Running is a type of physical activity that many of us love. Not only because of the enormous benefits that this type of training provides, but also because of its versatility.
In terms of versatility, we mean that two people who like to run, one may like to focus their training more on speed and another on resistance.
Running is a fundamental form of human locomotion, a very popular physical activity and the pattern of most ubiquitous movement in sports. Distance running performance depends on energy production, predominantly aerobic, and the conversion of this energy into forward movement, which is called running economy.
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How to train to have greater endurance in the race
In recent decades, the popularity of long-distance running has grown, with more athletes taking part in running events such as marathons and half marathons.
Traditionally, training for a half marathon or marathon involves a high volume of training and long endurance runs. This form of training appears to be beneficial for long-distance performance, as a high training volume is, along with a high training pace, related to better performance.
However, high training volume is also associated with an increased risk of running-related injuries. It seems that running more than 65 km/week for men is and between 48 and 63 km for women was associated with an increased risk of injury.
For runners and their coaches, it is challenging to find a training volume that is high enough for optimal performance, but not so high that it increases risk of injury.
Currently, there is a trend in the Netherlands that runners train for a marathon with a high training intensity and training runs of a maximum of 14 km. It is claimed that this form of training decreases the risk of injury, but has no effect on negative finishing times.
In fact, there are some indications that replace a small percentage of resistance training sessions with interval training improves endurance performance.
Some studies conclude that a high volume of weekly training, long endurance runs and a fast training pace are beneficial for both half marathon and marathon performance. For half marathon runners, an endurance race of more than 21 km can have a positive effect on the arrival time. For a fast marathon finish time, a high training volume of at least 40 km/week seems important. However, it does not seem necessary to include an endurance race of more than 35 km.
How to train to be faster
As with other sports, it is necessary to work on the principle of specificity. In other words, if you want to improve in something specific in your sport, you have to practice it constantly.
For example, if a person wants to improve in the squat, they will have to work on the squat, if they want to swim better, they will have to swim and, therefore, whoever wants to be faster in running, will have to work on power by running.
Being more powerful means that a person is able to generate more force per unit of time. Although it is true that working on sprints or working on HIIT can help us a lot at the beginning, staying there, in the end, would limit us a lot.
It is important in this case to perform strength training because with this type of training, what we will achieve is, as the name of the training itself indicates, increase the amount of force we are able to produce.
To do this, it is best to work on basic exercises such as squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc.
Even so, we cannot focus solely on this type of training, since If we work more on strength training than on running, there are two problems.: The first is that we will not improve our speed as much since we will not be able to practice it with as much volume or intensity as we want. The second, that we will be more likely to injure ourselves because our recovery will be less.
Therefore, to be as efficient as possible in this type of race, what we will have to work on are three days a week series of sprints (separating them at least 24 hours) and two days a week strength training with a submaximal intensity for optimal recovery.
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Pictures | Paul Foot, iStock