Hi all, I’m relatively new here and am due to finish week two tomorrow.
I’m currently running every other day, but I’d like to do some form of exercise on the days between runs. Truth be told I'm enjoying getting up early and feel it sets me up nicely for the day.
Reading online opinion is divided as to whether this is a good idea or not, obviously I don’t want to overdo it and get an injury!
Does anyone else do anything on the 'non-run' days? If so, what do you recommend?
Cross training is a good idea on your non-running days. Folks choose things like walking/hiking, swimming, cycling, gym exercises (or done at home) such things as will help strengthen your body to better support your running. Any exercises that include things like lunges, squats, Burpees, crunches, planks, push-ups. Yoga, pilates etc are all good. Anything that helps strengthen your whole body has to be a good idea. As with all things, build up gradually. Many of us came to C25k having been out of exercise, or having never done it, so we have to take care not to over-do things
You're right to be worried about that. C25k is progressive and will safely take you to week 9 without injury if you stick to Laura's advice. The rest day is very important. Take more than one day if needs be
It's great fun, so enjoy yourself!
The most important thing is probably to do a non-impact or very low impact exercise between running days. If you haven't run before then your joints will take a while to get used to the pounding that they receive when running. The course is designed to allow for that, but if you do 1000 star-jumps on concrete on your off-days then your joints won't have time to recover between sessions!
Walking, swimming, cycling, or core-exercises like sit-ups or planks or crunches will all help with your running.
One thing to be a bit careful with, however, is that as your cardio-fitness improves you may be tempted to run harder and faster than your legs can stand (joints etc again). So if you do cardio-training on your off-days be careful not to be tempted to run too fast, just because you can!
Good luck - and well done!
Ugi
Miss Wobble and Ugifer are absolutely right. If you haven't looked at it already there is also a 5 week Strength & Flexibility course to download:
nhs.uk/LiveWell/strength-an...
You could do this alongside C25K, and it is voiced once again by the lovely Laura.
Good luck with the programme - you're doing great.
Yes, Yoga and swimming. Stretchy without being impacty. Works on this older body anyway.
Strength and Flex, can be downloaded from iTunes
Cycling to strengthen your knees and swimming to tone up your arms which are not used very much when you run. The strength and flex is great. I did it before C25k and it helps with overall muscle strength. Enjoy
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