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Dr. Joan Ullyot and boys sample the joys of a jog. Joan graduated from jogging to marathoning. |
Our fancy often turns
to dreams of past glories, to those years when our bodies did our will. The
morning air, the bright sun, the green trees recall days when only darkness
could end our play. We were giants -- if not in strength at least in
endurance. We knew what it was like to be a good animal. And we wonder if we
could ever be that way again.
The answer, of course, is yes. We
can walk or jog or run our way back to those days, those joys, that level of
fitness we used to know. To do this we have to know the fitness equation,
the answers to the questions, How fast? How far? How often?
HOW FAST?
Few people know how fast to train.
Most assume they must punish themselves to become fit. They think that
becoming an athlete is hard work. That just is not so. Fitness must be fun.
The rule is "train, don't strain." So the race for fitness should be
comfortable and enjoyable. Effort should be the measure, not speed, and your
body should tell you your proper pace, not the stopwatch.
I use the word "pace" deliberately.
It is a better word than speed. Speed has to do with numbers, statistics,
minutes-per-mile. Pace has to do with feelings and is not a matter of
precise mathematics. It has to do with adjectives like "easy" and "rash" and
"breathless" and headlong." But the adjective we are looking for is
"comfortable," and we find it by asking our bodies.
This seemingly unscientific idea
has a solid scientific basis in the theory of perceived exertion. Proposed
by Gunnar Borg in 1960, it states that the effort perceived by the body is
almost identical to that recorded by a machine. Borg discovered that body
perception is, in fact, superior to any single physiological determination.
| The
Borg scale starts at six (very, very light) and ends at 20 (very, very
hard). Adding a zero to the rating gives the usual pulse rate at that
level of activity. The walker, jogger or runner therefore aims at the
mid-range between light and hard, the area we perceive as comfortable.
This is a pace at which we could hold a conversation with a companion --
Bill Bowerman's "talk test." |
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Now, you might say that you
couldn't run across the room without being short of breath. Then don't.
Begin by walking and then work up to scout pace (alternating 50 steps
walking and 50 running). Finally, you will be able to jog continually, in
comfort. You will be able to put yourself on "automatic pilot" and enjoy
your thoughts and the countryside.
Listen to your body. Do not be a
blind and deaf tenant. Hear what your muscles and heart and lungs are
telling you. Above all, get in union with your body. Ride yourself as a
jockey does a horse, finally becoming one with it.
There will come times when the
sheer joy of this mysterious fusion, this wholeness will drive you to see
just what you can do. But this is unnecessary, for you now have the pace. Do
not push. You have found the groove. Stay in it.
Even when you have become
proficient and the comfortable pace becomes faster and faster, you must
still do the first 6 -10 minutes very slowly. You must allow the juices to
flow, the temperature to rise, the circulation to adapt. You must give the
body time to make all those marvelous, intricate adjustments that happen
when you finally set yourself in motion. When you do, you will experience
that warm sweat that goes with the onset of the second wind and get the
feeling that you just might spend the rest of the day running.
|
When I get into that second
wind, I settle down to my comfortable pace and let the body do the
thinking. My ground speed varies with the time of day (early morning
runs take one minute a mile longer) or with heat and humidity, but
effort will not. The identical thing happens when I run against a head
wind or up hills, or on those days when I am upset psychologically. But
whether the stopwatch says eight minutes a mile or 10, the pace is the
same. It is comfortable, and because my perceived exertion is always the
same, the effort is identical and the physiological benefits are
identical as well. |
Once you have begun this way,
success is assured. There is no need to rush, no need to hurry. ("Only the
sick and the ambitious," said Ortega, "are in a hurry.") Nor is there any
need to worry. When you run at a comfortable pace, you are well within your
physical limits. ("I have never been harmed," said Montaigne, "by anything
that was a real pleasure.")
Find the comfortable pace and enjoy
it. Fitness is bound to follow.
HOW FAR?
Again, we must consult the body.
The jogger-runner, be it his first day or the 20th year, is concerned with
minutes, not miles, time not distance. The goal is to work up to 30 minutes
at a comfortable pace. The rule is to run at that comfortable pace to a
point this side of fatigue.
Do not bother with distance. It is
effort and time that do those good things to our bodies. This equation frees
us from the tyranny of speed and distance. There is no
need then, to count laps or measure miles; no need for the stopwatch and the
agonized groans that go with it. Simply dial the body to comfortable and go
on automatic pilot. Then continue to fatigue or 30 minutes, whichever comes
first.
It is even better not to reach
fatigue, but instead to come to the kitchen door or the gym still eager to
do more, ready to resume on that note the next time out.
Our aim, I said, is 30 minutes. In
the beginning, five minutes may be all you can handle.
But quite soon - sooner, in fact, than you expect - you
will be able to run continuously for 30 minutes. I have
seen a 30-year-old housewife get up to 30-minute runs with one month of
training and run a five-mile race within 10 weeks of buying her running shoes.
That 30 minutes
is as far as we need go. It is the endpoint for fitness. That 30 minutes
will get us fit and put us in the 95 percentile for cardiopulmonary
endurance. At 12 calories per minute, it will eventually bring our weight
down to desired levels. It also will slow the pulse and
drop the blood pressure. It will make us good animals.
| That first 30
minutes is for my body. During that half-hour, I take joy in my physical
ability, the endurance and power of my running. I find it a time when I
feel myself competent and in control of my body, when
I can think about my problems and plan my day-to-day world. In many
ways, those 30 minutes is all egos, all the self. It has to do with me,
the individual.
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Recently, I came upon that feeling
about 35 minutes out. I had just attacked a long hill on the river road and
had been reduced to a slow trot. Then it happened. The
feeling of wholeness and peace and contentment came over me. I loved myself
and the world and everyone in it. I had no longer to will what I was doing.
The road seemed to be running me. I was in a place and time I never wanted
to leave.
To achieve fitness, there is no
need to do more than 30 minutes at a comfortable pace. Past that, you must
proceed with caution. Fitness can change your body. But
the third wind can change your life.
HOW OFTEN?
How often must we run this minutes
at a comfortable pace? To answer the exercise physiologists give is four
times a week, a figure they arrived at by testing
innumerable individuals of both sexes at all ages. A four times a week
schedule, they assure us, will make us fit and keep us that way.
Looked at another way, this is just
two hours of exercise a week. Need it be done not more than one day apart,
as it is usually prescribed? Could we do all our exercise on one day and
then rest the other six? Or would it be ok to run an hour every third day
and thereby satisfy the requirement?
| The experts, as
expected, are divided on this division. They have not adequately
explored the subject of de-training. They do not know how soon we lose
the benefits of a prolonged bout of exertion. There is some reason to
suspect that weekend running may be enough. I have a colleague who for
personal reasons has limited his running to two hours or more on
Saturday and a race on Sunday. On this unscientific regimen, he has
broken three hours in the marathon and more often than not beats me at
lesser distances.
|
This is not a real problem in the
minimum program for fitness. Almost everyone can handle an easy 30 minutes
four times a week, or one hour twice a week, or even two hours once a week.
But we are not minimizers, we are maximizers, and our difficulties are with
doing too much rather than too little. The runner frequently gets caught up.
He finds that running must be done daily, and longer and longer. The
question then becomes not how much is enough but how much is too much. The
problem becomes not fitness but exhaustion.
All this occurs, it seems to me,
because we seek not only physical fitness but psychological fitness as well.
I need the minimum program for fitness because, like 95% of Americans, I
have an occupation that isn't physical enough to make me fit. The 30 minutes
four times a week is enough positive input to balance my negative physical
output. It is not enough, however, to counteract the minuses in my
day-to-day psychological life. To achieve a psychological balance, I need
much more.
How many minutes of running do I
need, then, to keep in a happy frame of mind? How many times a week must I
run to have a capacity for work and the ability to enjoy life?
All to often, there comes days when
I don't feel like running. Then I am not sure whether I am tired or just
lazy, whether I am physically exhausted or merely bored and lacking the
will-power to do what I should do.
| On those days when I lack zest
and enthusiasm, I use the second wind to tell me whether what I'm
experiencing is physical or psychological. When the second wind comes,
as it does for me at the six-minute mark, I know. If the usual good
feelings are there, the warm sweat and that feeling of strength and
energy, I know my aversion was largely mental. I need a new route or
pace or companion on the run.
|
So you see, it is your body that is
the ultimate arbiter in your fitness program. The body tells you how fast.
Dial to "comfortable" and run at a pace which would permit you to talk to a
companion. The body tells you how long. Run just this side of fatigue. And
the body tells you how often. Feel zest. Respond to the second wind. Note
any changes in your morning pulse.
Follow these rules. Then somewhere
between the minimum suggested and the maximum you can handle, you will find
the fitness beyond muscle we all need to live the good life.
�
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The information in this site and in my podcasts is for informational purposes only; it does not constitute medical or physical therapy advice. For medical advice, consult a physician. For physical therapy advice, consult a physical therapist.
�Copyright Allen W. Leigh 2003, 2007
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