I've been wondering, why it is that most of the running schedules have very few rest days and rarely more than one day at a time? I know that body builders leave two days to allow the muscles to repair properly.
Is one day off really enough after a long run?
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Running doesn't do as much damage to the muscles as bodybuilding. Muscle damage is a by-product of running but the whole aim of the sort of lifting done by bodybuilders. So bodybuilders will need more repair time - although I've come across a few who regularly train on alternate days and don't feel they're suffering for it.
Cross training can also enable you to train more than once a day as I sometimes train up to 3 times a day
Will
A 24 hour rest per week helps repair muscle damage and gives your muscles time to re-stock on glycogen levels. In bodybuilding, rest is essential for muscle growth ( muscles only grow when at total rest esp when asleep and pro bodybuilders need around 10 hours sleep per day).
Craig
I used to do a bit of body building when I was a student about 15 years ago we always did 2 2hr sessions a day with two days on, one day off. Oh to have so much free time!
I did a long run on Monday, swam 1km of crawl on Tuesday (normally I'd do half of it as breast stroke but I'm trying to protect my knees which are a bit dodgy) and woke up yesterday morning hardly able to move. Muscles acheing all over the place.
Certainly in no fit state to go for a run.
Hey Burnley, not always true of runners! This runner often takes two days off between hard sessions! In prep for the off-road marathon I've done, one of my goals was to avoid injury and my strategy was to listen to my body rather than follow the days in a set schedule. So for example, I sometimes took two days off after an interval session (hard), and sometimes after a long run, especially in the later stages when I was on my feet for a long time.
It's my impression that quite a lot of runners get injured by running because their schedule tells them to, regardless of how well recovered they feel.
It can be helpful to think of how many sessions a week of your running diary are 'hard' and how many normal or easy. So for example, in some weeks I had a hill session (hard), an interval session (hard) and a long run (hard), but I'd make sure I didn't do that two weeks in a row. It was a hard lesson for me, but age also slows recovery, howerver psyched you are!