Learn How to Jog with These Simple Jogging Tips

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Tenth week. Day one, three, five: Walk 5 minutes, jog 20 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Day two, four, six: Walk 5 minutes, jog 5 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Day seven: Rest.

Eleventh week. Day one, three, five: Walk 5 minutes, jog 25 minutes, walk 5 minutes (always walk as needed). Day two, four, six: Walk 5 minutes, jog 10 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Day seven: Rest.

Twelfth week. Day one, three, five: Walk 5 minutes, jog 30 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Day two, four, six: Walk 5 minutes, jog 15 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Day seven: Rest.

You'll notice that this schedule follows a traditional "hard" (long)-"easy" (short) pattern in order to give you plenty of rest between your longer workouts. If you decide that 30 minutes, four times a week is adequate for your jogging needs you might try, at the end of 12 weeks, to begin alternating your days . . . resting one full day between each 30-minute jog.

When injury does appear we advise people to rest, stretch, and to look to your feet. Advice from a good sports podiatrist may help you deal successfully with a wide variety of jogging-related problems. The NJA may be able to help you locate a good podiatrist in your area.

Continuing Your Jogging Program

Once you have accomplished the goals of the first 12 weeks, you should level off at this plateau for 4 weeks in order to fulfill the last part of the definition of fitness, "week in and week out without excessive fatigue or injury". After an additional month of successful jogging you may find you want to increase your distance. Always increase distance instead of speed. Increase your distance by no more than 10% or a mile a week. After making any increase, stay at this new level for at least 2 to 4 weeks. Then, should you continue to feel like, you want more, increase your distance again.

An Answer to the Critics

Jogging is not for everyone. Nor is bicycling. Nor are pullups or leg lifts or any single sport or exercise. We know this, yet it seems to be a human frailty to demand a truth that is applicable to all. This has been done by joggers, as well as other converts, who suddenly find new levels of satisfaction in their lives. Too many jogging converts have promoted our sport as the cure for all that ails the world when in fact the critics are correct in warning people away from movement they simply don't like, which they aren't built for, and which can prove overly stressful and damaging. They are certainly correct in advising the 10 to 15 percent of the population with heart disease to be particularly cautious about jogging.

Unfortunately, the critics attack jogging and other hobby-sports without offering any positive alternative to a nation plagued with heart disease at epidemic proportions. Our position, supported by over 1,000 exercise-oriented doctors in our affiliated American Medical Joggers Association, is that the most significant measure of physical fitness is cardiovascular-pulmonary endurance, the capacity of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to the body. All evidence supports the belief that the excellent condition of the heart and the arterial walls holds the key to a long and healthy life. This fitness can be altered by means of diet and exercise, and to attack jogging, or any other endurance hobby-sport, on the grounds that it may lead to injury misses the point that without correct exercise and diet we must resign ourselves to being overweight and diseased, definitely injuring the quality of our entire existence.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print