PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD PRINCIPLE 🏃
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WHAT IS IT⁉️
The gradual increase of load or stress placed on the body 📈
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HOW DO YOU IMPLEMENT IT⁉️
👉The most common rule of thumb is to not increase mileage more than 10% each week. Intensity should be added gradually as well! Another important piece of the progressive overload principle is starting where your fitness is at currently, not where you WANT it to be❗️If your most recent long run was 7 miles, you should ❌NOT❌ jump up to a 12 mile long run the the following week
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WHY THE 10% RULE⁉️
👉Physiologically, your body CAN handle jumping from 20 miles one week to 40 miles the next. You could handle this for a few weeks, or maybe even a few months, but your body will eventually break down in the form of injury or burnout. The BEST way to improve as a runner is to stay consistent, and you cannot stay consistent if you are injured or burned out. You need to run the amount of mileage that is most beneficial for YOU 👍
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HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MILEAGE SHOULD BE⁉️
👉Look at your last few months of training to figure out how many miles per week you’ve been running and how long your longest run has been. Then ask yourself if you felt good from day to day and if you were recovering from your hard workouts on that amount of mileage🏃♀️
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WHAT IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR FITNESS HAS STAGNATED⁉️
👉It’s true that you can’t just keep progressing your mileage to infinity. It’s not appropriate for most runners to keep increasing until you hit 100 miles per week. If you’ve been following the progressive overload principle for awhile and feel like your race times have stagnated, it’s time to focus on the little things in training! Look at your sleep, nutrition, and drinking habits. Where could you improve? It’s also important to keep focusing on consistency! Any race from the 5k to the marathon requires a big aerobic base, which can only be improved by continuing running with SMART training that is backed by the progressive overload principle 🤓
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