coachjayjohnson.com

The best resource for runners and running coaches

  • Home
  • Consistency Is Key Book
  • CIK Coaches Course
  • About
  • Contact

Aerobic Workouts: Introduction

January 2, 2021 by Jay Johnson

Developing the aerobic metabolism is the number one goal of any distance runner. Why? Take a look at the percent energy contributions from the following three metabolisms, keeping in mind that aerobic means “with oxygen.”

Distance Aerobic % Anaerobic % Phosphogen %
 800m  60%  35%  5%
 1,600m  82%*  18%  0-2%
 3,200m  90%  10%  0-2%
5,000m  95%  5% 0-2%

*There is a debate as to the exact percentage for the 1,600m, ranging from 80% to 85%.

The second key with the aerobic metabolism is that you can improve it year after year. This is why the best marathoners in the world tend to be older than the best sprinters in the world…and it’s why many masters runners, who come to running later in life, continue to run faster year after year.

The way I like to think about the aerobic metabolism is that you’re building your engine when you train aerobically. Now, you need a strong chassis to handle this engine (so LMLS and SAM work daily – videos here), but the key to your long term success as a runner, and the way you’ll run PRs at a variety of distances, is to continue to improve your aerobic system.

What follows are four fundamental aerobic workouts. They are presented in roughly the same progression that you would do the workouts, one per week for the busy adult and perhaps two per week for serious high school and collegiate athletes. The long run is the key aerobic workout of the week and I’m assuming that you’ll be doing a long run virtually every week that you’re training. [Read more…]

Filed Under: For Everyone, Training, Workouts Tagged With: aerobic metabolism, aerobic workouts, anaerobic metabolism, phosphogen, simple ain't easy

Easy Days and Hard Days

July 30, 2013 by CoachJay

I’ve been saying “Easy days Easy and Hard days Hard” to athletes for a good ten years.

What that means is that you need to run your easy days easy so that your hard days can be hard. You want to make every workout day a good one and so you can’t be running moderate pace on your recovery days (unless you’re world class and have a high training age, and even then you can only get away with doing this a couple of times a month).

Running your easy days easy so that you’re ready to run solid workouts on the hard days is a very simple concept, but as Thelonius Monk said, “Simple Ain’t Easy.”

Filed Under: For Everyone Tagged With: easy days easy, hard days hard, simple ain't easy, training age

powered by Typeform
Alt Text Here

Let’s Connect

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Library

© 2021 coachjayjohnson.com · Rainmaker Platform