5 classic running training mistakes
Pedro · 23/08/2019 (mis à jour le 23/08/2023) · 4 min read
To hope to improve in running, you have to train effectively. And training effectively... it's not that simple! Making mistakes in your running training is a classic. We all make mistakes and it is by making mistakes that we learn to train better. By understanding them and changing the way we do things. But to improve, you have to be aware of the mistakes you make in training.
I will therefore describe the 5 main mistakes made by most of the riders (including myself, I have made them all in the past). Mistakes that could only slow my progress. If you pay attention to these different points, I guarantee you that you will already be on the right track! ????
1. Going too fast in jogging!
Running training is mainly about working on your basic endurance, resistance, and VO2max. Going too fast during footings will have a negative effect on these 3 sectors. First, we're not going to get all the benefits of fundamental endurance. Slow speeds are conducive to the proper development of our cardiorespiratory system. (benefit that will also apply to fast speeds afterwards!)
Then, running too fast while jogging is to generate unnecessary fatigue that is harmful to the rest of the training. The goal of jogging is to generate little or no fatigue (or even to reduce it with recovery jogging). If we run too fast, we will create a fatigue that will prevent us from being 100% at the next split training for example. And so we won't progress as much with this training as we should have.
Moreover, even during split sessions, running too fast does not necessarily lead to progress. Because it ultimately means having to slow down on recovery, or even walk. Muscle acidity is less evacuated by walking than if it can be recovered at a rate close to fundamental endurance. In short, we accumulate even more acidity, it is a vicious circle that undermines the objective of the session and therefore the progress. A split session must be intense but the goal is to respect a run recovery and keep a good running technique until the end. When you're in agony, it's much more complicated to achieve these two goals...
2. Suddenly increase your training volume
It seems obvious that to progress faster, increasing your training volume is a good option! The more we do, the more the body will get used to it and the more we will progress! Certainly, but doubling its volume overnight with the intention of making progress is a heresy because the body needs time to adapt to any change.
Increasing your volume suddenly means putting a lot of stress on your body. Stress that he'll probably make you pay at some point! Decreased performance due to overtraining, injuries, issues are rarely pleasant! Not increasing your volume by more than one session per week per season seems reasonable. This increase in volume should be done gradually: start with a jog of 10′ and add 5 to 10′ per week to this new release. And when you increase the volume, you don't increase the intensity at the same time, otherwise the body can make you pay for it too! It's all about dosage! ????
3. Running training without variety
Forgetting variety in your training plan is a classic mistake of the runner. However, training always on the same patterns, the same types of sessions is much less effective than if you include variety. Already beside pleasure, repeating the same sessions over and over again is the best way to get tired of it and let go. And on the progression side, your body will get used to the type of session proposed and the progression will be less.
To hell with typical weeks where we do short VMA on 200 or 300m on Tuesday, long VMA on 1000m on Thursday and a long outing on Sunday! We can of course do it, but running training offers many possibilities of variations, just use them! Côtes, Fartlek, Fractionated into a pyramid in progressive or degressive, trail running... Varying is progress!
4. Neglecting warm-up / recovery
Each running training session should be preceded by a 15-minute run in fundamental endurance to warm up the body properly. This is especially true for intense sessions, where a complete warm-up (filmed in this article) is necessary. 15′, it is the minimum so that it is ready to operate at full speed during training.
Neglecting it is both risking injury and starting your training "a notch below" because the body will not have had time to warm up enough. Ditto for the recovery! After an intense effort, running a little at a reduced pace while jogging or even below this pace allows the body to gradually return to recovery mode by continuing to circulate the blood. Running slowly after an intense effort makes it easier to recycle the waste produced by the effort and therefore to recover better!
5. Train too hard during recovery
As we have already seen, recovery is one of the essential tools for those who want to improve their running skills. Neglecting it is not an option. Concerning active recovery, it is a training session like any other, you have to respect the right speeds. Good training on Tuesday, good form on Wednesday? Do we have itchy legs? The 40′ recovery jogging are run at a pace that looks more like a marathon pace? Or at the end of 40′, it's fine so we add 15′ to work a little more and improve?
NO, the recovery jogging is deliberately short and slow. The goal is just to oxygenate the muscles to recover. Above all, do not generate any additional fatigue (even minimal). This fatigue will compromise the progress of the previous day's session. Worse it will also be detrimental for the next training session where we will arrive more tired than expected. Footpaths must be run in fundamental endurance, period.
These are the 5 main mistakes, but there are others!
Running training is much more complex than it seems. It is very easy to make mistakes thinking you are doing the right thing. And if I told you today about the 5 classic mistakes that most of the riders have already made... These are not the only ones! In this other article, I go further by analyzing the case of 5 people who wrote to me and told me they could not make progress. Each of these cases has a different cause. And for each of them, I give you some suggestions for solutions to improve. If you have recognized yourself in at least one of the classic mistakes in this article... There is a good chance that this one will help you too! So feel free to continue your reading here.
Otherwise, are there any other running training mistakes you may have made in the past that you would like to share so that they can be avoided? Feel free to comment on this article, it will only help other runners!
