What are the basic, fundamental principles of building a training plan?
Awareness. Every training session is important and needs to be carefully planned, while your actions should be aimed at developing a certain quality: strength, endurance, speed, and so on.
Gradualism. Your cardiovascular system and musculoskeletal system, on the quality of which your progress depends, cannot change instantly in two or three training sessions. In order for the ligaments, vessels, and muscles to get used to the loads, to withstand a certain, increasing volume of work, they need time. The length of training sessions should be increased gradually so that the body can adapt to it to avoid injuries.
Frequency and continuity. Running training should become for you the same as brushing your teeth in the morning. If you want your sports activities to bring results, you need to exercise regularly. Most experienced and trained athletes begin to lose their shape after a 2-3 weeks break without training and can only be fixed by renewing training.
Systematicity. The training process should be systematic: from simple to complex, from easy to difficult, from short distances and low tempo to long runs at high speed.
What types of running workouts do you need to include in the plan?
Running is one of the few processes in the body that involves the highest number of physiological systems. Therefore, it's important to understand that for qualitative changes in the runner's body, for progress, a comprehensive approach is needed, which should include not only purely running workouts but also other types of physical activity.
Workouts need to be different, as with monotonous workouts, the body gets used to certain loads, adapts to them, and stops developing. Good workouts should be varied, and if the workload remains the same for a long time, their effectiveness decreases.
Functional training is a complex activity that is aimed at developing all kinds of muscle groups, not only ones used in running. Functional training must be included in your training schedule and done at least once a week.
Tempo training is fast running with a steady, fairly high intensity. Such training develops the ability to run faster and longer at a certain speed. It's used to increase endurance and the period of time during which you can maintain your desired racing pace.
Long workouts. Long workouts increase the body's perseverance, develop the habit of tolerating long-term loads, train the runner's ability to effectively use fats as fuel, and improve the efficiency and rationality of technique. In addition, long workouts strengthen specific muscle groups and ligaments that are used in running, and prepare the nervous system's resistance to long-term work.
Interval training includes short-distance running (from 200 m to 1 km) and develops speed-strength abilities for covering long distances, as well as adaptation to stress of the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems in the form of variable loads on difficult landscapes. Interval training shouldn't be performed more than 2 times a week, as this can affect the heart.
Recovery training. Usually followed the day after a long workout or competition, the main benefit of such training is to improve your physical fitness by getting your body used to working in a state of fatigue.
Duration of training and use of gadgets
Most often, training takes from 40 minutes to 1.5 - 2 hours, and in terms of distance - from 4 km to 20-30 km. Less is meaningless, as there will simply be no development, and running more than 20-30 training kilometres is often the preparation training before long distances, for example, a marathon. Well-trained and experienced athletes run more than 20 km. Beginners aren't recommended to run them often, as this can lead to injuries or a long recovery period.
Gadgets and apps are a must if you want to train well. Gadgets aren't suitable for the full planning of the training process, as their functionality is simply not enough to cover all features. Gadgets without a statistics system aren't needed and only the combination of "gadget, as a mechanism for recording information, and a statistics accumulation system, where the data received from gadgets is processed and visualised" works. Gadgets are great helpers in saving results, but they aren't suitable for calendar planning and analytics, so all the necessary data can be stored and tracked in the Good Coach App.
Good Coach App allows coaches to stay up to date with their athletes, while athletes can easily communicate with their coaches. You can plan workouts for the future, add notes, and races. It's also possible to analyse the training of athletes, the number of kilometres they run, the time devoted to training, and the training load. With Good Coach App you can also check what kind of training measures have been planned and done.
Do you need a coach to organise your training plan?
The right running coach can significantly reduce the number of mistakes runners make, especially beginners. The ideal option for training with a coach is to build a training plan depending on your goals, taking into account your capabilities and free time.
What should training with a coach provide:
- Building a training plan, depending on your goals.
- Correct your technique. The coach should give special exercises that will help make your technique accurate.
- The coach should have professional answers to your personal questions about race, equipment, health, and nutrition.
- Tension. Most often, a runner doesn't have enough willpower to train with tension, and without tension, there is no progress.
- The coach should adapt the training depending on your condition.
- Complexity of training. The trainer plans special running exercises, functional and strength training for you.
If you are thinking about starting to work with a trainer, we have an article on how to choose the right one here or you choose one of our great coaches directly via our website: https://goodcoach.app/coaches