5 Common Training Mistakes For Runners

As runners, I think it’s pretty much a testament when we say, we can get carried away. We try everything possible in order to hit that personal best, because it feels good. But, we may be making mistakes that we would have to pay the price for later on. Here are 5 common training mistakes runners make.

#1 Running Only At A Feel Good Pace

If you’re running the same distance at the same pace every day, there will come a time where your performance will plateau. You need to push yourself once in awhile in order to see improvement. Diversify your workout – include tempo runs, hill repeats, fartlek workouts and speed intervals.

#2 Too Much Too Soon

More does not necessarily mean better. We can get a tad bit overexcited and increase our mileage too much, too soon. However, we need to remind ourselves that this increases the risk of injury. Our muscles may not be strong enough to sustain that kind of mileage just yet. The golden rule is to always increase your mileage by not more than 10 percent every week. Take it slow and increase your mileage gradually.

#3 Neglect Tapering

You shouldn’t be doing too much in the final week of your race. Instead you should allow your muscles some rest and time to recover and become stronger. This is highly effective. If you’re still doing hard workouts during the week of your race, you risk exhausting yourself and not running a good race.

#4 No Warm Up

Warming up is often neglected. The warmup is very important. It prepares our muscles for the hard workout ahead. Although it is very tempting to save time and skip the warmup, but in actual fact, you are putting yourself at risk of injury. You may easily pull something if you aren’t warmed up and you’ll be out for months. It’s going to be a whole lot of time wasted instead of saving time!

#5 No Cross Training

We should always do some form of cross training to strengthen other muscles of our body. Constantly running puts a lot of stress on our knees! Do some strength training for instance – planks, squats, burpees and lunges. Or some aqua-running or even cycling! It is a good way to maintain cardiovascular fitness.