The most common mistakes amateur runners make

Hi!

If I ask you ‘What is the most common mistakes amateur runners make?’, how can you answer that question?

First of all, how can I call it a mistake?

If it’s a ball sport, there is an error.

However, officially speaking, there is no error in long distance running and full marathon. There is an error in 4x100m relay and there is a foul in throwing events and jump events. But there is no error or foul in long distance running and full marathon.

Then how can I call it a mistake?

Well, that’s plain and simple. I call it a mistake because you decrease your potential performance a lot. In this world, sometimes someone who trains smarter than you do beats you nevertheless you train harder than he does.

And it doesn’t make sense to me. I always want you to get better results if you train harder than someone else. Justice must always win.

So, today I want to tell you the most common mistakes amateur runners make, so that you can avoid it.

Right now, I’ll give you a conclusion. The most common mistakes that amateur runners make is ‘Only training hard and easy and there is nothing in-between’. Period.

Many amateur runners believe that the harder you train, the better results you get. However, they cannot train hard everyday mentally and physically.

So, they train easily between hard workouts. They train as hard as possible and then they train easily and once they are ready for another hard workout, they go for hard workouts and then they train easily and on and on and on. Simply, they repeat it.

Most amateur runners miss one fact that most of our improvements come from basic workouts, in other words, non-hard and easy workouts, in other words moderate workouts.

Now, I want you to think about this. How can we get faster by training?

Is this a strange question?

Everyone thinks that that is normal, but can you explain the mechanism?

If you cannot explain the mechanism, you miss one big thing about training.

I know good medicines taste bitter but does that mean ‘the harder you train, the better results you get?’. Absolutely not.

Our bodies adapt to various stimulus.

For example, in my town Kyoto, the temperature reaches 40 degrees in the Summer and in the Winter the temperature reaches minus 3 degrees. So, automatically my body gets stronger to heat in the Summer and stronger to cold in the Winter.

My body adapts to stimulus.

Basically, our bodies adapt to stimulus whatever the stimulus is.

However, there are three conditions to adapt to a stimulus.

First one is that the stimulus is not so intense for our genes. For example, it is still possible to adapt to the temperature from 30 degrees to 40 degrees but it is impossible to adapt to 100 degrees.

In the Winter too. If the temperature is 0 degrees, my body adapts to it and in the end of the Winter, I don’t feel as cold as I feel in the beginning of the Winter. However, my body cannot adapt to minus 100 degrees. It’s impossible to survive.

Training is the same. The more intense the training stimulus is, the harder our bodies adapt to it while the less intense the training stimulus is, the easier our bodies adapt to it.

However, we also need to think about this. If the training stimulus is so gentle, it is easy to adapt to it and as a result what will happen?

If the training stimulus is too gentle, nothing happens.

Imagine, what will happen if the temperature is 20 degrees all the time. My body gets stronger to heat? Or my body gets stronger to cold?

Neither.

Just nothing happens. Too easy training works nothing.

So, training stimulus should not be too easy and not too hard. The best one is moderate intensity workouts. Approximately, 80% of your improvements come from moderate workouts.

The first condition is that the intensity of stimulus is not too high.

The second condition is repeating. It’s true that my body gets stronger to heat in the Summer. But what if I go to Malaysia only three days in the Winter in Japan?

Does my body get stronger to heat?

Probably not. Maybe just a little bit. But it’s like nothing. Three days of heat stimulation is not enough.

Training is the same. If you want your body to adapt to a training stimulus, you need to repeat it.

And here’s the truth, the harder the workout is, the harder it is to repeat it. And also, this is because of the third condition.

The third condition is, you need to recover enough after you give a certain training stimulus to your body.

Otherwise, your body does not get stronger but weak. Some people will never get faster because the power of getting stronger and the power of getting weaker are in balance. The two opposite powers have completely the same power. That’s why you don’t get weaker or stronger, but just maintain your performance nevertheless you train hard.

Your recovery ability always should beat the training stimulus. With that being said, you need to increase your recovery ability first. You can achieve that by doing a lot of moderate runs and easy runs.

From this point of view, you need moderate runs and easy runs.

Here’s a simple logic. The harder or more intense your workouts are, the less you can do. But if you want to increase your recovery ability, you need to increase your training volume. Never forget about it.

By the way, this law works also in informational field, in other words, in psychological field.

Basically, the more obstacles you attack, the stronger you get mentally.

However, some people are completely broken down, for example, some people get PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

In my high school days, a few hundred runners trained together in training camps in the Summer or Winter. And usually, one or two of them suddenly shut down. Like they stopped moving at all, they stopped speaking at all, they could not look at someone’s eyes properly, they stopped expressing their emotions, they don’t laugh, they don’t move any their facial muscles.

That was overload of informational stimulus (psychological stimulus) for them.

But don’t worry, after they take a rest for a while, they recover mentally and usually they got stronger than before.

But if that kind of situation lasts longer without proper recovery, they get broken down completely. Maybe, they will never want to run again or worse they cannot go to school anymore. Their bodies are OK but they are completely broken down mentally.

For everything, you need stimulus and recovery.

Basically, a mother is recovery and a father is stimulus. If only a father is strict and harsh and a mother is not soft and kind, kids cannot grow up properly. They will never get harmony.

And if only a mother is soft and kind and a father does not give kids any stimulus, kids will never get strong enough.

A father tries to get kids to overcome many challenges and then kids recover under their mother’s love, this is the best combination.

This law works for everything.

If a schoolteacher is strict and harsh, parents should be nice and soft otherwise kids cannot recover properly.

If a husband works hard like a mad dog, his wife should be nice and soft.

But what if a husband and a wife work outside of a house?

Well, this makes a current society more complicated. But the answer is very simple, at least in Japan men do not work as hard as before because they need to save the energy to fight against wives after work. So, they cannot work as hard as before anymore. I’m wondering who wins now?

100 years ago, being a housewife was just normal thing and nowadays being a housewife is a dream job for women. There’s no wonder why many women want to marry me because I can take care of at least 5 housewives.

Anyway, having harmony is absolute law of this planet or universe. There should be day and night. There should be sun and moon. There should be stimulus and recovery. There should be a fatherly love and motherly love. There should be women and men. So, this World is in peace and harmony.

From a practical point of view.

I explained why only training hard and easy is a big mistake theoretically so far. From now on, I also explain this from a practical point of view.

From a practical point of view, there are basic abilities and specific abilities. The specific ability is very simple. If you are a half marathoner, how fast you can run a half marathon is your specific ability. If you are a marathoner, how fast you can run a marathon is your specific ability. And if you are an 800m runner, how fast you can run an 800m race is your specific ability, nothing else.

Then what is the basic ability?

The basic ability is how fast you are able to run daily without suffering or feeling hard. In other words, if you feel hard or suffer, you cannot run daily.

If you do hard workouts, it takes 2-3 days to recover while if you run without feeling hard or suffering, you can recover within 12-24 hours or I would say if you sleep one night, you can recover fully, in other words, if you cannot recover at one night it is too intense or it is too long for your body now.

If you repeat this kind of workout, gradually you can run faster and longer without feeling hard and suffering.

I call this kind of workouts moderate intensity and moderate volume.

Again, what moderate intensity is and moderate volume is depends on a person. For me, approximately 30km a day is moderate volume and 3:40/km is moderate intensity. But yeah for most of amateur runners, it is absolutely not moderate intensity or moderate volume.

I know people in your country are smart. But there are many people who do not understand what I’m trying to do in Japan.

I always try to get amateur runners faster by giving them proper guidance for themselves, not for me.

But a lot of people say that what I’m saying is useless because I’m too talented comparing them

It’s not true at all. I’ve never said that someone should have copied what I have done.

Rather, I always say ‘Find what the moderate intensity and moderate volume for you now. And then try to increase your moderate intensity and volume over the years.

Usually, it takes 4-6 weeks to go for the next step. One step is approximately 5 seconds per kilometer and 2km a day.

For example, if you run 50km a week regularly now, and your fastest pace without feeling hard is 6 minutes per kilometer, your moderate volume is 7km and your moderate pace is 6 minutes per kilometer.

If you repeat doing a 8km at 6:00m/k pace, over the next two months, you could do a 10km at 5:50/km pace with the same feeling and fatigue. This is the basic ability improvement.

If your basic ability improves, automatically you get faster when you are running at hard effort and the maximal effort.

I’m not saying that you don’t need any hard workouts or doing a hard workout is a bad thing.

In fact, I usually put hard workouts once your next target race gets close.

However, always basic training should come first and also you need to understand if your basic ability is lower than your rival, no matter how hard you train, there is no chance to beat him or her. The only chance you win is that he or she has bad luck and you have good luck. That’s the only case you win.

If you do not rely on luck, you need to increase your basic ability first. There is no other way.

Also, you need to understand this.

The beginner you are, the more you could improve by doing basic training. And the higher level you are at, the less you could improve by doing basic training.

For example, if you are a 2 hours half marathoner, you could get dramatically faster by doing only basic training while if you are already a 65 minutes half marathoner for male or 72 minutes half marathoner for female, it is a bit difficult to get faster only by doing basic training.

In that case, I also put a lot of basic workouts in the fundamental period.

However, hard workouts play a more role than 2 hours half marathoners.

Now, let’s make our thoughts clearer.

Again, approximately 80% of your improvements come from moderate workouts. If you are now 30 years old male runner and already ran half marathon 65 minutes sharp, already 70% out of 80% improvements are done.

Probably, you can still improve the rest of 10%, but I think that hard workouts have the same weight with the moderate workouts. So, both types of workouts are equally important for you.

While if you are same 30 years old male runner and ran a half marathon 2 hours sharp one month ago, then, approximately only 10% out of the 80% improvements which come from basic training are done. And probably 5% out of 20% improvements which come from hard workouts are done.

You still have your potential performance 70% in moderate workouts and 15% in hard workouts.

Which one has more potential?

Even a 10 years old boy will understand this, right?

Now, I simplify the problem. The reality is more individual.

However, approximately the reality looks like this. There is no exception. We still need to consider how effective easy runs and there is a small difference between runners. But mostly same.

It’s like men are stronger than women. Of course, there is a small difference between people.

However, if we train men and women in the same way, always men get stronger than women. So, if we approach moderate workouts and hard workouts, always the group which does moderate runs get faster than the group which does only easy and hard workouts. There is no exception, no matter which country you live, which nationality you have, which sex you have, which religion you believe, which skin color you have.

Long story short, the most common mistake amateur runners make is doing only easy workouts and hard workouts nothing in-between. So, do more moderate workouts.

Lastly, if you want to run faster dramatically without any injuries and overtraining, please click here to download my free e-book 'The 3 factors you get faster dramatically without any injuries and overtraining' and read it through because it'll help you so much.