Begin a Running Program

Series Summary

Running is a popular recreational and fitness activity of many people around the world. For cardiovascular health and convenience, running is hard to beat. In a city, suburb or on a farm, anyone can put on a pair of tennis shoes and take a jog down the road to raise the heart rate and exercise the heart - the most important muscle of the body. In this free video series, a fitness trainer offers basic running tips. Get the most out of running by assuming the correct running form, choosing good running shoes and breathing effectively during the workout. Learn to train for a marathon by measuring stride, building speed and eating right the night before. Jogging and running are excellent cardiovascular exercises that improve quality of life and health.

Video Transcript

"So let's say you want to start a running program and you are a first time runner. You have no experience in how to train for a race, you have no experience in terms of knowing how to run in terms of proper form and technique, maybe you have some health issues, you have some weight issues. So taking all those factors into consideration it is important that you work with an experienced fitness trainer or a personal trainer who has a really good sense or a good idea of where you are with your fitness. This is important because the trainer has to be able to plan out your long term fitness program and it has to be a step by step process. If you are a beginning runner and you have no experience running then you may want to start out with just some basic easy jogging so every other day for example go out and jog for say 20 or 25 minutes at a very easy, very very slow relaxed pace and then the following day would be like your off day. The next day would be another 20 or 25 minutes of easy jogging. And so what this teaches you is to adapt both your mind and your body to a new activity which will inevitably give you opportunity to improve over time. So I would say for the first month to month and a half do the 20 to 25 minutes of easy slow pace running every other day and then from that point on we can start maybe scheduling more challenging types of work outs for you to work on."