You’re sore when you start working out regularly because you’ve done microscopic damage to your muscles, and they’re irritated. But give them the chance to recover from that short-term damage, and they’ll rebuild themselves to be a little bit stronger and better able to work at the level that they think you’re going to ask them to again. The same goes for other body parts, such as your heart and lungs. When you make another little progression in effort, the same thing happens again. This process is never too great a stress, but a stress nonetheless. After a few rounds of this, your body catches on that this is going to become a regular process. The result is that it fortifies itself, and you become fitter.
Now, if you’ve been paying attention during this extended narrative, you’ll have noted a crucial fact: The important gains in fitness come not while you’re running, but after you run. That’s an example of the stress/recovery principle. To put this principle into practice, you stress your body, which tears it down a little. Then you give your body a chance to recover, and while recovering, you body rebuilds itself to be just a little more capable of handling the next bout of similar stress.
In other words, providing adequate recovery is the key to progressing. That’s why you can’t hurry your way from being sedentary to fit. You have to allow your body time between workouts to become stronger. If you don’t allow time, you’re going to plateau. That’s why I think you should start with four days a week—you’re going often enough to make progress, but not so much that you can’t recover between workouts.
But don’t some runners run every day? What about their need for recovery time? One of the benefits of becoming fit is that your recovery time between workouts shortens dramatically. Most top runners train twice a day. Their bodies have become so accustomed to the stress/recovery process that they can do two runs within the space of eight hours and feel fine on both. But even they’re not immune to the same principles that beginners are. When they do more than they’re used to and don’t allow enough time between hard efforts, they get sore and tired, just like you.
Now, if you’ve been paying attention during this extended narrative, you’ll have noted a crucial fact: The important gains in fitness come not while you’re running, but after you run. That’s an example of the stress/recovery principle. To put this principle into practice, you stress your body, which tears it down a little. Then you give your body a chance to recover, and while recovering, you body rebuilds itself to be just a little more capable of handling the next bout of similar stress.
In other words, providing adequate recovery is the key to progressing. That’s why you can’t hurry your way from being sedentary to fit. You have to allow your body time between workouts to become stronger. If you don’t allow time, you’re going to plateau. That’s why I think you should start with four days a week—you’re going often enough to make progress, but not so much that you can’t recover between workouts.
But don’t some runners run every day? What about their need for recovery time? One of the benefits of becoming fit is that your recovery time between workouts shortens dramatically. Most top runners train twice a day. Their bodies have become so accustomed to the stress/recovery process that they can do two runs within the space of eight hours and feel fine on both. But even they’re not immune to the same principles that beginners are. When they do more than they’re used to and don’t allow enough time between hard efforts, they get sore and tired, just like you.
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