If you’re looking to run your first 5K, you’ve come to the right place.
In today’s guide, we’ll imbricate worldwide questions – and 5 mistakes – well-nigh the Couch to 5K program:
- What is Hovel to 5K? Why is the Hovel to 5K plan so popular?
- Does Hovel to 5K unquestionably work?
- “Will I lose weight with Hovel to 5K?” (Mistake #1)
- “Do I plane like running?” (Mistake #2)
- “Am I healthy unbearable to run a 5K?” (Mistake #3)
- How to start (Couch to 5K Schedule and PDF)
- “How do I not hurt myself running a 5K?” (Mistake #4)
- 10 tips and tricks for running a 5K.
- “What do I do without Hovel to 5K?” (Mistake #5)
- “What if I own a futon? Can I still do Hovel to 5K?”
Before we jump in…
You’re reading this guide at the perfect time considering Nerd Fitness is currently hosting a special event, LET’S START TOGETHER: A 5-DAY WALKING CHALLENGE FOR HOBBITSNERDS!
It’s suited for anyone starting their walking or running adventure, since our team of coaches will explain how to start both (plus offer an intro to hiking).
Learn increasingly right here!
What is Hovel to 5K? Why is the Hovel to 5K Plan so popular?
“Couch to 5K” is a self-ruling program that takes people from their hovel to running a 5K race in 9 weeks.
5K is short for 5 kilometers, or 5,000 meters or 3.1 miles.
This running program was invented by Josh Clark of CoolRunning WAY when in the day.
It has since been co-opted and copied by every running blog out there, so we’re going to be referring to a generic “Couch to 5K” program when we talk well-nigh it.
(When people ask the question “How long does it take to well-constructed Hovel to 5K,” it really depends on which program they pick.
It might be 6 weeks, or 12 weeks, or 9 weeks. The original Hovel to 5K plan created by Cooling Running took 9 weeks).
Here’s the Hovel to 5K plan a nutshell:
The program utilizes an uber-popular concept tabbed interval training – moving at variegated speeds throughout a running session – and lays out exactly what to do every day for 6-12 weeks without starting.
By varying your pacing, your soul is forced to transmute to variegated speeds, and your heart and lungs have to transmute to various levels of strenuous worriedness (and get stronger/healthier as a consequence).
As a result, you unquestionably shrivel increasingly calories and get largest prepared for a race than compared to just training at a unvarying speed.
In other words, interval training rocks and should be used by everyone who wants to get largest at running.
Over the weeks, Hovel to 5K slowly ramps up the value of time you spend running and cuts when the time you spend walking until you’re at the point where you can unquestionably run a 5K without stopping.
“STEVE, I’M INTRIGUED. WHY IS COUCH TO 5K SO DANG POPULAR?”
#1) It’s simple and clear.
Print out a PDF or download an iPhone app and for the next 9 weeks you simply do what it tells you:
Today, do this.
Tomorrow, do that.
Repeat.
We’re all busy. Most of us lead hectic lives. And programs that tell us EXACTLY what to do indulge us to follow instructions without needing to icon it out ourselves.
Not that us nerds overanalyze things to the point of giving ourselves uneasiness attacks…
#2) Most people think running = weight loss.
If you’re trademark new to health and fitness, and you’re trying to lose weight, you’re most likely overwhelmed by what you should start with and how you should train.
Are you gonna go sign up for a gym membership, hire a trainer, and start doing squats and deadlifts?
As much as I would WISH that was the wordplay (it’s probably the fastest path to waffly one’s physique), it’s often a underpass too far for many folks.
So a majority of newbies equate running with weight loss (which MIGHT be true, but MIGHT not, I’ll explain here), and decide to start with a jog virtually the block.
#3) Hovel to 5K is not overwhelming.
It’s a self-ruling program (or inexpensive app), and it’s very approachable.
Programs like P90X and Insanity are designed to request to people that consider themselves hardcore (whatever the hell that means).
Couch to 5K appeals to people who are overwhelmed at the idea of doing P90X or Insanity or mustering up the valiance to go to Crossfit.
Couch to 5K makes you think “maybe I can unquestionably do this…” which is the most important part of any fitness journey: starting.
#4) Everybody wants to “have run a 5K.”
If you’re new to health and fitness and working on setting a good obtainable goal, “run a 5K this year” is a unconfined place to start.
- It’s a short unbearable loftiness that with some training you can pull it off, plane if you have to walk some or all of it.
- There are 5Ks practically every weekend, many of which raise money for soft-heartedness or are themed in a fun way,
- It’s an wondrous worriedness to do as a group with friends.
- Humans are wired for achievements, progress, and gratification – 5Ks are perfectly designed for that.
So in completing Hovel to 5K, you train and get to see yourself progress weekly, you get to finish a race and finger a sense of accomplishment, and you go home with a medal you can hang on your wall reminding you of the proud moment.
Plus, it might get you in shape!
Maybe…we’ll explore in just a moment.
If you are trying to get in shape, I’ll mention our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. I know of no largest way to transform yourself than through the help of an expert who knows exactly what to do. We’ve helped hundreds of people run their first 5K and helped others train for triathlons!
Does Hovel to 5K unquestionably work? Will I lose weight Doing Hovel to 5K?
“Steve that’s all fine and good. But what do you REALLY think well-nigh running 5Ks and Hovel to 5K?”
Okay, you got me. I got thoughts. I moreover got jokes (they’re bad).
RANT INCOMING!
Will the Hovel to 5K program help you run a 5k? YES! If you unquestionably stick with it for the entirety of the training program.
Will the Hovel to 5K program help you lose weight? MAYBE.
Is Hovel to 5K a program that will get you healthy permanently? MAYBE.
Will Hovel to 5K make me sexy and squint damn good in a bathing suit? MAYBE, but probably not.
Here’s the truth well-nigh Hovel to 5K: It’s the same truth with popular programs like P90X or Insanity or any other structured workout program:
It totally works and will help you lose weight if you do two things:
- You unquestionably well-constructed the program, AND
- You fix your diet.
MISTAKE #1: Hovel to 5K totally doesn’t work and won’t help you lose weight if you do two things:
- You unquestionably well-constructed the program, BUT
- You don’t fix your diet.
As sexy as it is to think that just going for a run will help you lose weight, the data doesn’t when it up. In fact, as Time Magazine rightly pointed out years ago and got yelled at for telling the truth, exercise vacated won’t make you lose weight.
I believe that to be expressly true when exercise is only steady-speed cardio.
In fact, many people proceeds weight without starting an exercise routine and get completely demoralized.
What gives?
As we say here at Nerd Fitness, you can’t outrun your fork, and nutrition is 90% of the battle.
If you go for a mile run and then stuff your squatter with uneaten calories “because you earned it,” you’re going to proceeds weight.
It’s not considering you have a slow metabolism, I promise. It’s considering you’re consuming too many calories.
This is Worldwide Mistake #1: not fixing your nutrition if you’re running for weight loss!
If this were a movie, nutrition would be Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible and exercise is that funny sidekick who helps Tom. Let’s be real here, Tom is doing all of the heavy lifting to make that movie what it is.
Couch to 5K helps people run a 5K.
That’s it.
It’s not designed to help you lose weight or build a soul you’re proud of. It’s moreover a temporary program that lasts a unrepealable number of weeks until you run your 5K.
For Hovel to 5K to be successful for you long term, and for it to help you lose weight, it needs to be the impetus that causes you to build a resulting long-term habit of exercise and changes how you think well-nigh food.
Remember: you never get to be “done”, so you need to enjoy the journey and squint forward to exercising daily.
You moreover need to train the right way to build the type of soul you want! And eat the right way.
That’s priority numero uno.
Before we continue…
As I mentioned earlier, you’re reading this guide at the perfect time considering Nerd Fitness is currently hosting a special event, LET’S START TOGETHER: A 5-DAY WALKING CHALLENGE FOR HOBBITSNERDS!
It’s suited for anyone starting their walking or running adventure, since our team of coaches will explain how to start both (plus offer an intro to hiking).
Learn increasingly right here!
Do I Plane Like Running?
Bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman said it best:
“Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight.”
In other words: “Everybody wants to be in shape, and squint great, but nobody wants to put the work in to unquestionably GET in shape and squint great.”
And yup, getting in shape is tough; if it were easy we’d all squint like Captain America and Wonder Woman.
Instead, 70% of America is overweight and 30 % are obese. Crap.
This brings me when to the most crucial question of this unshortened 5K process:
Do you plane LIKE running?
The world is split into three groups:
- People that like running and want to run.
- People that don’t like running but sooner learn to love it.
- People that don’t like running and will never like running.
Here’s that Ronnie Coleman quote, slightly adapted: “Everybody wants to have run a 5K, but many people don’t unquestionably enjoy running.”
Running a 5K is a unconfined victory and a worthwhile fun goal, but it’s only one way of thousands to “get in shape.”
Many people finger like Andy Dwyer in Parks and Rec when they go running.
Some people love that feeling of wound or pushing vastitude the limits, and that’s awesome!
But for everybody else, they make Mistake #2: they gravity themselves to run plane though they don’t like it!
So surpassing you start Hovel to 5K, think of it as a science experiment:
“I hypothesize that pursuit Hovel to 5K will help me run a 5K. I moreover hypothesize I’ll enjoy the process, enjoy how I finger without a run, enjoy running a 5k, and/or enjoy the victory of having run a 5k.”
And that’s all this is: an experiment to see if running is the type of exercise you want to protract doing unceasingly for the next few years.
If 2 weeks into Hovel to 5K you’re miserable and hate it: fantastic!
You just discovered that you hate running and are now self-ruling to NEVER RUN EVER AGAIN FOREVER. It doesn’t make you a failure.
It ways your science experiment produced a result that you can now use to inform future exercise decisions.
Again, it doesn’t make you a failure.
It just ways you found a type of exercise that doesn’t work for you.
If you discover you LOVE running and how it makes you feel: fantastic! You can now make running part of your regular exercise routine. Combine this with a good nutritional strategy, and you will build yourself a runner’s physique. And you’ve found something you can do for the rest of your life.
If you are running to prove something to yourself, considering a friend is doing it, considering you’re raising money for charity, or anything else: fantastic! Do Hovel to 5K and then decide without if this is the strategy that you enjoy and want to stick with permanently.
Don’t make Mistake #2: If you’re ONLY doing this to lose weight and it’s making you miserable, quit. Don’t run. Ever.
Instead, pick an exercise you unquestionably enjoy. But not considering the exercise is going to help you lose weight – considering doing an exercise you love is a unvarying reminder of “I’m making healthier choices, and thus I should probably eat healthier!”
If weight loss whilom all else is your goal, I’d recommend our Beginner Bodyweight routine you can do at home and combine it with our “Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating.” I can promise that if you read those strategies and start to implement them in your life, you’ll see results without overly having to set foot on a treadmill.
Phew! Okay, that covers “do you unquestionably LIKE running?”
There’s flipside massive question you should be asking yourself surpassing you start…
Are You Healthy Unbearable to Run a 5K?
Just considering you WANT to run doesn’t midpoint you SHOULD necessarily start running just yet.
It could be a fast track to injury, disappointment, and misery!
Those are literally three of my least favorite things. The fourth stuff brunch.[1]
Back to your health: are you physically ready to run?
If you’re at or tropical to your goal weight, then starting a running program is a good idea.
Read the section unelevated on “How to not get injured doing Hovel to 5K” and get started.
If you are obese or very overweight, I think (power) WALKING a 5K is a unconfined goal for the firsthand future.
However, I think Mistake #3 would be running a 5K before properly preparing your soul for it! In fact, running prematurely without addressing your weight might rationalization forfeiture to your joints and ligaments and rationalization you to revert a whole bunch.
WHAT I WOULD DO INSTEAD: Focus on healthy eating, towers the habit of daily walks, and follow a beginner strength-building routine like the Beginner Bodyweight Circuit.
(Oh, and if you want to start walking, join LET’S START TOGETHER: A 5-DAY WALKING CHALLENGE FOR HOBBITSNERDS!
You can earn some NF merch as you uncork your walking adventure!)
Here’s why you should focus on strength and nutrition surpassing pounding the pavement with hours of running:
- As you uncork to waif weight, a lot of the stress on your joints, organs, bones, etc. will start to decrease.
- As you strength train, the ligaments that hold your soul together will wilt stronger and increasingly ratherish prepared for the rigors of running.
- As you refine your running form to minimize resistance and jarring shocks throughout your body, your soul will learn to wilt increasingly efficient.
- When you start to tideway your goal weight, you can start to introduce increase your speed from power walking to jogging – with correct running technique (see below) – and staying healthy.
“STEVE, I was all excited to run a 5k, and now you have me demoralized. I’m overweight but I still want to run!”
Okay okay okay, fine! I don’t want to alimony you from exercising, I want to help you build momentum and make you antifragile.
Obviously, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and if running surpassing you’re physically ready is what you want to do, go for it!
Just do it safely, please! Read the section unelevated on proper running technique!
I would still teach that you focus your efforts on strength training, hiking, long walks on the beach…low impact activities that strengthen rather than deteriorate your body.
But you do you, boo.
If you want any help getting in shape to run your 5K, we got you! We help men and women and self-aware robots with our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. We offer nutritional guidance, professional accountability, and custom workouts!
How to Start the Hovel to 5K Program
“Steve I’m in. I read all of that jazz whilom and I am ready to get started. Whether I’m walking or running, I want to start Hovel to 5K!”
If you’re ready to do the Hovel to 5K program, you can download the pursuit which I believe is the Original Hovel to 5K Program (they’ve made it quite tough to find!).
The reason it’s tough to find is they’re pushing people towards the official Couch to 5K App.
Here’s flipside which I found on Antrandado.com
For us Nerds, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the super fun Zombies Run! app, which uses interval training combined with fun audio cues and video game mechanics throughout your running sessions.
What I would do next without downloading the program? Do the first day of training!
I would moreover recommend finding a race that’s 2-3 months from now, and sign up for it plane if you’re not ready.
Recruit a friend or two to join you in training and the race!
Doing these things create firsthand motivation and accountability.
It’s the strategy that Jaime from Nerd Fitness used to get herself in shape: signing up for races in the future that she wasn’t quite ready for yet.
She moreover strength trained and dramatically overhauled her nutrition, but she used races as unconfined motivational events to stay on target!
HOW TO FIND A 5K IN YOUR TOWN: Let me google that for you. Type “5K [your town]”, and I bet there’s a 5k every weekend for the rest of the year coming up. The Hovel to 5K app moreover lists local races for you.
To recap:
- Pick a race that looks fun that raises money for a good cause
- Recruit a friend or two
- Go for your first day of running!
It’s gonna suck, and you’re going to be fine. You’ll get better!
This is exactly what I did years ago when I dressed up like a Caveman with 20 of my friends and raised thousands of dollars for kids with cancer to go to summer camp!
How to Not Get Injured Training For a 5K
If you don’t learn how to run correctly, you’re doomed to develop an overuse injury and that’s going to negate the whole reason you started running in the first place!
This is Mistake #4: Crappy running form!
When you run, you’re putting hundreds of pounds of pressure on your joints and ligaments with each bounding step lanugo the road.
This is then repeated thousands of times over the undertow of training and a race.
No wonder nearly every runner has tons of stories of injuries they’ve had to deal with. It can be a inclement worriedness that can wreak havoc plane with good running mechanics.
With poor running mechanics, the results are compounded.
And not the GOOD kind of “compounded” like recipe interest like you learned in 2nd grade with the story well-nigh starting with 1 penny a day and doubling it every day for 30 days.
The BAD kind of “compounded” like plantar fasciitis and stress fractures and sore IT bands and torn ligaments and crazy soreness all the time.
We don’t want that.
I’m going to get super granular into proper running technique in this section, so if you once have perfect running form, you can skip this section. But I’d still read it.
Yeah, you should probably read it.
Here are the “5 Steps to Not Sucking at Running a 5K,” thanks to my friend Jason Fitzgerald of Strength Running:
1) Lean From Your Ankles
Lean from your ankles, and alimony a straight line from your ankle, through your butt, and up to your head.
If you’re standing still with this slight forward lean, you should finger like you’re well-nigh to fall forward.
When you start running, gravity will help alimony you progressing forward. A proper lean from the ankles keeps your soul in structuring and loads your muscles properly and efficiently.
2) Increase Your Cadence
Cadence is your stride rate, or the number of steps you take per minute. It will probably seem weird at first, but you’re putting less stress on your legs with shorter foot strikes.
Your undulation should be at least 170-190 steps per minute when you’re running at an easy, conversational pace. It will probably increase once you start running faster—that’s normal.
“Steve, what the hell do I do with “170-190 steps per minute?”
Great question. Go to Spotify and squint for 170-190BPM playlists, like these which I found here:
Not on Spotify? Cool. (But like, why?) To get a cadence, try running to Outkast’s “Hey Ya” and time your strides to match the beat. That’s the undulation you’re looking for:
Research has shown[2] that increasing your undulation and taking increasingly steps (around 180 per minute) provides many of the same benefits of barefoot running: less impact shock that goes up your legs, improved running economy (or your efficiency, which ways you’ll run faster with less effort!), and a reduced endangerment of injury.
You’ll finger like you’re taking way increasingly steps than normal – that ways you probably had poor form surpassing and now you’re fixing it!
If your legs get to the point where they’re going this fast, let me know:
3) Foot Strike at the Right Time
When your foot comes lanugo and makes contact with the ground, it should be underneath your body, not in front of it.
Combined with a quick undulation and a slight forward lean from your ankles, you’ll be distributing impact shock evenly—and efficiently.
This speciality of running form is often skipped over by whence runners.
Instead of focusing on where the foot is landing in relation to the rest of the body, they focus too much on running on their forefoot. If you don’t first land in the right place, a midfoot or forefoot strike will only do increasingly damage.
As you’re running, a good mental cue is to think that you’re just “putting your foot down” in a straight line underneath your body.
There’s no reaching or stretching your leg out in front of you. Practicing this mental cue will have your leg touching lanugo scrutinizingly exactly underneath your part-way of mass, distributing your weight evenly and safely.
4) Land on Your Mid-Foot
While not as important as landing underneath your part-way of mass, rhadamanthine a mid-foot striker has a host of benefits.
It can help you stave a lot of injuries by titillating impact shock and preventing a severe heel striking running stride.
Heel-striking can’t be entirely blamed for injuries and labeled “bad.”
Even peerage athletes heel strike when they run races! It’s not entirely bad— expressly if you’re putting weight lanugo on your foot just without you heel strike, instead of directly on the heel.[3]
What you should focus on is having a higher cadence, landing underneath your body, and not aggressively heel striking.
Try to land with your foot unappetizing on the ground, instead of with your toes wilted upwards.[4]
5) Symmetrical Arm Swing
Nobody wants to squint at you running if you’re flailing your stovepipe wildly all over the place like Elaine dancing from Seinfeld.
An platonic arm swing has your arm wilting at well-nigh 90 degrees and a front-to-back swing (not side-to-side).
Imagine a pretend line that goes lanugo your mid-line or part-way of your body. When you run, your hands should not navigate over this imaginary line.
Cup your hands loosely together (no clenched fists!) and if you want to use your stovepipe for momentum, pump your elbows, not your hands.
Once you incorporate these changes into your running form, you’ll finger a lot increasingly well-appointed and your injury risk is going to plummet.
For uneaten credit, learn to run softly and quietly. Foot stomping isn’t unliable and gets increasingly increasingly difficult as you tideway 180 steps per minute.
A few other things you want to alimony in mind:
- Keep a tall back, chest up. No slouching.
- Look 30-50 meters in front of you – not throne lanugo looking at your toes.
Both are easy cues to alimony an sturdy posture and good running form.
Go when through and read this section a few increasingly times. We know it’s a LOT to think well-nigh while running, but it is incredibly important. If you get a chance, have somebody mucosa you running, and then watch your tape when to see how you’re doing.
I should note that we provide form checks to our coaching clients. Through our superstitious app, you can record a video of your running form or exercise technique and send it right to your coach! That way you can know your running and training safely and correctly!
10 Tips and Tricks for Training for Your 5K
Although the Hovel to 5K Program covers specifically how you should be training, it still leaves out quite a few important things (like technique, which I covered above!).
Once you’ve picked your 5K training program, here’s how to get yourself to ACTUALLY follow through on your training!
#1) Recruit an peccancy partner. Have somebody that trains with you (or at least somebody you tell well-nigh your training), so that each day you can trammels in with each other.
Wanna be diabolical?
Give somebody else $100 of your money. And tell them you’ll trammels in with them without your training every day – if you don’t do your run, they’ll donate $50 of that money to a political rationalization you HATE.
While you’re building the habit of running, you need to make the pain of skipping your run greater than the pain of doing the run.
Do this unbearable times until you build up unbearable momentum and get hooked on that runners upper so that you unquestionably squint forward to training.
#2) Warm-up before, stretch after. Don’t do static stretches surpassing your runs. It’s not doing what you think it is[5]. Instead, you’re going to warm up your muscles through active movement.
- Do a dynamic warm-up surpassing you run. Protract this by going for a light jog, upper knees, and warming up your muscles through movement.
- Do the pursuit cool-down stretching routine without you run. Stretching without for the win!
#3) Make it the first thing you do each day. Build the habit of doing your run first thing in the morning when life hasn’t had a endangerment to get in the way.
Sleep in your running clothes.
Put your watchtower clock/phone wideness the room. Put your running shoes by the door. By hacking your Batcave, you’ll minimize the steps between you and the new habit you’re trying to build.
#4) Strength training makes running easier. Doing 1-2 sessions of strength training per week (on days you’re not running) will help you shrivel fat, build muscle, and stay injury-free.
Follow our Beginner Bodyweight Routine, no equipment required. We’ll have you training with your furniture instead:
If you sign-up for our self-ruling weekly newsletter, I’ll send you a PDF of the workout so you can track your progress.
- Complete this workout at home, no equipment required
- Avoid the worldwide mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises
- Learn how to finally get your first pull-up
#5) Don’t worry well-nigh your shoes when you start. Wear whatever shoes you have so that you can just get started towers the habit immediately. If you START to love running, read our vendible on proper footwear and get yourself some largest kicks.
The same is true for “running clothes.” Do not let this be a windbreak to entry.
Start running first and make sure you like it surpassing you go spending any hard-earned mazuma on stuff you’re not gonna use.
Oh, and as Mentor Jim mentions in the video below, DON’T RUN IN BRAND NEW SHOES!
Trust us on this one.
#6) Sign up for your race as far in whop as possible. Use 20 seconds of courage if you need to, but commit to the race.
If you don’t sign up, you’re going to be much increasingly likely to when out when life gets busy.
But if you pay for it superiority of time, and get other people to run with you, you’re going to be using positive peer pressure to follow through on your commitments.
#7) Your race time doesn’t matter! Who cares if you’re the last person to finish? Like the Rock taught us, it doesn’t matter.
What’s important is that you finish something that you started. That’s a huge winnings in itself.
#8) Start a running club or join one at work – the increasingly people you surround yourself with that are doing the things you want to do, the better. Hang out with runners that are faster than you.
You’re the stereotype of the 5 people you socialize most with, so you might as well start associating with faster, healthy runners.
#9) Don’t have an in-person running community? That’s cool! Join the Scouts Guild in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
It’s the section of our polity that does running, biking, swimming, and other distance-based activities!
#10) Hire a coach. Outside of having a group of friends or co-workers keeping you accountable, a mentor who routinely checks in with you and your progress can be a godsend. We’ve helped tons of people build the habit of running!
What Do I do Without the Hovel to 5k?
You made it through the training, and you ran/walked your first 5K! I’m so proud of you.
Gold star.
A .
So without successfully completing your first 5K, you may be wondering what you should do next. To run then or not…
Many new runners veritably love the undercurrent at a race; the number pick- up, pre-race motivational speech, cheering crowds, and crossing that finish line.
Oh, and the post-race beer and meal is the weightier supplies and drink you’ve overly tasted.
So without the excitement settles down, you need to ask what you want to do next.
Your three options:
- Run Faster: Sign up for flipside 5K, alimony training, and try to write-up your previous race time.
- Run longer: Maybe you want to run a longer race like a 5 miler, a 10k, or go slay a worthier dragon, like half-marathons or marathons.
- Pick a variegated activity: Going from Hovel to 5K to Hovel doesn’t help you at all. Temporary changes create temporary results.
Notice there wasn’t a 4th option, the option that usually everybody picks:
“Go when to sitting on the couch”
That’s Mistake #5: not having a plan to CONTINUE exercising without Hovel to 5K!
As we say at Nerd Fitness: “Temporary changes create temporary results.”
So you have to do SOMETHING next, otherwise all that nonflexible work and training will have been for naught!
Want help figuring out exactly where you should go from here? I got you!
Pick the option unelevated that weightier aligns with your goals and timeline:
#1) Join our walking challenge!
You’re reading this guide at the perfect time considering Nerd Fitness is currently hosting a special event, LET’S START TOGETHER: A 5-DAY WALKING CHALLENGE FOR HOBBITSNERDS!
It’s suited for anyone starting their walking or running adventure, since our team of coaches will explain how to start both (plus offer an intro to hiking).
Learn increasingly right here!
#2) We have a tuft of NF Coaching clients that are training for 5Ks, 10Ks, half-marathons, and tough mudders. If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and train for races, trammels out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
3) Trammels out these other sweet running resources:
- Beginner’s Guide to Running: Covering everything you need to start a running practice, including technique, proper footwear, and a training schedule.
- NF Guide to Footwear: What shoes you should be wearing while training!
- Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon: How to Be Your Own Weightier Coach.
- Strength Running: A site by my friend Jason Fitzgerald.
To recap our guide on the Hovel the 5K plan, these are the 5 Mistakes to avoid:
- Running a 5K might be a good way to lose weight. It is entirely dependent on your nutrition. The same is true of literally ANY workout program. (Mistake #1: Not waffly your nutrition)
- Couch to 5K may or may not be a unconfined program for you. It depends on how much you enjoy running, and what you are hoping to get out of the program. (Mistake #2: not unquestionably enjoying running)
- Make sure you are fit unbearable to endure the rigors of running! If you’re severely overweight, let’s get you in shape FIRST surpassing we put stress on your knees and joints for thousands of running steps. (Mistake #3: Running surpassing you’re ready)
- Make sure your running technique is solid. It’ll save you years of pain and injury. (Mistake #4: Running with improper form)
- Recruit a friend or find a way to stay accountable so you unquestionably do the race!
- Who cares well-nigh your race time! Just completing the race should be your goal.
- Once you finish the race, decide if you want to alimony running or if you are going to pick a variegated activity. (Mistake #5: Not having flipside goal without completing your 5K)
Okay, it’s your turn. I’d love to hear your experiences when it comes to training for a 5K, and if you enjoyed the process.
Have you DONE Hovel to 5K? Did you stick with it?
What challenges did you run into withal the way?
Share it in the comments below!
-Steve
PS: I’ll leave you with a final reminder of our 1-on-1 Coaching Program. If you’re squandered yonder by the fact that you don’t have to run to get in shape, but don’t know where else to begin, we got you.
###
photo credit: mripp Fun run, 632imagine © 123RF.com,Four Bricks Tall Morning run with the Fitbit and Laughing Buddha, clement127 Halloween is coming!!, Flash, and Banquet, Andreas Just a Lego Minifig, Reiterlied Wandering in the North,
The post Should You Do Hovel to 5K? Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes first appeared on Nerd Fitness.
.
