BUILDING YOUR OWN TRAINING PLAN - THE 10% RULE
Team sports have been cancelled, gyms have closed their doors and the only way to knock out a HIIT class is from the comfort of your own home. Everyones itching to get some outdoors time which has seen busy footpaths and a spike in new users of fitness trackers like Strava.
Running almost seems like the cool thing to do at the moment and I know this is likely due to lack of options but I’ll take it. Becoming a new runner can be very motivating as each run seems to get easier and easier and fitness builds and builds. But wouldn’t we hate that feeling to stop due to that dreaded word... ‘injury’.
Don’t fear, we’ll let you in on a little secret which will see you through the winter of cancelled team sport and closed gyms, helping you to reduce your risk of injury. There is a long list of factors which contribute to running injuries, but I’m not going to list them all as I’ve promised you a blog post to be read in under 3 minutes. A big factor that is easier to prevent is training overload. And the way you can build your training plan to reduce the risk of overload is by using ‘The 10% Rule’.
This rule is for a longer term training plan which sees a slow build up over many weeks. I know everyone must be itching to do more, more, more right now, but let’s be honest, we’re not going to be enjoying a normal lifestyle for the good part of 2020, so let’s take a patient approach to our running program.
The 10% Rule puts a limit on the amount that your running should increase week by week and you’ve guessed it, the limit is 10%. This is relevant when looking at your total distance or time run for your longest run and your total for the week.
If the longest run you’re doing right now is 30 minutes, then trying to pump out a 50 minute run the following week may not finish well, maybe aim for around 33 minutes.
If you’re running 2x 30 minutes and 2x 20 minutes this week, this totals 100 minutes. Next week all you’d want to do is add a maximum of 10 minutes of running across the week, maybe it’s bumping your 20 minutes runs up to 25 minutes.
The 10% rule will help you to build a pretty nice training program for yourself, but there’s nothing like a Run Rabbit program to guide you the rest of the way!