Running progressions are an underrated and effective method for your running training. But what exactly are progression runs? What do you gain from increasing your running? And how do you sensibly integrate them into your training plan? In this post you will find out:
Increases in running – What are improvement runs?
Running progressions are short stages in which you accelerate your pace to just below your maximum. Strictly speaking, they are short submaximal sprints that you do before or after a run or a competition.
Before a competition, increases will help you fully warm up your legs and improve blood circulation. It will also prepare you mentally to run fast. Increases also improve your neuromuscular efficiency as a runner.
After a run, progression runs serve as neuromuscular training to increase your speed as quickly as possible and improve your running economy.
Technically, progression runs are not speed training, but they prepare you optimally for it and complement it very well. Although your heart rate increases as you run uphill runs, the primary adaptation through uphill runs occurs at the neuromuscular level.
What do you gain from increasing your running?
Increases in running bring you a variety of benefits for your running economy and training. The following improvements result from increases about 10 minutes before your running training or competition:
- increased maximum speed when running
- improved leg stability
- Improving running economy and efficiency
- slight reduction in the load on the cardiovascular system
Plus, progressions are a perfect way to prepare your body and mind for interval training and tempo endurance running. Due to its short duration, the strain on your musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems is lower than, for example, with proper speed training and therefore offers good preparation. By paying attention to very good running technique during the progression runs, you can train optimal movement sequences in advance and can potentially reduce your risk of injury.
How do you design progression runs correctly?
If you want to incorporate increases into your training, you can do them before your run or after a run. If you want to run increments before training, then a thorough warm-up is essential, as you will run very quickly during exercise.
Typically you complete 3-10 increases of 60-150m in one unit.
To progress, start by jogging lightly for a few steps. Then increase your speed to around 80-90% of your maximum possible pace. After about 15-25 steps you should have reached your target speed.
Once you have reached your target speed of 80-90% of your maximum, you maintain the pace for another 10-30 steps before slowly slowing down again and running at an easy pace. You don’t stop abruptly, but rather allow your speed to gradually slow down and return to your original level.
A critical point in the improvement runs is clean running form. Since you force neuromuscular adaptations with increases, an almost perfect running style is essential here. Otherwise, you will get used to incorrect movement sequences, which in turn will have a negative impact on your running economy.
The goal of progression runs is not to exhaust you. If you feel tired after the increases, then you either did too many or did them too close to the maximum.
How often do increases run?
So you have now learned how to run increments correctly and what they bring you.
But how often and how much can you integrate increases into your training?
As a beginner runner, it is best to start with weekly increases at the beginning of a run. Over time you can increase the frequency up to 2-3x/week.
If you are more advanced, I would also like to recommend increases as part of the warm-up before your interval or tempo training or before a competition.
As you progress, you can even incorporate them here and there during or after your long run.
Conclusion
Progression runs are a great way to improve your running economy, run more efficiently, and prepare for speed training. If you, as a beginner, want to start with improvements, follow these steps:
- Start with 3 increases of 60m once a week.
- Gradually increase to 3-5 increments of 80-100m or 5-10 increments of 60-80m within your session.
- If necessary, add additional runs per week.
- Also use increases in the warm-up before your interval and tempo training.
- Make sure your running technique is almost perfect during the progression runs.
