U14 Fitness

The way to improve performance is to stress your body, forcing it to do a bit more each time, but not too much more. Your body will adapt to new stresses, and will change itself, reorganize itself,  to establish a new balanced state. In other words: push your body every time a bit more, and it will get stronger and faster. That's the way to train.

Excess stress however will produce injury. In general, you should aim at running 10% more in total distance every week, and 10% longer for individual runs from week to week. Then, once every few weeks, you do not increase the distance, let your body catch (see 'plateaus' below)

Stress equals training. In small amounts, stress causes a temporary imbalance in your body (in your muscles, in your heart). In response to this, your body reacts during rest and becomes stronger and more protected. After time, the amount needs to be greater and greater to produce further improvement, i.e., to become fitter and fitter, faster and stronger.

Rest is essential. Your body can only repair itself and readjust when it is resting. The rest period must be long enough to allow for almost complete recovery. Even 24 hours help and may be enough.

Running attracts hardworking, goal-oriented people who appreciate that the sport rewards honest effort. The more they put in, the more they get out. However, be careful, your heart may be trained a lot harder than your muscles and your bones; these will break first.

Some pointers:

• Be honest

Be honest about your fitness level. You should be able to carry on a conversation in running practices (but don't talk too much either please :)  )

• Easy does it

Increase by about 10% per week.

• Plan for plateaus

Don't increase the distance very single week. Build to a comfortable level, then plateau there for a week or two, or actually drop a little, then go back up the next week.

• Don't run too much or too often

Major cause of injury: increasing the speed of training runs too much and too often. You must also balance fast short runs with slow long ones.

• Running form:

Poor running form is another cause for injuries. Keep your body straight, don't land on toes, don't carry arms too high, don't swing elbows back too much

• Be careful with hills

Hill training is great for building strength and resistance, but hills place huge stress on your body: shorten your stride when going up, lean forward a bit, chest out, head up; When down down, remember the forces placed on your body are much higher. Tilt body forward to keep it perpendicular to the slope, avoiding too much stress on heels. Be very careful if hill training.

• Be smart about injuries.

Those who interrupt running program at the first sing of injury will recover fast. Those who ignore pain, may suffer serious injury. Don'r run though pain. Summer is too short.

• Walking breaks:

When training  runs, always use the walk-run approach, anywhere between 10-1 and 5-1 ratios. I.e., run for 10 minutes, walk for 1. That 1 minute walking allows the body to recover, and allows you to run much longer distances. It works wonders.

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