Tag: fitness

How to Start Running (And Why So Many People Fail)

Posted on by simonc

Running is something a lot of us know that we should be doing. We’re often told that it burns calories, tones muscle and improves fitness. But despite all this, we regularly find it hard to stay committed.

Why exactly is that?

It actually comes down to a number of things but the biggest problem is that it’s hard work. It’s incredibly taxing on the body, requires huge amounts of energy and is something that most of us are not at all used to. In this post, we’ll look at how to overcome those obstacles.

The Best of Intentions

The big problem in many cases, is that people hoping to start running begin with too much ambition. Instead of aiming to gradually start running, they set off on their first outing and intend to run for huge distances and burns tons of calories in the process.

What they forget, is that this is something entirely foreign to their bodies. They are not used to running these kinds of distances and they have no experience with it. Most of us spend 8 hours a day or more sitting in just one position and typing, or answering calls. We don’t exert ourselves much and certainly don’t go for long runs!

What’s more, is that those days at work are stressful and tiring in their own way. When we get home, we are often far too tired to play with the kids – let alone go out running!

The one time we do manage it, we will very often then push ourselves to the point where it is very unpleasant and we have really tested ourselves. It’s no wonder we can’t bring ourselves to do it three times a week!

The Solution

So what is the solution? The answer is to stop pushing yourself and to stop expecting too much from your own body.

Instead, aim to get started slowly and to begin with at least, focus on learning to run and on learning to like running rather than trying to see immediate results! Set out on your first jog but just go at whatever pace is comfortable and stop when you’re done.

While it might not seem like much, this is enough to gradually start introducing you to the world of running. And if you aim to do this just once a week, you’ll see it starts to have incredible knock-on effects in every other part of your life!

How to Pick the Best Fitness/Running Watch

Posted on by simonc

If you’re interested in taking up running seriously, then a running or fitness watch can be highly advantageous. There are many reason for this too. For starters, a fitness watch will allow you to track the number of calories that you burn on a run and how high your heart rate goes. This not only allows you to do things like running to meet a set objective (calories burned, max heartrate etc.) but even to use particular types of running – like zone runs or interval training.

There’s more too. The right watch should also track your runs, so you don’t need to take your phone to monitor your route. It should be able to count your steps throughout the day too and then show you metrics like how your daily step count impacts on your performance when running.

But to benefit from all these features, you’re going to need the right fitness watch. Read on and we’ll take a look at how you can go about selecting that to ensure you’ll get the very most from your new device.

Heartrate Monitor

One of the first things you absolutely need for your fitness tracker or running watch, is an effective heartrate monitor. This will track your heartrate as you are training, which in turn will give you the most accurate picture of how hard you are working and how many calories you are burning. Going on steps alone is simply not very accurate!

But of course it’s not sufficient to just get any heartrate monitor – you need to make sure that it is a good one too. That means it needs to be accurate (which you can find from reading reviews) and ideally it should also be one that checks your heartrate regularly.

GPS

Not all running watches have GPS. So if you want to make sure yours can track your runs, this is also going to be very important.

Data Points and Use

The more data you collect, the fuller the picture you can paint of your health. The Microsoft Band 2 for instance allows you to see an estimate of your VO2 max once it has collected data from enough runs.

Workouts

Another useful function is a band that can provide pre-designed workouts, like interval sessions. These help you to burn a certain amount of calories in a set amount of time and to discover new ways to train.

How to Make Running Less Boring

Posted on by simonc

Running is one of the very best forms of exercise for improving your health, as well as for building more speed and strength in your legs. It burns a lot of calories and you can do it anywhere.

So why isn’t everyone doing it? There are a few reasons, but one of the big excuses people tend to give is that they find it boring. And granted, steady state cardio like running can seem a little dull at times. It takes a long time and often you won’t be doing much interesting during that period – just hitting the tarmac over and over again…

So the question is, how can you make running fun so that you actually want to do it?

Take Music and Podcasts

One way to make running more enjoyable is to distract yourself with something. Good options here include music and podcasts. While a podcast can give you something interesting to listen to – possibly even helping you to learn while you run – music can help to spur you on and give you a bit more drive to keep pushing past your limit.

Kick a Ball

Running doesn’t have to mean simply running from one spot to another. A good option then is to try running while kicking a ball – kick the ball out in front of you, run to it, and then kick it out in front of you again! This way, you can make it almost like a game of football as you’re running!

Run With a Partner

Running with a partner will likely spur you on to be a little competitive and it certainly makes it a little less lonely.

Oh and there’s no reason that your partner has to be human – running with dogs is perfectly fine too!

Make Games

You can create games for yourself while you run to make it a little less boring. These can be mental games you play in your own head (like trying to spot how many red cars you see), or they can be challenges you set that are related to your run. A good example is to try racing other joggers that you see nearby!

In general, just pushing yourself further and trying to beat personal bests will be an easy way to make running more rewarding and more addictive as well!

There are many more ways to make running more fun, all it takes is a little imagination!

How to Incorporate Interval Training to Your Running

Posted on by simonc

The image most of us have of running involves a person running steadily for about 30 to 40 minutes in one direction, without taking breaks or varying in speed. This is what is known as ‘steady state cardio’ and in fact is only one type of running that you have available to you.

While steady state cardio has a ton of benefits for your health, eventually you might find yourself getting to the point where it is time to increase the challenge. This is when you may consider interval training, which opens up a whole new level of difficult and reward.

What is Interval Training?

Interval training essentially means that you are alternating between periods of high intensity and intervals of relative rest. That means you go all out for a short period and then have a slightly longer period to relax and let yourself regain your breath and composure.

The reason this is beneficial, is that it tests you at your ‘lactate threshold’. This means you are going fast enough that your body can’t keep up with recycling lactate. It’s also known as your anaerobic threshold, because it pushes your body faster than the aerobic system can keep up.

This is great for fitness because it means you’ll be able to improve your ability to produce fast energy in an efficient manner. It’s also great for losing weight, because it means that you’ll be burning a lot of your blood sugar. Then, when you have used up all of that blood sugar, your body will be forced to resort to burning fat in order to provide that same fuel. This means you actually burn more calories throughout the day following intervals!

How to Start

So how do you get started? As with running, the key is to introduce this very intensive form of training gradually into your program. Try adding interval training once a week to begin with and for no more than 20 minutes.

During this time, alternate between 30 seconds of sprinting and 2 minutes of recovery. This will send your heartrate through the roof and really test your explosive power and your fast energy systems!

Then, as you get more confident, you can start increasing the challenge by doing these sessions a couple of times a week or straight after other workouts (in which case it’s known as a ‘finisher’).

How to Choose the Right Shoes and Prevent Injury

Posted on by simonc

One of the single most important things to consider when you start running, is what shoes you are going to wear. Your shoes will completely transform how it feels to run and if you get this wrong, you’re going to make running much harder on yourself than it needs to be!

What’s more, is that running shoes (along with a few other things) should also be considered a crucial form of injury prevention. Read on and we’ll see how to choose the right shoes for the best chance of a positive experience.

Types of Running Shoes

The first thing to recognize is that there are different types of running shoes. These include those shoes that are more structured versus those that are more minimalist. And they include those that are aimed at people with a heal-toe strike, versus those with more of a mid-foot strike.

No one set of shoes is going to be the universal ‘right pair’. Rather, the key is to choose the best shoes for your individual running style as well as your objectives

Getting the Right Shoes

The way you’ll do this, is by visiting a running store where they can measure your gait. This way, they will use cameras attached to a treadmill in order to measure your biomechanics. They will be able to see how your feet hit the ground and that in turn will tell them what type of shoes you need!

The best way to run is so that the ball of your foot hits the ground first, located directly underneath your knee. This allows your entire leg to compress, acting like a spring and thereby absorbing the impact naturally. For this, you want a shoe that is more ‘minimal’ and that doesn’t include much in the way of support – that lets the foot move naturally and freely.

Unfortunately though, decades of running on roads has taught many of us to run with our heel first – and this isn’t something you can change overnight! If you fall into this category, you will need a shoe with a more padded heel and probably more structure and support all around. This will allow your foot to roll through the movement and in some cases, it will be combined with more structure to help guide you through the movement for a smoother ‘ride’.

But then again, you may have a pronated foot, or a flat arch. In these cases, you may need something different altogether – which is why you need to have your gait measured before you buy!