Importance of Keeping Easy Days Easy

Importance of Keeping Easy Days Easy

Chelsea Hall, PT

Fit For Life Physical Therapy

One of the simplest, but often hardest things to follow with training, is keeping your easy days easy!  Intervals, tempos, hill sprints, and long runs are meant to make you faster by breaking down your muscles and teaching your body to fight through the burning feeling of lactic acid.  This makes it vital for your easy days to be easy. 

Slow, easy runs or walks bring oxygen filled blood to your muscles and heal the micro-tears that hard efforts create.  If you push the pace too hard on your easy days, you are creating more damage versus allowing your muscles to heal.  You can never run too slow on your recovery days, only too fast.

•         Running or walking too fast on your easy days also can cause you to push too hard prior to a workout.  This may cause you not to get the full benefits come workout day as your body is fatigued and not recovered. 
•         Running or walking too fast on your easy days also can cause you to push too hard after a hard workout when your muscles are the most damaged and vulnerable to injury.  One of the easiest ways to get injured is running too fast after a hard effort.

There are several ways to keep your easy days easy.  A general rule of thumb is making sure your pace is two minutes slower per mile than your marathon pace.  Another way is to choose a running route that you are familiar with, ditch the watch, listen to your body, and run at a pace that is light and easy feeling to you.  You should be able to keep a conversation going with a friend on an easy day run.

With this block of training, focus on keeping your easy days easy and you will notice that your hard days will become your fastest days yet!

Fit For Life Physical Therapy cares for people of all activity levels - to help prevent, recover from, or rehabilitate sports & orthopedic injuries.  We are proud to move people every day.

Please visit our website https://www.fitforlifephysicaltherapy.com/, email us at info@fitforlifephysicaltherapy.com, or call or text us at any of the phone numbers for our three convenient locations inside Fleet Feet/FrontRunner stores:

Polaris:  1270 East Powell Road Lewis Center, Ohio 43035 ~ 614-981-2065

Upper Arlington:  1344 West Lane Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43221 ~ 614-981-1979

New Albany:  5792 North Hamilton Road, Columbus, Ohio 43230 ~ 614-581-7441