PERFORMANCE
Keeping your Fitness up over the Christmas Period
Lets face it, December is not the best month for running. There’s barely any daylight, its freezing cold and the diary is full of social occasions keeping us out past our usual bedtime. All of this conspires to keep you wrapped up in bed in the morning with your trainers sitting motionless in the cupboard. If you aren’t careful December can slip by and before you know it you’ve lost all your fitness and put on a few pounds. Follow these top tips to keep you going through the festive period.
got time to fit our usual run in, with the best of intentions, we put it off for another day which of course never happens. If you can’t fit your whole run in then at least do something. Twenty minutes is a lot better than nothing. You don’t actually need to do that much to maintain your fitness.
1
go for a run or not. You can pretty much guess how you are going to feel; tired and very reluctant to leave the confines of a warm duvet and head outdoors in the cold. If you want to run in the morning then get your shoes and clothes out the night before. Put your alarm in your running shoes and place them somewhere that you have to get out of bed to reach them. Make sure you can still hear the alarm though. By the time you’ve got out of bed and picked up your running shoes to switch off your alarm you’ll be awake enough and feeling too guilty not to go for a run.
2
we run and we stick to it. In December you may need to be a bit more flexible. If the office party clashes with your weekday evening run than perhaps
3 26 n
www.runningfreemag.co.uk
Adjust Your Routine Runners are creatures of habit, we have our set days and times when
Get Organised Don’t decide to see how you feel in the morning as to whether you
Something is Better than Nothing Too often we sleep in and haven’t
you need to run on Saturday afternoon instead of heading to the pub to watch the football. If you want to stay fit and go to the office Christmas parties then something has to give. Work out your priorities for the week and adjust your routine accordingly
4
able to fit your usual distance run in but its better than nothing. It’s also the only time of day you’ll have any chance of seeing the sun.
5 6
Use the Gym The treadmill isn’t something that a lot of us like to use but it has its
advantages. The thought of dragging yourself out of bed to run on a cold, wet, dark morning may just be too much. The gym however is likely to be warm, dry and light. You can put on your favourite tunes and block out the thought of winter as you work up a sweat on the treadmill. Whilst you are
Maximise the Benefits of Each Session If your normal run is say a steady
10-15K and you only have time for 30 minutes then instead of just doing an easy 30 minutes turn it into a fartlek session by adding some sprints. You’ll receive the same fitness benefit in half the time. A couple of interval or fartlek sessions a week will easily maintain your running fitness.
Run at lunchtime If your work allows it fit in a short run at lunch time. You may not be
there use the opportunity to resume the resistance training program you know you should be doing.
Set a Realistic Training Program Although many of us would like to maintain our usual running program over December in reality very few of us will. If you haven’t got any major races coming up use December as an easy month and adjust your training program accordingly. Often you are more motivated to stick to a program that is realistic than one which clearly doesn’t factor in the many weekday social outings. Remember you don’t need to do much to maintain your fitness.
7 8
Enjoy your runs No-one is forcing you to run on a cold, wet morning after having
one too many to drink the night before. We run of our own free will because we enjoy the feeling of running and the benefits it brings. Making that mental shift from forcing yourself to get out of bed and head out the door, to one of realisation that this is what you are choosing to do, can make for a far more enjoyable run. There are very few occasions when going for a run will make your day worse no matter how bad you feel when the alarm goes off.
ANDY DUBOIS Andy is an elite ultra marathon runner and a qualified personal trainer and exercise coach.
www.andydubois.
blogspot.com,
andydubois@hotmail.co.uk.
for
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64