Over the past few weeks I’ve had conversations with a few people about starting training or taking training to the next level.
Often the new goal of going somewhere new with training is one that the athlete eagerly wants to get to. A common mistake is to let the efforts in training match the desire to get to the goal.
While that is certainly understandable, it could well lead to a too steep increase in both intensity and duration of trainings. This is certainly a mistake I’ve often made in the past.
For the 2010 season I set out to avoid injury by following a few rules that I wanted to share with you:
– set your seasonal goal below your dream. For instance if your goal is to complete a marathon, then set a goal for this season of completing a half marathon and push the marathon to next year.
– never increase your training intensity or training time by more than 10% week over week – the body just can’t handle it.
– at the first sign of any type of injury, back down and either stop training or take the training down to a level which provides room for reecovery. And stretch – particularly the part of the body which is in danger of injury.
– recover! Make sure to rest well, get your night’s sleep.
I’m doing pretty well on the first two, but am still working on the last point. i’ll go do that now.