The thought of jogging when you have never done it or you just want to start doing some physical activity is daunting. So in this post, we are going to provide some cues and tactics that will help you start jogging and progress your jogging and running performance.
Before you start running, establish if you have any limitations.
These limitations may be:
Injuries or pains related to the running motion.
If you do have these, you need to rehabilitate yourself and make sure that any running or jogging activities won’t aggravate the injury.
Breathing problems.
This will affect your respiratory. If you suffer from asthma, bronchitis, or any other respiratory issues, please make sure you seek medical advice before doing any running activities.
Weight challenges.
The heavier you are, the more likely the running and jogging motion will affect your joints. So you need to do activities that will condition your body to become lighter and handle the stress of the weight while you are running.
Start by doing some walking.
You want to condition your body propelling itself in a horizontal movement. You should be able to maintain a pace of 3km per hour. So it should take you 20 minutes to walk 1km. 40 minutes to walk 2km. 60 minutes to walk 3km.
Do what you can and monitor how your body feels. You want to progressively increase the intensity of your walking speed based on how your body responds.
If you find that your body is starting to feel lighter and more fluid with the walking movements, then you will be able to progress to light jogging.
Introduce intervals of jogging.
To start the jogging motion, you only need to focus on doing the following.
- Land on the balls of your foot (front)
- Keep your elbows tucked in when doing so.
- Make sure you focus on one foot going in front of the other.
As you progress from walking, introduce 250-500m of interval running where you will be maintaining a light jogging pace.
Monitor how your body responds.
Progress to jogging with a longer stride length.
Once you have started to find your rhythm, you want to focus on increasing your stride length while running. This will allow you to cover a longer amount of distance with the same effort.
This will make the running more intense.
Focus on jogging and making sure that your foot comes over your ankles with each stride.
As you become better, you want to increase this to your shin area. And then progress to your knee height.
Transition to tempo runs.
These are runs where you only need to complete jogging over a certain amount of time. This will condition your body to run for that amount of time.
It will also see you keep your heart rate up and it will help you lean out your body so that you end up running with less body fat.
Transition to distance runs.
Once you feel more comfortable jogging, you want to transition to jogging at a pace over a certain distance. Your walking pace would be 3km per hour. You want to jog at a pace between 4-10km per hour based on what feel comfortable doing.
The faster you run, the more intense it will be.
Maintain a progression that will see you achieve the distance milestones in 1km blocks.
Make sure you keep yourself motivated.
Running can be boring, so make sure you use methods to keep yourself interested.
- Set a routine and have a set time where you will do your run.
- Keep entertained with music or podcasts.
- Find a running route that you enjoy.
- Join a running club (physical or social), or run with friends.
Track your weekly and monthly progression.
You need to monitor how you progress in your jogging development. Conduct time trials once a week and assess how your body feels.
