Running fitness HELP!!

[packersruns]

Hi everyone,

I’ve just recently graduated and consolidating, however recently I’ve signed up to do Joe Wicks 90 Day Plan (I’m pretty big on fitness in the last few months - along with strength training I lost quite a bit of weight, however haven’t really gained a lot of muscle that’s showing apart from my calves) ...which is only HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) exercises.

The FAQ says that I can do 2 runs in place of 2 HIITs (I’ve yet to receive my plan so can’t really tell how often my workouts would be but would guess 4 or 5 a week?) and they recommend in their FAQ that the distance they recommend for these two runs is 5K. I do an average of 10K a week now, but I only do an average of 3.5K because I do 3 runs in the week as the programme stated. Will my fitness go down if I build up to 5K and then only do 2 5K runs a week, or shall I contact the programme and see what they can do and keep to my three?

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

In theory, a run a week will maintain your running fitness and two will increase it, though at a slower rate than 3 obviously.

I can’t see the plan... nor would I be willing to... as a veggie with allergies I can’t follow set diets easily. From what I’ve heard it’s 5 days of exercise, so it strikes me that you could run say Monday, Wednesday and Friday... do his exercises Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday while spending Sunday on the couch watching the football (or whatever non football fans do with their Sunday afternoons!)

[packersruns Graduate in reply to UnfitNoMore]

Ok amazing! I’ll definitely keep this in mind, think I’ll message the programme contact group and see what they say too, as if they can adjust it so it’s the best of both worlds that would be top notch, but may hold off actually starting it until I’ve reached 5K regardless. Thank you!

[Hidden]

Do you want to build muscle?

[packersruns Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Yeah, was doing just upper body and abdonminal stuff but wasn’t eating the right food as I was losing weight but nothing was showing -felt stronger, I’m just worried that I won’t get the best results in the programme but also really want to make sure I’m sticking to the running programme too!

[Hidden in reply to packersruns]

When you exercise you damage your muscles, it's the rest in between your workouts that build the muscle. So you need a day off after every workout to allow the muscle to grow, work out on Monday don't do it again until Wednesday.

So if you are working the upper body one day it should be OK to work the lower body (running) the next day when you are resting the upper body.

Understand?

Diedt is very important for repair also, protein, vitamin c etc help to rebuild the muscles.

[packersruns Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Yeah I get what you mean, and ooo ok, I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you!