A beginner’s workout can seem like a delicate balance of endurance training, while also being careful enough to avoid fatigue and risk of injury. If you’re a beginner, incorporating a running workout is a fantastic way to tone, relieve stress, improve your endurance and develop a lifelong exercise that produces serious results!
Why Running is Such a Fantastic Workout
Running isn’t for the faint of heart (but neither is any form of cardio!)…however, with the following benefits it gives you, isn’t it worth ‘feeling the burn’? Running will allow you to:
• Lose weight, and successfully keep it off (more easily than many other forms of exercise);
• It can reduce breast cancer for women, and reduce the risk of a heart attack;
• Every time you reach your runner’s goals for the day, week or month, it can allow you to have a major self-esteem boost!
Start Off Slow and Steady
This first workout is perfect for beginners, because it gives you a taste of the ‘runners zone’ without being too overwhelming or challenging. We recommend giving yourself a ten-minute workout like the following to ease yourself into a runner’s workout, and prep your body safety for future, more challenging workouts. Here’s how to do it:
• As soon as you step on the treadmill, set your timer for ten minutes.
• For the first four minutes, set your incline at 0.0 and your speed at 3.7
• For the next two minutes, set your incline at 5.0, and your speed at 3.0
• For the next minute, set your incline at 0.0, and your speed at 4.5
• For the next two minutes, set your incline at 7.5, and your speed at 4.9
• For the last minute, sprint! Adjust your incline so it’s set at 0.0, and adjust your speed so it reflects a sprint.
Incorporate Speed in Your Intervals
After the first few weeks of a beginner runner’s interval (like the one above), you can graduate to a more powerful interval training workout. Extend your time by ten minutes (so for the following workout, you’ll run for 20 minutes), and increase the length of your workouts every two weeks. Here’s how to do it:
• For the first three minutes, you’re going to set your speed at a moderate pace, such as 3.5.
• For each two minutes that follow, you’re going to increase your speed by ‘5’…so 3.5 will increase to 4.0; 4.0 will increase to 4.5, etc.…)
• When you reach 20 minutes, get off the treadmill, and do three sets of 12-15 pushups, followed by 12-15 push-ups, followed by traditional crunches.
As a beginner, it’s important to start off with a slow ‘warm-up’ run. But with the weeks that follow, push yourself with a higher intensity, and drive all that power from within to take you past what you used to perceive was ‘impossible’…to possible!
