Training to run a long distance does not only require the activity of running itself. By the time I have finished writing all I know about long-distance running and racing I think that I will have written as many articles about ancillary activities as about training methods which involve running. So after writing a few articles about training methods involving running, I return to the ancillary activities which many runners in my experience ignore or underestimate, sometimes at their peril.
Three ancillary topics which I have not covered yet are weight training, diet, and clothing. But looking back over the articles I have written so far, there are three articles on buying the right pair of training shoes, one on avoiding blisters, another on prosthetics, then an article on running style, followed by four on stretching and warming up and down.
Stretching can be turned into more than a compliment to training. By running a series of exercises together in a circuit produces a good training session that needs to be part of your training schedule and compliment the training sessions which involve running. Why? Read on!
Benefits of Circuit Training
Focus Question: Besides legs, feet, lungs and heart, are any other parts of your body important in running?
a) The enjoyment in running day-to-day is gained from overcoming the fatigue. Specific training sessions such as the repetitions I wrote about are tiring. You cannot do another hard training session or race until your body has rested. Circuit training helps you to recover from the fatigue more quickly. So does this fact make it an essential training session which you must do?
b) Do you remember back to Physics lessons at school. It was my worst subject. I was last in the classroom and first out. Worst still, it was Friday afternoons! However, I do remember Newton's first law of motion, you remember, the one that says, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Well, it's the same with your body when you run. Every time you push down with your legs to propel yourself forward, there is an equal and opposite reaction up your legs to your upper body. In other words, your upper body acts like a shock absorber.
Doing circuit training to make your whole body a good shock absorber has at least two beneficial consequences:
i) You will be less tired after training and so recover from the fatigue faster.
ii) After you have run for some time and are getting tired, you running style is much less likely to deteriorate.
