5 aside football as Fartlek

Got back to some 5 aside football last night, but this could be a problem to fit in with the FLM training. I am currently trying to follow the RW training guide, and am already doing a tempo run during the week. Do you think that the 5 aside would count as Fartlek?

Wearing my Heart Rate Monitor I averaged 174 bpm over 50 mins and a max of 191 so I reckon it should count! What do others think.

Should be useful for very short bursts but you may not gain the benefit that the longer fartlek bursts would give you.

Well that's what I was thinking, but looking at the heart rate graph suugests that it actually stays high for long periods of time, with frequent peaks.

Like all cross training, on the CV side, its as effective as your HRM is telling you. I.e your heart doesn't differentiate between HR increase from one activity and another. However, cross-training is only effective in training of the primary sports muscle & skills if there is a large number of shared movements. i.e. Rotary arm cycles down the gym will not develop the skills associated with running, or the muscle strength/cappilarization.
Having said that, football does involve lots of running! The only bit of the training that would have little 'crossover' would be the kicking action, but having said that, I used to count football as cross-training, and Its a dang site more fun than the treadmill IMHO :)

so in summary close but no cigar yet

I played 5 a side 2 yrs ago in lead up to FLM-
I found it helped c gen fitness but kept getting knocks/etc,, and this affected my normal running- so i quit 5 a side about 1 month before- paranoid i would turn an ankle/etc.. It uses a whole diff gp of muscles so i guess is good for5 all round fitness,