50+ volleyball

Yes. Given gym → PB Saturday, PB Sunday, then swim + sauna + PB + tennis Monday, your legs have had four fairly active days with a lot of repeated lateral movement and pushing off. Since there’s fatigue but no injury, tomorrow can be useful—but I’d treat 50+ volleyball as a readiness test, not another hard training day.

Tonight: recovery

• Eat enough protein: aim for roughly 30–40 g at dinner, plus another protein serving earlier/later if needed.

• Carbohydrate is useful tonight after this workload—rice, potatoes, oats, fruit, whole grains, etc. You don’t need to avoid carbs for the sake of fat loss after a heavy activity day.

• Hydrate normally, and include some sodium if you’ve been sweating substantially.

• 5–10 minutes gentle mobility: ankle circles, calf stretch, hip flexor stretch, easy bodyweight squats. No aggressive stretching.

• Sleep is probably your biggest recovery tool.

Tomorrow morning: 8–12 minute “core + recovery” session

I’d keep this deliberately easy:

1. Glute bridge – 2 × 10

2. Bird dog – 2 × 6 each side, slow

3. Dead bug – 2 × 6 each side

4. Side-lying leg raise – 2 × 8 each side

5. Calf raises – 2 × 10

6. Easy walking for 5–10 minutes

That’s enough core work without adding significant leg fatigue.

Before volleyball

Do a 5-minute readiness check:

• 10 easy bodyweight squats

• 10 calf raises

• 5 gentle side-to-side movements each direction

• a few progressively quicker steps

If your legs feel loose and springy, play—but I’d avoid trying to win every rally with maximum jumping and explosive lateral movement.

If they feel heavy, unusually weak, painful, or uncoordinated, I’d make tomorrow a recovery day instead.

One important point for your goal

For you, I’d separate core strengthening from leg-loading. Your tennis/PB/volleyball already provide enormous amounts of leg work. The missing piece isn’t necessarily more squats or lunges; it’s a stronger trunk/hip stabilizing system so your legs don’t have to absorb every movement.

A good longer-term core routine 2–3×/week would be:

dead bug + bird dog + side plank variation + glute bridge + Pallof press.

And because you dislike planks, there’s no need to make traditional planks the centerpiece.

Given your Monday workload, volleyball tomorrow followed by a genuinely easier Wednesday would give you a useful experiment: see whether your legs regain their spring after several days of accumulated activity rather than continually adding training on top of fatigue.