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Fitness

The 4 most common mistakes runners make

And here’s how to fix them.

IF YOU’RE NEW to running and want to target a few events this year it’s important to bear a few things in mind before you dedicate yourself to any kind of plan.

Injury, illness and a lack of progress can dissuade even the most motivated amongst us and here, we’ve outlined four mistakes that often lead to an early dropout.

1. Ramping up the mileage too quickly

One of the biggest mistakes runners of any kind make is doing too much too soon. The evenings are longer and the mornings are still bright so there are plenty of daylight hours to train.

But novice runners should exercise caution and instead of diving straight into 80-mile weeks, ease into the sport by building up a mileage base before increasing the distance, intensity and frequency of your runs.

Many experts suggest increasing your mileage by no more than 10% each week. So easy does it!

2. Not recovering properly

You don’t need to run every day, or nearly every day, to make massive improvements. Running is a high-impact activity and hard on the joints of the hips and knees, especially for newcomers whose muscles and bones haven’t yet been conditioned for such intense exercise.
So it’s important to give your body ample rest between workouts.

Listen to your body. If you’re tired, rest.

3. Not sticking to a plan

The workout itself isn’t what’s important — it’s the order of workouts throughout an entire season that makes the real difference.

Experience will inform you of when you should push on and ease back. Write down what sessions you did, how far you ran, how you felt, what time you did and then learn from this.

Whether you get a fully personalized custom training plan from a coach or make your own based on the myriad of books and resources now available, it’s important to make some kind of plan and stick to it.

4. Not doing any strength work

Weight training will actually allow you gain power and strength and reduce the risk of injury. It doesn’t mean lifting heavy weight to try and develop bulk but rather training your muscles to run more efficiently.

The wrong diet and weight training exercises bulk up the body but weight training correctly, especially when using your own body weight, will result in stronger muscles that’ll help ward of chronic injuries.

Want to be quicker off the mark? Try this explosive power workout>

Are you wasting protein (and money) by using too much?>

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