Soccer: Generally at least 2 days of rest required in between games NFL football: Almost always at least one week of rest Baseball: No rest required, you can play doubleheaders in the same day (except for pitchers) Basketball: Generally at least one day of rest Hockey: I’m not familiar
What I’m curious about though is why American football requires an entire week in between. Compared to the exertion of a soccer midfielder, for instance (I recall that Bastian Sweinsteiger ran over 13 kilometers in one World Cup soccer game alone), it seems that an NFL football player doesn’t run that much in comparison - is it because of the cumulative banging and knocking and what all those impacts do to the body?
Distance running
1 day per mile raced to repeat the performance, 2 days per mile for full recovery.
This is assuming an all-out performance and the runner is trained for the distance.
This is for a relatively short “season” of 2-3 months. For year round, double the recovery times.
Half marathons 3-5/year, full marathon 1-2/year.
More races can be run if they are run less than all-out.
Absolutely. Every football player is going to get banged up in some way during the course of the game. It’s particularly difficult for guys who play on the offensive and defensive line. They get banged up on every single play.
And, it’s very common for an NFL team, particularly once they’re a few games into a season, to have a dozen players or more listed on their “injury report” – those aren’t necessarily guys who aren’t going to be able to play the next week, but they’re players who are dealing with a significant injury, may be limited in practice that week, and even if they play the next game, they may not be at 100%. I’ve read that many, if not most, NFL players are pretty much “injured” (in the sense of being bruised, sore, dealing with muscle strains and sore joints, etc.) the entire season.
There are, of course, games that get played on “short weeks” (even more common in recent years, when the NFL started playing a game on Thursday every week, not just on Thanksgiving), and while it’s obviously possible to do (as it’s done), it’s not ideal – teams really hate playing on Thursday, not only because it gives the coaches and players less time to prepare for the game, but it also gives players less time to recover from injuries suffered in the previous game.
Generally speaking, teams don’t play double-headers very often (usually no more than a few a year, unless multiple rainouts lead to extra double-headers). An MLB team generally gets one day off a week, particularly if they have to travel for their next series – that day off is traditionally either Monday or Thursday, though that’s not as hard-and-fast as it used to be, and if a team has to play make-up games due to rainouts, they may lose some of their scheduled off days.
Though it’s not a high-contact sport like football or hockey, nagging injuries aren’t uncommon in baseball, and playing every day leads to fatigue; it’s very uncommon for a non-pitcher to play in every game during a season, and most non-pitchers typically get an extra day off every week or two; they may suit up for the game on their “day off,” but don’t play unless pressed into playing (if there’s an injury, the game goes into extra innings, or as a pinch-hitter).
Hockey is scheduled a lot like basketball; teams typically play every second day, though they do sometimes have games on consecutive days.
Not sure how well it fit’s into the notion of sports but is not unusual for swimmers to break world records in races a couple of hours apart. So I think there is a substantial element of whether you are talking recovery from in game non-trauma injury knocks and bumps or “merely” fatigue.
Arguably the highest level of rugby league is State of Origin which is both pretty high contact and endurance. In “normal” times the SoO series games are played mid-week ie Wednesdays. It is standard practice for players who have not suffered an injury in SoO to play with their club side on Fridays ie within 36-48 hours. But it is unusual for them to be fit to play on the Saturday or Sunday ie 72-96 hours.
A very solid effort, but if done over the full 90 minutes @ 6.9mins/km that is less than average marathon pace which apparently is about 6.4mins/km. Patently there is a lot more sprinting, physical contact and getting up off the ground in soccer than a marathon … but you don’t get 15min halftime break in a marathon either.
In Aussie Rules, the average player covers 14km in a 80 minute game.
Best recorded effort was Robert Harvey who in 2000 ran 19.6km during a game.
And he played the next week.
Games in hockey are typically two or three days apart, but I would argue that that’s actually nowhere close to how long it takes a player to fully recover. Like in the NFL, hockey players almost always have low-level nagging injuries during the season, and there is a culture of playing injured in hockey. Usually that means soreness, contusions or sprains, but some players are able to play with some mind-boggling injuries. Bobby Baun famously played on a broken leg, and Patrice Bergeron played with broken ribs, torn cartilage, a separated shoulder, and a collapsing lung. Those are exceptional, but it’s not uncommon for players to play with broken hands, feet, or jaws, particularly in the playoffs.
My friend who has done some 24hr/100 mile runs (he has scaled back immensely) said it is easier to run 26 marathons a year than 3 (numbers may be off). I don’t think he was going all out, but < 4hr and has won a few.
Softball pitchers can pitch on consecutive days because the motion for delivering a softball is less taxing than the motion for delivering a baseball. So you really don’t have what you would call a pitching staff in softball. You pretty much just hand the ball to your best arm and let her take you as far as she can.
Another thing is that NFL teams put in a significant amount of practice between games. Gameplans are going to change based on who the opponent is and who’s out. Here’s a good walk-through of what they go through each week:
