Proper roadwork program for a beginner

[JauntyAngle]

Here's a reasonable approach to building a running base:

Start off one day, then two days break. Then switch to every other day after a while, with the odd break of two days if you need it (3-4 times a week is fine).

Run sloooow. The key is "easy miles". Lots and lots of easy miles. The figure of 65-75% (sometimes 70-75% HR) is often mentioned. At the beginning, the slowest you can keep running. Even once you get used to it, you need to restrain yourself. If you actually buy and use a chest strap HR monitor you'll be shocked how slow you need to run to keep your HR in the 65%-75% zone. After a few weeks, your target is to complete the run still feeling fairly fresh, unless you really pushed the distance/time. (You never push the pace.)

First time out, go for as long as you can without killing yourself. No point being in pain the next day. If you can only manage 15-20 minutes, fine. Do more next time. Try to do more each day, work up to 40-60 minutes each time. If you actually want to be a good runner, you should let yourself go to longer times and distances, if you just want aerobic capacity, 60 minutes is fine.

In anything from 3-9 months you will have built up to being able to run 60 minutes, 3-4 times a week, each time feeling pretty fresh afterwards.

At that point your body will be very well prepared for running. If you want to try stuff like 5ks and 10ks for time, HIIT and speed work, longer distances, you will be able to do it without much fuss.

 

[Noodles03]

I read some where from Pavel Tsatsouline that the best way of conditioning is to train your alactic and aerobic system. I'm curious to hear your guys thought on this.

 

[ROcknrollracing]

I read some where from Pavel Tsatsouline that the best way of conditioning is to train your alactic and aerobic system. I'm curious to hear your guys thought on this.

yes this is a good idea

 

[bushman505]

Bushman let me ask you this

Have you even read joel jamiesons book? You know the guy that trains endless amounts of fighters?

Nope never read Joel Jamison's books but I've been involved in endurance sports for over 20 years and spoken to, trained with and even lived with various professional athletes at different stages in my life. I am
Making my statements based on first hand advice and experience from professional runners.

Fact of the matter is you need to build a base for running, your connective tissue, muscles, bones take time to adapt. Even professional marathoners will go back to a 3x30 to recover from long seasons and injuries.

Having a beginner run 5-6 times a week, do speed work, do longer faster runs straight off the bat makes absolutely no sense, even the high level professionals go back to working on base every year.

Notice I said 3 runs, 30 minutes a week, 3 months. After that point he should be strong enough to start adding more runs, longer runs, or faster runs. If he wants to get injured, burned out and just hate life, sure go do 5-6 days a week.

As for not building conditioning, sure fine, he won't get very sharp doing 30 mins 3 times a week but a beginner shouldn't be worried about that anyways. Step 1 for any runner should be simply getting used to running consistently. Then worry about the other shit.

What was that old prefontaine quote? Something like long runs and speed work are just icing on the cake....but you havnt even baked th cake yet.

I'll take decades of first hand experience and advice from people who have actually done it before listening to some dumb bitch on the internet who got a bachelors degree in exercise science, those guys are some a dozen and they are always trying to fix things that aren't broken despite years and years of success.

Shit, the op could go to runners world dot com and probably get a marathon plan that would get him ready to finish a marathon after 6 weeks of training....written by some loser who got a shitty exercise science degree.

 

[Ilk]

I am not sure why you argue when I can barely run the 30 mins at all. It s my cardio that is broken. My muscles are fine as I have been doing some fitness the past couple of years. I can squat and deadlift 120 kg 3 times. But my cardio is broken due to smoking in the past.

I am training MMA mainly with dutch kick boxing and doing private wrestling session for the purpose of staying healthy loving the fight sports and learning a bit how to fight. My father is an ex wrestler and it is like a tradition in our family the man to be strong and able to protect his family. Unfortunately I wasted my 20s in computer gaming and partying.

I am willing to invest time and build some cardio in order to be sharp when I get back to the gym and learn something not to try to cope eith the fatigue every session and try to survive the spar sessions.

 

[bushman505]

I am not sure why you argue when I can barely run the 30 mins at all. It s my cardio that is broken. My muscles are fine as I have been doing some fitness the past couple of years. I can squat and deadlift 120 kg 3 times. But my cardio is broken due to smoking in the past.

I am training MMA mainly with dutch kick boxing and doing private wrestling session for the purpose of staying healthy loving the fight sports and learning a bit how to fight. My father is an ex wrestler and it is like a tradition in our family the man to be strong and able to protect his family. Unfortunately I wasted my 20s in computer gaming and partying.

I am willing to invest time and build some cardio in order to be sharp when I get back to the gym and learn something not to try to cope eith the fatigue every session and try to survive the spar sessions.

This is sort of the point I'm trying to make. If you can't do 30 minutes right now, people shouldn't be telling you to run 5-6 times a week for 45-60 minutes.

I'm sticking with what I said 3x30 minutes for 30 months except for you, you'll need to build up to that. I'd start with whatever you can do 3x a week if that's 2 laps around the block or 4 laps around a track so be it, everybody has to start somewhere.

My main point is it's ridiculous when people are raw beginners and others start talking about heart rates, intervals, long runs, 5-6x a week runs etc.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

Buy Never Gymless by Ross Enamait. He's trained with and trained boxers and MMA fighters. Well worth the purchase.

 

[bushman505]

Buy Never Gymless by Ross Enamait. He's trained with and trained boxers and MMA fighters. Well worth the purchase.

All of his stuff is good.

I really like his jump rope stuff and the one called warrior training.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

All of his stuff is good.

I really like his jump rope stuff and the one called warrior training.

I have his original book The Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness which is now out of print last I checked. There are variations in there that are not in his other books. I have three of his books.

He really turned me on to isometric training which is really really good if you are creative with how to apply it.

 

[bushman505]

I have his original book The Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness which is now out of print last I checked. There are variations in there that are not in his other books. I have three of his books.

He really turned me on to isometric training which is really really good if you are creative with how to apply it.

I think that's the book I have. Is that the one where he talks about building sleds and stuff like that?

 

[bushman505]

And OP,

Before you go thinking you've "broken" your cardio ruined your body by being a couch potato for a few years, read about guys like rich roll and ray zahab. Both dudes who drank, smoked, partied and were unhealthy as fuck who are a few of the best ultra distance athletes out there.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

I think that's the book I have. Is that the one where he talks about building sleds and stuff like that?

You're thinking of Infinite Intensity that came out around the same time as Never Gymless.

He has a lot of animal training variations that aren't in other editions in UGWF.

Ross Enamait doesn't get near enough credit as pinoeer for the sort of functional training that he does. That is where I first learned about the glut ham raise (he made a wooden device for that).....but you can do that with a heavy band and find something or someone to secure your ankles and you can do the exact same movement (credit: Jeff Caviliere).

 

[ROcknrollracing]

Nope never read Joel Jamison's books but I've been involved in endurance sports for over 20 years and spoken to, trained with and even lived with various professional athletes at different stages in my life. I am
Making my statements based on first hand advice and experience from professional runners.

Fact of the matter is you need to build a base for running, your connective tissue, muscles, bones take time to adapt. Even professional marathoners will go back to a 3x30 to recover from long seasons and injuries.

Having a beginner run 5-6 times a week, do speed work, do longer faster runs straight off the bat makes absolutely no sense, even the high level professionals go back to working on base every year.

Notice I said 3 runs, 30 minutes a week, 3 months. After that point he should be strong enough to start adding more runs, longer runs, or faster runs. If he wants to get injured, burned out and just hate life, sure go do 5-6 days a week.

As for not building conditioning, sure fine, he won't get very sharp doing 30 mins 3 times a week but a beginner shouldn't be worried about that anyways. Step 1 for any runner should be simply getting used to running consistently. Then worry about the other shit.

What was that old prefontaine quote? Something like long runs and speed work are just icing on the cake....but you havnt even baked th cake yet.

I'll take decades of first hand experience and advice from people who have actually done it before listening to some dumb bitch on the internet who got a bachelors degree in exercise science, those guys are some a dozen and they are always trying to fix things that aren't broken despite years and years of success.

Shit, the op could go to runners world dot com and probably get a marathon plan that would get him ready to finish a marathon after 6 weeks of training....written by some loser who got a shitty exercise science degree.

The op would not have to jog more than 3x a week he could use another implement the other day(s)or even just run once. Lots of ways to do it.

The bottom line is 3x30 minutes a week and zero mma training is not enough.

 

[bushman505]

The op would not have to job more than 3x a week he coupd uae another implement the other day(s)or even just run once. Lots of eays to do it.

The bottom line is 3x30 minutes a week and zero mma training is not enough.

Meh there's millions of 10k and half marathon finishers who will disagree with you.

It would get his cardio up and he'd be ready for mma and getting some weekly roadwork in. Not sure what you're still crying about. That roadwork 2.0 thing is bs imo but what do I know, I never wrote an article about fitness for the internet.

 

[Noodles03]

Meh there's millions of 10k and half marathon finishers who will disagree with you.

It would get his cardio up and he'd be ready for mma and getting some weekly roadwork in. Not sure what you're still crying about. That roadwork 2.0 thing is bs imo but what do I know, I never wrote an article about fitness for the internet.

Bushman, can you please elaborate on why the roadwork 2.0 is bs.

 

[Heisenberg]

About 10myears ago when I was working on my masters degree, a guy named Berne Heinrich came to the university to give a speech.

Berne Heinrich has a phd in biology and is a very accomplished runner tonthentune of a 2:22 marathon and a one time record holder for the masters 50'mile and 100k road race. The dude is a legit badass.

Anyways I was coming off a season of ironman triathlons and 50 mile trail runs and this old dude (Berne Heinrich) is asking where the good running in town is.

We ran about 4 km on the trails on he aluvial fans of the footnhillsnin Albuquerque. Berms Heinrich dedicated a huge part of his career to explaining and describing why and how people run and what we can learn from animals. Subsistsnce hunting isn't a thing for this guy but persistence hunting is.

When he gave his talk at the university so many questions were being asked but people wanted to know "how can I runnan uktra marathon?"

He gave a few simple rules to go by and he always referee back to it as the rule of 3.

Before you worry about distance speed, races, anything, finish he rule of 3.

3 times a week, 30'minutes, 3 months. After that worry about your running.

If you havnt put in 3 months of base work you have no business worrying about anything other than building the base (habit). After that's done then you can start thinking about intervals and hill sprints, tempos and long runs.

Until then, 30 mins, 3x a week for 3 months.

There's going to be lots of "coaches" on the internet telling you stupid shit. Stick to the rule of 3 and then check back.

And google Bernd Heinrich the conversations I got to have with that guy...

I live right by the foothills

 

[bushman505]

I live right by the foothills

That's cool. I still have a house up off tramway, I used to train in the foothills every day after work.