Hello Steemians
Today I would like to talk about how to train properly. Many people train 3 to 4 times a week and still do not get better. This is completely normal if the same distances and times are always trained.
Why is that so? Well it's easy. The body always needs new incentives to get better. If I always give the same incentives for a long time, the body will adapt and get better in the beginning. Over time, he realizes that he is good enough to perform for this training. Consequently, he will not continue to develop if there is no new incentive.
For many, a typical training looks like this (red line is the heartrate):
Of course, it also needs such endurance at a comfortable pace. Because the body also needs rest to develop. But if every workout looks like this, the performance will stagnate after some time. Therefore, it is important to bring variation into training. This variation is achieved with tempo changes, so an interval training. Which interval length is selected depends mainly on the target and the distance that is run. It is important to vary the intervals regularly, so not always train the same intervals. Usually, short intervals are chosen between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Longer intervals can sometimes take up to 15 or 20 minutes. These are then repeated alternately with pauses. At short intervals, the same duration breaks are usually maintained, which means that after a 30s interval a 30s pause follows. In this 30s Intervalls it is the target to run as fast as possible, which gives a good training effect on the muscles and on the top speed. This sequence is then repeated 5 times, 10 times or even 20 times depending on the level of training.
For longer intervals, the pauses are shorter than the actual interval. At a 10min interval I would choose a break of about 3-5 minutes. The intervals are usually run at this length in the race pace for example, a half marathon and are repeated 2 to 4 times. In the breaks, the pulse should fall to a low level and be held so that the body can recover and the lactate level decreases. So the next interval can be run again with high intensity and the body is still not stressed as much as in a competition.
typical interval training can look like this (red line = Heart rate / blue line = Pace):
Such interval training overstrains the body. The body notices by this burden that he does not have enough resources to pass the training with little effort. As a result, the body is forced to develop further in order to better survive the next training sessions. The best effects are achieved by constantly changing the interval lengths. It is very important that after a hard interval training a rest day or depending on the training level a relaxed training is maintained. Because only with sufficient rest periods, the body can recover from hard training and evolve.
I hope I could give you a little insight and you can take something with you. If you want to know more or if you want some advice you can write a comment.
Bye for now
Nicolas