Are you a long runner who wants to increase your cardio endurance for those marathons or maybe you’re new to running, and you just want to push it and get that first mile or two? Want to run faster while using less energy?
Well there is many things that help runner to be in a good performance. The first thing is working out; exercise type, intense, duration, and frequency. The second thing is on which pathway you will work (Cardiovascular). The third thing is how many hours your body need to rest. Finally is how, when and what to eat?
Here’s how to train your body to be more efficient:
– Maximizing speed and performance in distance running can be achieved by improving lactate threshold through plenty of variety (hills, long run, cycling..).
-Adding weight exercises to speed training such as HIIT training (High interval intense training) .
To increase stamina in training you have to consider the following:
- Use interval training.
- Use pyramid interval training.
- Adding cross training and weights.
- Increase mileage by 10% every week
- Increase the pace at the end of your runs.
We can’t forget about “strength”. while you have to focus on the endurance and stamina we have to focus also on strength it’s about putting muscles under pressure for a prober time in a certain position to get the maximum efficiency so the strength will be between 85% till 95% of 1RM and it must be between 2-3 times per week .
It’s very useful specially in the short run, because it need max power in minimum time and its short race like 100 and 200 meters
But for marathon, the official distance is 42.195 kilometers and it takes about 4 hours to finish it.
We will use the same basics exercises of stamina to get to the best performance and strength training also but from 45% till 65% of 1RM and do effort for a long period of time than strength training with short time resting 3-5 times per week .
But we have to develop our cardiovascular system also which is the main responsible to make the runner in a good perform or bad perform.
Cardiovascular system consists of 2 main things (heart & respiratory system). lungs get oxygen from air and heart send it to all the organs everywhere inside the body through blood , and now it’s time to have energy and do more effort or to get low energy and the brain send less orders and muscles get fatigue and couldn’t finish with the same performance. That’s why HIIT training is used for both of strength and endurance training.
To get adapted to run with load for long distance will provide the runner to run faster, longer , with less fatigue.
a lot of people complain that they are do everything but can’t see any progress but after that we found them not giving their bodies enough rest to recover and be ready for do more challenge.
As for aerobic exercises the working muscles under high intense must have rest from 48- 72 hours to get the lactic acid to the normal rates.
As for anaerobic exercises the working muscles under low to moderate intense have to rest from 24-48 hours to get to the normal rates. But there is some exceptions for the professionals sometimes it take less to get to the normal rates.
Finally and one of the biggest troubles that meet everyone is how, when and what to eat?
Food is the main source of energy and it takes a lot from us to understand how it works to us, because we are not all alike.
Everyone is unique and need his own calories and portion of food (protein, carbohydrate and fats). for example if there is two guys at the same body type but everyone looking for a different thing , the 1st want to gain muscles and the other want to lose fats.
The 1st will add more daily calories from protein and maintain carbs and lower his fats.
The 2nd will add more daily calories from fats (Trans and unsaturated fats) and lower his carbs and maintain his protein.
There are some basics for everyone to eat in a healthy way:-
- Eat 5 or 6 meals daily.
- Eat protein with every meal.
- Eat 10 portions of vegetables and fruits to add vitamins (Raw).
- fix your eating times.
- Drink about 2 liters of or 8 cups of water one with each meal.
- Add omega 3 that help in recover and accelerate burning fats.
- Eat every 2 to 3 hours a day to keep metabolism high
- Don’t eat till fullness just for 80%.
