‘Slow and steady’ better for New Year’s running resolutions: research

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Does your New Years resolution include training for a big race, perhaps even a marathon? New research shows the common practice of “over-loading” will actually hurt you more than it will help.

Just don’t push yourself too hard, that’s the advice from Alexandra Coates, an accomplished triathlete and a PhD candidate in the University of Guelph’s Human Health and Nutritional Sciences Department.

“For the longest time, we had this idea that functional-overreaching is what was required for an increase in performance. We really thought that you had to push really hard and then recover and adapt from that,” says Coates.

WATCH: How to stick to your New Year’s resolutions

 

But she says her research actually the opposite.

“All you really need is that acute fatigue but not the actual decrease in performance and functional-overreaching,” she adds. “And I do think that’s the biggest misconception. We don’t need these massive loads in order to improve.”

She says overload training says it’s something both rookies and experienced runners can struggle with.

 

“It can be bad. People can really overdo it, or it can just be not as good as say a slightly-less, a lesser increase in training mode,” Coates adds.

Her research showed athletes who followed a consistent training regime and didn’t have the same overload stress, showed more improvement.

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