I took a few months off during the summer and now I've been playing three times a week for about a month. Right now my legs and knees are very sore and it affects my play greatly. My power, quickness and range of motion is decreased obviously. I can't get in shape unless I play a lot and push myself, but even just three times a week of indoor soccer and I can't seem to "get there". I'm like in a constant state of soreness. If I take a week off then I'm out of whatever shape I was in. Anyone have advice on how to balance my fitness to become stronger and still be fresh? How can professionals train hard each day and then still be awesome for games? I eat pretty well and get good sleep. fyi, I'm 29.
Foam Roller. Tennis Ball. Stretching. Ice/Heat. Rest. 5 things that will help you. Rest is most important. You're clearly over-doing it if you can't perform to your best. You might eventually 'overtrain' and injure yourself (like I did). However tempting it is, you need to stop doing so much and rest. I'm being a hypocrite because I trained myself silly at one stage. But you need REST. Trust me, you don't want to be out injured like I was for several months. It's horrendous. Do your own fitness work, stop playing so much and rest. Good luck
Professional's don't train everyday, and only a select few a 'hard' sessions. Three indoor games a week, if that's all your doing, doesn't sound like much to give you DOMS, but that's coming from a fit teenager so it's a worlds difference. It sounds like you've done too much to soon, you mentioned you had a rest period. What you should do is ease back into training, start gradual and work from there.
There's off season/in season training. Off season you should be going hard and in season is more about maintaining form or minimizing strength loss.
I'm 29 as well (30 in a few days) and know how you feel. To echo what ohers have said I think you've jumped back into it to quickly. Are your games spaced out or do you have them back to back to back day wise? You've got to give yourself sometime for your body to recover. I typically play in 1 to 2 games a week (depending on what leagues are going on at the time) and try to run at least twice a week. But it has taken a while for me to get to that. I don't run the day before a game and typically do not run the day after. You got to remeber (and my wife loves to tell me this) we aren't as young as we used to be. Depending on what leagues you are playing in you can take a beating. Maybe you should look into dropping a league and using that day to work on your training at your own pace. That way you can build up your endurance and speed while not killing yourself. If you get tired/hurt/sore its not like a game where you're going to want to play through it. You can stop without any pressure.
I used to be really sore as well after tough weeks. I started drinking protein supplements after working out/games for recovery. I'm not looking to put on mass, so I keep it to 1/3-1/2 servings. It definitely helps muscle recovery time.