The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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That's probably what I need to do, honestly.
Any suggestions for where to start?
Slightly contra @TowardsPanna, I don't think you should do interval training if cardio is a chore rather than a hobby. The injury risk of hard efforts are much, much higher than easy efforts while the rewards are not comparably disparate if you don't have a strong aerobic base. The vast majority of desirable aerobic and metabolic benefits are from easy effort, not from hard effort. Running fitness benefits greatly from sustained consistency and volume to a greater extent than short bursts and training that increases injury risk and burnout tends to come in short bursts.
Without further background, my first suggestion would be trail running. The combination of soft surfaces, slower paces, time in nature, and diminished boredom has substantial value.
anec-datally, I worry about multiple decades of Long Slow Distance as a training base for running. So many lifelong runners end up nearly unable to walk. Joints just ... go.
To that end, a lot my cardio is based around doing the long duration stuff in low impact activities; swimming and rowing machines. But, I intrinsically like running and so pretty much only do intervals for it. N-of-one-personal-report, this has resulted in an increase in all of my short and middle distance race times.
Am I off base, tho? I truly would enjoy input.
With regard to long-run results, I don't think the data is consistent with that and it doesn't really match my understanding of the biology either. Aging well is heavily governed by muscular fitness, VO2Max, and bone density, which all improve from running. For anecdata, I guess I see more runners aging well than aging poorly.
That said, even for someone whose primary focus is running, low-impact cardio is an amazing supplement. Most amateur runners aren't doing anywhere near enough low-intensity work to maximize the metabolic and fitness gains available from very easy aerobic efforts. Biking, rowing, swimming, even just simply walking all improve both aerobic fitness and fat-burning capacity. Parker Valby has become the fastest college women's 5Ker ever on three runs a week, using tons of cross-training to supplement the low running volume.
Ultimately, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution. The standard advice for running faster at distance is that more volume is better as long as you don't get hurt, but that last caveat is so broad and totalizing that it makes figuring out individual optima really difficult. I certainly wouldn't worry about negative long-run consequences of volume if I wasn't getting hurt, but if I was constantly getting dinged up, I would rethink that. Likewise, if you're already doing a bunch of interval work supplemented by low-impact cardio, that's certainly a proven effective strategy and if you're not getting hurt, that's great.
The advice to go the other direction and focus on volume first is what I tell someone that doesn't have a program yet and is debating what to do. If you're not already a runner, I think starting on intervals is a bad idea because of the injury risk. If you're having success and you're happy with what you're doing, all's well.
Awesome. Thank you for the well articulated reply.
One more piece of anec-data to take or leave; It seems to me that my strength training (heavy compound lifts, think Starting Strength protocols) directly improve my runs as well. I'm sure there's a frontier to these when additional weight starts to retard progress. However, as of now, it feels like a free lunch.
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Anec-datally, many non-runners end up unable to walk. As with most sports, extreme performers will be prone to performance-related injuries. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that moderate running leads to debilitating joint health. You'll find a lot of conflictong studies and ways of looking at things.
Running sessions should probably be less intense than people normally think, and coupled with exercises to help form and general strength. Joints, bones and tendons are the most likely things to get injured from overuse, and take a lot of training to strengthen. Cardiovascular endurance in an untrained athlete improves much faster than tendon strength. Distance should be increased quite gradually, while paying respect to your ability to run with proper form.
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