What is the Science Behind Running Every Day?

I do know that. But I think that Shorter was speaking after the fact-that in hindsight did he need to do more than those sessions. I don't believe for a minute that he said it was exactly the way to train, but perhaps it would have been enough. And perhaps he had done more than necessary.

In fact, it gets right to the heart of this post. How much is enough? What can you get by on? Does the 1500m runner whose main workout was 12x400@ 60 always lose to the guy who did 14x400? And how about the guy who does 8x400 but at 58?

These are fantastically interesting questions, and as other posters have said, everyone is still an individual case.

1234354 wrote:

tracknoob wrote:

The point is to make sure you get recovery days in at least once every week.

Why does 7 seem to be the magic number?

I give my runners microcycles of 10-12 days.

Most of us have lives built around a seven-day cycle, because of our work or school. Many pros have 8-day, 9-day, 10-day or 12-day cycles. If I didn't have a day job, I'd probably take every 9th day off. But I actually take a day off every week or every other week, because that fits my life better.

As for the benefit of running every day, it has to be running economy. If we are only interested in cardiovascular benefit, we can replace some of the easy runs with biking, swimming, elliptical or other cardio exercises. (And some of the less durable runners indeed do that.) But running is a motor skill, and as such, the more you practice, the more efficient you become. You cannot replace this benefit with other exercises.

I know some people on this board hate Matt Fitzgerald. But he has a few interesting articles on the benefits of "recovery runs." This should give you at least some food for thought.

I remember reading about when John Walker was visiting Peter Snell in California and Peter showed him his training log. Walker saw many days that were blankand he asked Peter about it who replied, " Some days I just couldn't be bothered." (to run).

Math whiss wrote:

Eee wrote:

That is incorrect.

I am correct. Any time you aren't running you're recovering. If you spent two hours running today then you spent 22 hours recovering.

I disagree. Anytime you are not running does not mean you are recovery.

If I stop running, and then go out and ride hard on the bike for 3 hours and follow it up with some full court basketball in the evening for an hour, I only spent around 18 hours recovering.

Perhaps you meant to say anytime you aren't being active or are resting you are recovering?

LM wrote:

Math whiss wrote:

I am correct. Any time you aren't running you're recovering. If you spent two hours running today then you spent 22 hours recovering.

I disagree. Anytime you are not running does not mean you are recovery.

If I stop running, and then go out and ride hard on the bike for 3 hours and follow it up with some full court basketball in the evening for an hour, I only spent around 18 hours recovering.

Perhaps you meant to say anytime you aren't being active or are resting you are recovering?

Okay true. Though some of your joints that were worn down on the run might be recovering while you're on the bike.

kj wrote: Can anyone answer the science behind having to run EVERY single day?

I suppose you're fishing for an exercise physiological explanation, but statistically the best runners in the world not only run every day, but usually twice a day. For what it's worth, this doesn't mean that running every day is best for you, but anyway.

Playing the Devil's advocate, here's a link to a study in which it was shown that certain physiological variables are enhanced to a greater extent by training twice as much every second day compared to regular training every day. Caveat emptor.

Good discussion, good points made. Especially eurodonkey has me thinking that I keep quitting weight training because I start it wrong.

Here are my thoughts on 7 days vs 6.

I don't think the PT who asked the question about 7 days could have given a satisfactory answer about 6 days. Reasons yes, convincing argument no. Anybody can make a reasonable-sounding "scientific" argument for one or the other. Just like some crank doctor can measure some "markers" in a lab and then "explain" why running high mileage causes heart disease. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I like to run 7 days, but am totally willing to take days off to rest some specific body part. If it's just general running fatigue, more sleep and easier easy days does the trick. Another point is that doing a cycle of three weeks higher mileage and one fallback week leads to some predictably bad running every other week. Just run through it, the in-between weeks are a joy! No day off required.

If the argument for a day off is injury prevention, I don't think it's necessarily helpful. During one harsh winter I got a bad case of plantar fasciitis in both feet by training 100% on the roads. When the weather improved I also healed said injury by running better surfaces while increasing mileage and mostly 7 days per week. Just one example, but I am not convinced that a day off is needed for avoiding or healing overuse injuries. Slower paces and some PT are enough.

The other kind of injury I get a lot is from running hard workouts too hard. While I agree that taking a day off to recover will allow really attacking the next hard workout, I see this as a problem not a solution. Running the workout on tired legs limits the benefit a little but also protects me from myself.

About a decade ago there was a guy who won US 20k or 25k champs who ran 120 miles a week in 5 day weeks.

I would say the majority of runners are chronically overtrained and most don't reach their potential because they don't take days off when PLANNED. If you take a day off when you think you need it you're already too late

Alan

One guy winning a single championship on five days a week training doesn't offset all the other guys who won all the other championships on seven days training. There are always outliers and few 3-6 day types are doing anything close to 120 mpw. But it's interesting. Who was it and when?

I can't remember his name. It was a big story, and it was heavily reported he only ran 5 days a week.

By all means if you are still improving go 7 days a week, but there are a lot of chronically injured and tired runners out there who would benefit from 6d wk

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

It was a big story, and it was heavily reported he only ran 5 days a week.

Man bites dog.

I remember reading that Tegla Laroupe (I think it was her), ran 2 times a day Tuesday through Friday. Then she would train Saturday morning and then the next session was Monday afternoon. So even though only Sunday was a rest day, the break was closer to 36 hours. Genius.

Resting one day a week is literally an inspired idea! (see Exodus 20:8-11). The Person who originally thought of it is infinitely wiser than any of us!

Yes, but is He a runner?

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:

I remember reading that Tegla Laroupe (I think it was her), ran 2 times a day Tuesday through Friday. Then she would train Saturday morning and then the next session was Monday afternoon. So even though only Sunday was a rest day, the break was closer to 36 hours. Genius.

Not quite. She had a morning run on Monday. But if this was a typical week, the rest was from 10am on Saturday to 9am on Monday.

100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, 10km running EVERY, SINGLE DAY!

Yes there is! In fact, taking a day off can inhibit your progress. With muscle fibers, when you are working at +75% of your VO2max you are recruiting type IIa muscle fibers, which when done often enough will increase the efficiency of type IIa mf to perform oxidative glycolysis (via mitochondrial density/size/myoglobin efficiency. Taking A SINGLE day off has been shown to both decrease and regress this effect on type iia muscle fibers.

There's more to it that I'm not talking about, but open up an exercise physiology textbook and find out yourself.

This sort of reminds me of the doubling argument.

Q: Why run twice a day?

A: I run more miles

Q: Why run seven days a week?

A: I run more miles

Q: Why run more miles?

A: Because I race faster

Between age 30 and 45 I ran seven days a week. After age 45 I wasn't recovering so I went to every other day running but ran more miles on the days I did run. The result was faster age group times, but my fastest times came on seven day a week training.

I am not sure that 75% VO2 max is fast enough to recruit type IIa fibres. VO2 max is about 3k pace so 75% of that is pretty slow.