3 Questions to Help You Determine How Often Should You Run
The answer to the question how often should I run is as varied as runners and their goals.
For some, 3 times a week is the right answer and yet for others it will be necessary to get your shoes on 5, 6 or even more often each week.
To get down to the right answer for you, answer these 3 questions: 1.
What type of a runner are you? If you're a casual runner, wanting to run for fitness or weight loss, you can probably get the results you want running 3 or 4 times a week.
Training this many times each week will keep your cardiovascular system healthy and burn enough calories to maintain a healthy weight.
Maybe your answer to this question is "I'm a competitive runner and want to achieve a personal best in my next race.
" For a competitive runner, running 4 to 6 times a week will be necessary to incorporate the trainingthat will allow you to develop the strength and stamina you desire.
If you're merely looking to increase distance with the intent of taking on a new personal best for distance, you should be able to achieve this running 3 to 5 times per week.
2.
How far do you want to go? If you are interested in running short distances - say under 10 km - you can likely get by running much less frequently than someone interested in running ultra-marathons.
The short distance runner can achieve great results with a relatively small number of weekly runs.
Combining 3 or 4 of the right type of runs will provide adequate conditioning without risking over-training.
Someone who is planning to run long distance will need to log many more miles each week and those miles should be broken up into manageable chunks.
Those runners might need to run every day of the week and may even more than once a day.
3.
Are you injury prone? This is a key question that should drive your training program.
If you are prone to over-training injury, you need to limit the number of times you run to 4 or fewer runs per week.
Until and unless you can strengthen your body to be resistant to injury, running more often than this will likely lead you to injury.
Rather than running more times each week, you should look for alternate ways to train your body.
Cross-training with swimming, cycling, strength training, martial arts or even yoga will strengthen your body in ways that will make you an even better runner.
So ask yourself some questions.
The answers will guide you to the right number of training runs for you and keep you injury free.
For some, 3 times a week is the right answer and yet for others it will be necessary to get your shoes on 5, 6 or even more often each week.
To get down to the right answer for you, answer these 3 questions: 1.
What type of a runner are you? If you're a casual runner, wanting to run for fitness or weight loss, you can probably get the results you want running 3 or 4 times a week.
Training this many times each week will keep your cardiovascular system healthy and burn enough calories to maintain a healthy weight.
Maybe your answer to this question is "I'm a competitive runner and want to achieve a personal best in my next race.
" For a competitive runner, running 4 to 6 times a week will be necessary to incorporate the trainingthat will allow you to develop the strength and stamina you desire.
If you're merely looking to increase distance with the intent of taking on a new personal best for distance, you should be able to achieve this running 3 to 5 times per week.
2.
How far do you want to go? If you are interested in running short distances - say under 10 km - you can likely get by running much less frequently than someone interested in running ultra-marathons.
The short distance runner can achieve great results with a relatively small number of weekly runs.
Combining 3 or 4 of the right type of runs will provide adequate conditioning without risking over-training.
Someone who is planning to run long distance will need to log many more miles each week and those miles should be broken up into manageable chunks.
Those runners might need to run every day of the week and may even more than once a day.
3.
Are you injury prone? This is a key question that should drive your training program.
If you are prone to over-training injury, you need to limit the number of times you run to 4 or fewer runs per week.
Until and unless you can strengthen your body to be resistant to injury, running more often than this will likely lead you to injury.
Rather than running more times each week, you should look for alternate ways to train your body.
Cross-training with swimming, cycling, strength training, martial arts or even yoga will strengthen your body in ways that will make you an even better runner.
So ask yourself some questions.
The answers will guide you to the right number of training runs for you and keep you injury free.
