How Slow Are You Able To Run And Still Aerobically Benefit?

I believe it is 75% HR, but this is highly hard to judge, considering the HR can vary day to day.

Well i thought Hadds belief was 60% everyday except workout days? I could be wrong.

It depends on your age really and training history.

ANY running at ANY pace will give you an aerobic benefit. Whether it will be enough is a whole other matter.

If you're a D1 runner or elite HS runner and you're doing base building and all your miles are ridiculously slow, then you're not going maximum benefit, although you are benefitting a good amount. If you're training to run a 3:30 marathon, than you can get away with running too slow a lot of the time.

If you're in "season" for D1 or elite HS running, then sure the day before and after a very intense track session, your runs should be ridiculously easy and comfortable. "Off-season," if you did a pretty tiring but not intense 4 mile tempo run, the next day you don't need to jog for recovery, but a lower-end quality aerobic session should be fine.

helpmeout! wrote:

It depends on your age really and training history.

ANY running at ANY pace will give you an aerobic benefit. Whether it will be enough is a whole other matter.

If you're a D1 runner or elite HS runner and you're doing base building and all your miles are ridiculously slow, then you're not going maximum benefit, although you are benefitting a good amount. If you're training to run a 3:30 marathon, than you can get away with running too slow a lot of the time.

If you're in "season" for D1 or elite HS running, then sure the day before and after a very intense track session, your runs should be ridiculously easy and comfortable. "Off-season," if you did a pretty tiring but not intense 4 mile tempo run, the next day you don't need to jog for recovery, but a lower-end quality aerobic session should be fine.

What pace is a jog tho? What percentage of your maximum heart rate is your resting heart rate?

That does make sense what you said. Very slow will benefit you, but not nearly as much as a higher heart rate could

What does Aerobically benefit mean?

People give all sorts of advice which they think is scientific, but is nothing of the sort.

kjaodjfaioj wrote:

What does Aerobically benefit mean?

People give all sorts of advice which they think is scientific, but is nothing of the sort.

OP is probably referring to helping you run

5:30 - 6:00 min per km

That is 9:40 per mile. Wouldn't heart rate be the decider?? Everyones heart rate is different at different paces

If I am a 17:30 5k/4:4x miler, would training at 8:00-8:25 pace be too slow to still gain aerobic endurance? Mileage is going to end up pretty high, around 80, and I always throw in tempo in the middle of my long runs during summer base, plus strides every few runs.

Everything helps, no matter how slow. Some things help more. Very hard workouts help a lot. High milage helps a lot. Shorter medium effort runs don't help as much. It is better to run 50 miles per week than 40, even if you have to slow down to do it. It is better to hit 90% of your workouts than 75%. Be sure you recover enough to do that. Unless you are running 70 mpw, I'd make the "easy" runs harder by adding distance rather than increasing pace.

You can walk and aerobically benefit.

Read 80/20 by Fitzgerald. It was a good piece. He indicates that slow running is great and most runs should be approached with the mindset that you could keep going for 2+ hrs, as long as they are interspersed with hard efforts every once in a while.

Aerobics wrote:

You can walk and aerobically benefit.

Beat me to it.

You certainly aren't making yourself any less aerobically fit by walking.

Think of it this way: Say you lived a mile from the track where you workout. Would you walk or drive there? Unless you are pressed for time and need to get there and back as quickly as possible, you'd walk. Hopefully you wouldn't think "I have to jog at least 9:00/mile in order for this to be worth anything."

For most athletes in normal training, you won't see any benefits below 60% HR max.

White Fox wrote:

What pace? I feel like my recovery and even some regular runs pace is too slow.

HADD(the late John Walsh) describes in detail on old Letsrun threads that distance running for events above the track mile are 90-100% driven by development of the cells in the slow twitch muscle fibers.

Running at 70-80% of HRmax is the best range to stimulate these benefits while gradually moving the lactate threshold runs up in small increments.

Search HADD on this site and read the 22 page thread where he describes the research and his coaching experiences.

Correction, meant to say read the 22 page description by Hadd attached to the thread.

What about distance? Will doubling to reach 8 miles (4 and 4) give a runner a similar benefit, granted the runs would be accomplished at an equal pace, as running 8 miles continuously?

How fast could u go with walking all day and 1 or even 2 aerobic threshold runs a week? I don't know about that one. What does walking do?