Now that Tracey has helped us with the training schedules, you might be looking at them wondering how you are going to follow them exactly each day. I’m here to tell you it’s ok if you can’t follow them precisely. You will be able to train better if you know why each workout is done and how it helps with your progression.
Buildups – You will see three workouts in a row. These are your bread and butter buildup workouts. They get your body used to putting lots of miles on it. You’ll see that these three aren’t the same three distances in a row, and they are not all easy or all fast. That’s because we don’t want your body to get used the workouts. If you do the same thing every day your body gets good at it and it becomes easy — but you stop getting the benefits. So we switch up the distances and speed when you do several days in a row. I wouldn’t advise doing more than three days in a row of the same type of activity. That’s why there are other activities thrown in the mix. Read on.
Cross training — Biking, swimming, elliptical, aerobics, anything that gets your heart rate up that moves in a different way than you do for your main activity. There’s tons of machines to use if you belong to a gym, but if you don’t, it’s time to throw in an activity that puts your lower body in motion and gets your heart pumping. Try some classes for free at ExerciseTV or get on your bike and ride!
Stretch or Strengthen –
thanks for all the great tips!