Planing To Start A Run?

Whether you are going to take up running to lose weight, to improve cardiovascular fitness, to relieve stress, to compete, or just to kill time, you’ll find that the benefits are many. Running is among the best aerobic exercises for physical conditioning of your heart and lungs.

Before you start running, take care of the below important points:

Select proper shoes: Be very wise while selecting shoes for running. Go for proper running shoes having proper arch support and must be light-weighted. They protect you from injuries, absorb shock while running thus lesser impact is put on your feet.

Choose the right surface to run: You can start with the park floor as they provide better cushioning to your feet. Later you can progress to running on pavement, concrete track or sandy surface as they are hard on your calf muscles.

Start with short intervals: Break the complete distance into intervals of running and walking. Over time and with training, you can keep decreasing the walking time and increasing your running time.

Warm-up and slow start: Warm-up is very important before any physical work out. Give yourself 5 mins of stretches and jogging at a slower speed before starting the actual run. This increases flexibility distributes blood flow to all body parts and thus prevents you from injuries.

Cooldown and recovery: Don’t forget the fact that cooldown is as important as your work out. Adding 5-10 mins of cooldown is necessary after running. Dynamic stretches and walking at a slower speed can be done for that.

Give yourself time to get acclimated: Not surprising that most of the beginners give up after a few days. The excuse is that they feel tired, wiped out and drained. Understand the fact that it takes around 6 weeks for our body to acclimate for new demands. So just relax and keep going because if it doesn’t challenge you it won’t change you.

Keep yourself well hydrated: Take plenty of water and replace it with sports drink if going for a long run to provide the body with sodium, potassium, and magnesium which are drained off in sweating during the long run.