You want yours Increase running volume, but don’t know how to do it correctly? Would you like to know how many km you should run per week? Then you will find help in this article. You will know:
Why is the right approach to increasing running volumes so important?
Increasing your running volume too quickly increases the risk of injury and therefore represents the greatest danger to your running training. The vast majority of running injuries and overuse occur because you do too much too quickly and don’t give your body the chance to adapt to the demands of you to him.
How quickly and how much you can increase your running volume is individual and depends on various factors. Unfortunately, we cannot set a fixed number of kilometers per week for everyone that always works, but with this article I will give you some guidelines and help you to correctly assess how quickly you can increase your training volume and how many km per week you run you can and should.
Increase your running volume – how many km do you run per week?
So that you can now find out how many kilometers you should and are allowed to run per week and how quickly you can increase this number, we will look at various factors and case studies below that determine how many weekly kilometers your body can tolerate.
Increase running volume as a beginner
If you’re just starting out in your running career, you won’t be able to increase your running volume particularly quickly. You should probably initially stick to small amounts for several weeks and slowly get used to the new stress.
Because your musculoskeletal system is not yet adapted to the strain of running. And that can take several months.
In my training plan for beginners, I usually work with relatively few km per week, alternating between running and walking intervals. The running intervals then gradually become longer and longer before the walking intervals shorten. Overall, the weekly distances are initially between 7 and 15 km per week and are only increased slowly.
Increase running volume with low training volume
If you have had a low training volume in the last few months and years, i.e. only running a few kilometers per week per session, then you are at a higher risk of injury than a person who is more experienced. Your body does not yet tolerate a high training volume. Runners who run more kilometers per week are typically better able to cope with an increase in running volume than people with little training volume.
The following overview serves as a guide, depending on the km per week:
- <8km/week: maximum 50% weekly increase in running volume
- 10-16km/week: maximum 35% weekly increase in running volume
- 17-32km/week: maximum 25% weekly increase in running volume
- 33-48km/week: maximum 20% weekly increase in running volume
- 49-64km/week: maximum 15% weekly increase in running volume
- 65-80km/week: maximum 10% weekly increase in running volume
- >80km/week: maximum 7% weekly increase in running volume
Increase running volume after an injury
If you’re recovering from a sports injury, you’ll also need to be more conservative about increasing your running volume. Every sports injury massively increases the risk of a subsequent injury. That’s why your weekly training volume should initially be kept low after an injury or illness.
Increase running volume with speed training & intervals
When we talk about increasing the amount of running we can’t ignore the intensity of the training. Not every 5km run is equally stressful. If you suddenly incorporate intervals and speed training into your running week, your body will need more time and regeneration to recover.
That’s why there is a guiding principle that you should always keep in mind:
Always increase either speed or distance. Never both at the same time.
This means that you always run slower for longer distances for the first time and that you do not increase the pace and the distance at the same time within a unit.
If you start new tempo training and intervals or significantly increase your workload, you should not increase your running volume at the same time, but rather maintain it or even reduce it a little.
This way you reduce the risk of injury and ensure that your body can adapt to the new stresses.
Individual factors
There are many other individual factors that determine how quickly you can increase your running volume. These include, for example:
- How quickly your body gets used to the strain. In particular, musculoskeletal adaptation is most relevant here to prevent injuries.
- Your running economy and biomechanics
- Your training history, e.g. the increase in your running volumes in the past, your reaction to changes in your weekly kilometers and long runs completed so far
- Past injuries, overuse, and feelings of overtraining or overreaching
- Genetic factors that you can’t change. Some runners are simply naturally more “robust” and can tolerate greater increases in running volume better than others.
- Your ability to regenerate
- Nutrition, sleep, everyday stress and other activities
The 10% rule: fact or fiction?
The 10% rule is often given as a general guideline for increasing the amount of running. I know a lot of running coaches and training plans that are based exactly on the 10% rule.
This assumes that a 10% increase in your training volume per week is “safe”.
In fact, there is no evidence to support this rule. It is also not known where this rule comes from.
With a rule as fixed as the 10% rule comes some difficulties:
- the individual factors of the runners cannot be taken into account
- initial increases in running volumes are extremely low (10% of 0 is still zero and, for example, 10% of 2 weekly kilometers would mean 200m by which you increase your weekly running volume)
- It does not take into account any increase in intensity if, for example, you start new tempo runs and/or intervals
Of course, the 10% rule can still work for medium-sized runners and average runners. I just advise against sticking to this rule at extremely low or extremely high levels and I always recommend monitoring your individual response to increasing your running volume.
In practice, the increase in weekly running volume can be between 5-30% every 1-3 weeks.
How many km per week for which goal?
In order to determine the correct number of kilometers per week, many people base their running goal on their goal. But unfortunately we cannot completely generalize this either. Some people prepare excellently for a marathon with 50 kilometers per week, others need 70-80. This again depends on the factors mentioned above.
Conclusion
Your weekly running volume and how quickly you can increase it is a very individual matter. Some people tolerate increases in weekly mileage better than others. We can summarize the basic principles:
- Beginners should increase their running volume more slowly than advanced runners.
- After an injury break, you should give yourself extra time before increasing the number of km you run per week.
- The lower your training volume per week, the higher the percentage increase can be. The absolute increase still remains low.
- The 10% rule can work as a rough guide – but depending on your weekly mileage, it can be far too low or far too high.
- How quickly you can improve also depends on your training history, running economy, everyday stress, regeneration, genetic factors, your personal adaptation time and past injuries.
- Never increase distance and distance at the same time, but only one of the two.
