the muscle changed. Fascicle length grew more in the before group, and muscle thickness in the after group.
| Study | Who was measured | What the order changed |
|---|---|---|
| Lovell 2016 | 12 amateur players, one session each way | Before: hamstrings 14 to 19% weaker during 60 minutes of simulated football, but a 2.0 to 3.2% smaller decline in sprint times |
| Lovell 2018 | 35 amateur players, 12 weeks | Strength up about 12% in either order against core work; the muscle's architecture changed differently |
Our view: put hamstring work after training. Over 12 weeks the order made little difference to strength, and doing it first costs your hamstrings during the session you came to play. The sprint result is why this is a preference, not a rule: in that one study, sprints held up better when the Nordics came first.
For the rest of a gym session, the wider research on mixing endurance and strength work points the same way. A 2022 meta-analysis of 43 studies in healthy adults, led by Schumann, found that adding aerobic training did not blunt gains in maximal strength or muscle size. It did blunt explosive strength, mainly when both were done in the same session; with at least three hours between them, the effect was not significant. Those studies used running and cycling, not football, so treat them as a guide. The fuller story is in running and lifting.
Where does heavy leg work go in a match week?
As far from match day as the week allows, in both directions. The 72 hours are the reason not to go too early. On the Monday after a Saturday match your hamstrings are likely still below their best and your legs still sore, so a heavy session starts from a deficit and adds to it.
The next match is the reason not to go too late, because heavy, new or eccentric work brings soreness of its own. A review of muscle soreness by Cheung and colleagues found it can reduce range of motion and peak torque. It advised introducing eccentric or new exercises gradually, over one or two weeks, at the start of a season or during it, and easing off for a day or two after a session that leaves you sore.
For an amateur who plays on Saturday and trains on Tuesday, that points to the first free day once the 72 hours have passed: Wednesday. It is four days after one match and three before the next, which is as far from both as that week gets. That is what early in the week means on this page: early in the run-up to the next match, once the last one is 72 hours behind you, not the Monday straight after it.
When the gym has to share a day with training
Some weeks it will. Put as many hours between the two as your day allows. In a small study of 16 men, Sporer and Wenger found fewer leg press repetitions 4 and 8 hours after aerobic training, but no fewer at 24 hours. The authors suggested the effect was localised to the muscles the aerobic work had used.
Our reading, for football: heavy legs straight after training will get fewer good reps, while upper body after training is a fair use of the same trip to the gym. Heavy legs before training puts the fatigue into the session, which is the Lovell problem again. When a shared day cannot be avoided, lift legs after training, accept a lighter session, and keep the heavy work for a free day.
Weeks with two matches
When two games fall in one week, the 72 hours after each one fill most of it. Our view: heavy legs wait for a week with one match, and upper body carries on.
- Hamstring work after training, not before it.
- Heavy legs on a free day, once the last match is 72 hours behind you.
- Upper body wherever the legs need a break, including after training.
- The day after a match is an easy day.
Should you lift in season?
Yes, in our view, and it may take less than you think. The clearest study is small and of professionals. Ronnestad and colleagues followed 14 professional footballers who had done two strength sessions a week through a 10-week preseason. In season, seven did one maintenance session a week and seven did one every second week, with the same exercises and the same football.
Over the first 12 weeks of the season, the weekly group kept its gains in strength and 40-metre sprint. The fortnightly group's leg strength and 40-metre sprint performance fell. Jump height did not change in either group.
Read that for what it is: seven professionals per group, with a preseason behind them. It shows that a little strength work can hold what a preseason built. It does not tell an amateur exactly how much to do. If you start lifting mid-season, or come back after a break, Cheung's advice applies: bring new and eccentric work in over a week or two, so the soreness does not land on a match.
Does the 11+ work for adults who play once a week?
The 11+ is FIFA's injury prevention warm-up: about 20 minutes of exercises for the trunk and legs, with harder levels to progress to. In a 2017 meta-analysis by Thorborg and colleagues, four randomised trials of the 11+ in recreational and sub-elite football found 39% fewer injuries overall. Two of those trials were in teenagers aged 13 to 19, one in men aged 18 to 25 and one in veterans. The authors also noted that fewer than 15% of intervention teams reached the recommended two sessions a week.
That veterans' trial is the closest to an adult who plays once a week, and it found no significant overall effect. Hammes and colleagues randomised 20 veteran teams for one season, with 265 male players analysed and average ages of 45 and 43. One group did the 11+ at the start of every training session, which in practice meant about once a week. Overall injuries were not significantly different (an incidence rate ratio of 0.91); only severe injuries were significantly fewer. The authors put the missing effect down to how rarely the teams trained.
Our view: the 11+ is still a sound warm-up, but the 39% comes mostly from younger players. For a once-a-week veteran, the one trial that tested it found no significant overall difference.
Do Nordics prevent hamstring injuries?
Less clearly than you may have heard. A 2019 meta-analysis of 15 studies and 8,459 athletes, across sports and age groups, reported that programmes including the Nordic hamstring exercise halved the rate of hamstring injuries. A 2021 reappraisal kept only the randomised trials, re-analysed them with stricter methods and found the preventive effect inconclusive, drawn mostly from trials at high risk of bias.
So do Nordics for the strength Lovell measured, not as a guarantee. If a hamstring hurts, see a physio or a doctor rather than training through it.
The day before has its own page
The day before a match has its own page, because it has its own evidence. The short version: keep it short, light and familiar, and leave anything heavy or new to earlier in the week. The detail is in the gym the day before a match.
A sample football week
Here is how the evidence above fits one common amateur week: training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and a match on Saturday afternoon. It is a general example to adapt, not a prescription, and not how Smash Coach plans your week.
| Day | Session | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday | Match | The hardest leg session of the week, and the start of the 72 hours (Silva). |
| Sunday | Easy: a walk, easy cycling or mobility, or nothing | Hamstring strength and soreness are still impaired (Silva); ease off for a day or two (Cheung). |
| Monday | Upper body and trunk; legs off | Still inside the 72 hours; train the parts least affected (Cheung). |
| Tuesday | Training, then short hamstring work such as Nordics | After, not before: the hamstrings stay strong for the session and gain as much (Lovell 2016, 2018). |
| Wednesday | Heavy legs: a squat or split squat and a hip hinge, heavy loads for a few sets, short of failure | Past the 72 hours and three days before the next match, on its own day, more than 3 hours from any training (Schumann); heavy loads build maximal strength (ACSM). If Tuesday's Nordics left your hamstrings sore, go lighter on the hinge (Cheung). |
| Thursday | Training; upper body after it if you like | The after-effect of endurance work on strength looked local to the muscles it used (Sporer), so the arms and shoulders come to it fresh. |
| Friday | Rest, or something short and light | The day before a match has its own page. |
If Wednesday's legs are still with you on Saturday, make next week's session shorter or lighter rather than skipping it. For the shorter game, see five-a-side; for a race block on top of a fixture list, see HYROX and football; and for the whole sport, the football hub.
Football in the app means soccer. Add it under You, SPORTS STACK, + ADD, choose Fixed days and pick your training nights and match day: each day you pick is one session a week, with a usual length you set. With Pro or during your trial, your coach plans your training around those days, and saving a change to them rebuilds your plan around the new shape of your week. More in Sport settings.
With Pro or during your trial, your plan is rewritten when something real changes, never on a timer. Move a session to another day and it stays where you put it; one move does not reshuffle the rest of your week. If you want the week rebalanced around it, ask your coach in chat, with Pro or during your trial. The change arrives on a card, and nothing reaches your plan until you tap Confirm. More in When your plan changes, Move, copy or delete a session and Apply a change from chat.
Hamstring sore after a match? Report it from LIMITATIONS on Home, with a slider from Cleared to Serious. With Pro or during your trial, your plan is rebuilt around what you report. Your coach is a training tool, not a medical service: it will not tell you what is wrong and it tells you to see a physio or a doctor. More in Report an injury.