Training programme

12 Week Training Plans

Exercises

Videos

Principles

  • Warm up by starting slowly and avoiding high impact & intense exercise in the first 10 minutes. You could walk briskly to meet your buddy to start the session and start out slowly for the first few minutes of the running.
  • Cycles of stressing the body followed by recovery days allow for repair and development.
  • Focus on good technique and doing things well before increasing.
  • Rest days help you to avoid overtraining.
  • Cross training is about doing sports that exercise other muscle groups on other days to allow you to keep training with reduced risk of injury. Swimming, walking and cycling would be good examples.
  • Eccentric training allows you to get additional benefit from an exercise by training the opposite set of muscle groups involved in in the action – eg biceps and triceps at the same time when doing pull ups.
  • Gradual increasing in intensity/ repetitions and duration of runs. To allow the body to adapt I suggest not increasing what you do by more than 10% a week.
  • Train to time rather than distance for running. Rather than aiming to run 5km in a session it is easier to think about how much time you have and training for that amount of time. For example you have 30 minutes so you can run for 15 minutes and then turn around. This makes it easier to fit training sessions into tight time slots. You can always track progress by recording the distance you run with a GPS tracker app on your phone.
  • “Consistency is key” (Alistair Brownlee, Olympic Triathlon Champion) – try to keep doing the sessions when you don’t feel like it. Tiredness, wet and cold give you opportunities to develop resilience and discipline.
  • I would suggest resting when you are ill, particularly if you have a viral infection as there is a rare viral heart infection called myocarditis that can develop from exercising intensely during a viral infection. For some injuries you will need to stop doing exercises that could delay recovery until the injury is healed. You might still be able to maintain some fitness by switching exercise to swimming or walking or even running in a pool with a belt! Think “what can I do?” in spite of the limitation.

Getting started

  1. Find an active buddy
  2. Download the “Couch to 5K” app – search for “C25K” – it’s the yellow NHS one
  3. Print out the Progress review and fill in your baseline numbers and goals for the first 12 weeks.
  4. Print out the Stretching instructions, the Basic exercises and the Beginner programme. You can keep them in A4 plastic wallet to take to the sessions.
  5. Meet with your buddy to discuss your initial progress review and plan when to meet and what you will do.

Other ways to become more active

  • Think about how you could build more activity into your working day. As a GP I can get up out of my chair and walk to the waiting room to call people in rather than sitting down for long periods. You might have the opportunity to take the stairs rather than using the lift.
  • Build in exercise on your way to work e.g. cycling, walking or running. You can do this gradually eg getting a tram half way then walking.
  • Exercise together with your family and friends eg a family bike ride or walk.
  • Is there a sport you used to enjoy that you could take up again?

What next?

Once you have completed the 3 training programmes it’s time to start making up your own. It can really help to have an event to train for. You can push the running even further with a marathon, try an obstacle race such as “Tough Mudder” or branch out into triathlon. For me the events are about participating and finishing and if I can improve on a time that I did in the past then that’s further progress.

If you are contemplating a marathon I can recommend Hal Higdon’s training programmes.