Why Is Running 6-7 Days Per Week Better Than Running 3-4 Days Per Week?

Thinking of adding more days per week of running or more mileage to your training? Coach Tina explains the benefits of adding more days per week to your running, and why running 6-7 days per week is better than 3-4.


Audio Transcript

Hannah: I’ve been a runner for a couple of years and I usually run two marathons a year. I just got started on my RunnersConnect training schedule. I was wondering, what is the advantage of running six or seven days a week? In the past, I’ve ran for three or four days a week which was a benefit if I had [inaudible 01:27] so I felt they could ease off on the days that I didn’t run and now I’m running six days a week.

I also heard from a coach in a running club, who had qualified for Olympia, saying that I should run more than three or four times a week. I would like to understand what the advantages of doing so is.

Tia Muir: Firstly, I completely understand you. I was initially scared of running more miles. I could not fathom the idea of how people could run seven days per week when I first came to the college in the US. But as you get on with your training, it will become easier to see those easy days as rest days and more like an active recovery because they’re not hard.

They are very easy and very comfortable and you’ll find that your body adjusts even though right now, it may seem absolutely impossible for you to do seven miles a week and not be completely exhausted.

Now, for the benefits. If you increase the number of days per week that you run, your lungs are going to get stronger and you’re going to develop more specific running muscles, more of those slow twitch fibers which are going to help you.

To give you a little bit of science, your blood volume is going to increase, which means that your heart will pump more blood around your body with every beat, so you will gain fitness. You’re going to increase your mitochondria which are responsible for energy production. Your bones, tendons, ligaments and connective tissue are also going to keep getting stronger.

Another major benefit is that with every mile you run, you’re going to become more efficient. Your body will become slightly smoother and you’ll be able to handle the miles better. The more you can run, the better it will be but obviously, most of us know that by increasing your mileage, you’re also increasing your risk of injury.

If you are susceptible to injuries, back off. If you notice that you’re starting to get more injuries popping up here or there, and you’re having to take time off, that’s a sign that it probably was too much for you.

When it comes to increasing mileage, start slowly. If you are running three to four days a week, you don’t want to jump straight to seven, but maybe try four days a week for a month, and then go to five days a week for a month, and then go to six days a week for a month. You want to give your body time to adjust to the increase in mileage, and to make sure that everything is okay.

You want to try and make sure that you’re not putting your resting days back to back. Let’s say you’re running five days a week, you don’t want to run five days in a row and take two days off. It’s not going to kill you but it’s probably better to space them out a little bit, and then you can put those rest days in a place where it allows for the most recovery.

Although I recommend that if you have room to take a day of running, before you take your day off, make sure everything is okay after your hard work out.

The biggest thing when it comes to this is, when you are adding more days, you need to make sure you keep it easy. Your workout and long run days will be a little bit harder as you get fitter and stronger, but the other runs in the week need to be nice and easy.

You want to make it so easy that you could have a full conversation with a friend and you could finish that run and do it all over again. That’s how easy you want to keep it.

You want to be able to look around, take in the sights, and notice things that are going on around you. This is the kind of level I’m talking about here. You want to make sure that all those extra days are easy rather than hard, which is where most runners who run on the lower of the scale of days per week tend to go wrong, because they keep that intensity up. You want to keep those nice and easy.

Hannah, I hope I have answered your question today. Thank you so much to everyone for listening and if you have enjoyed this episode, I hope you’ll go to give us a review and subscribe on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews help us climb up the running podcast list and the more people we can access, the more runners we can help. I’m sure some of these runners will have questions that you are also interested in, so hopefully we can help you too. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

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