First, don’t panic.
You must understand that breaks are beneficial.
Rest is when you heal, be this from physical injury or emotional fatigue.
Next, know that coming back from a break, you’ll initially lose some fitness initially but when you get back to consistent running, you’ll bounce right back.
First, don’t panic.
You must understand that breaks are beneficial.
Rest is when you heal, be this from physical injury or emotional fatigue.
Next, know that coming back from a break, you’ll initially lose some fitness initially but when you get back to consistent running, you’ll bounce right back.
The above video explains the importance of being willing to take that break. The below pointers are some reminders on what to do during that break.
Watch What You Eat
If you’re suddenly not burning an extra 300-2,000 calories a day from running, you may want to be a bit more mindful of the quantity of food you consume.
An easy way to cut back on calories is to simply stop snacking. Watching your added sugar intake can help keep the calories down as well.
Increase Ancillary Work
With all of your suddenly available free time, this can be a superb opportunity to get either increase the time you spend doing strength, mobility, and balance work or start doing it if you do not do any at all.
An important consideration when increasing your ancillary time is to not jump into the new activities too quickly, especially if they’re difficult. The 7-Minute workout is light enough that you should not be too concerned, but the StrongLifts 5×5 routine can take a bit of a transition period.
Keep Moving
You must keep your aerobic fitness up with cross training!
Find an activity such as rowing, cycling, or the elliptical (or a combination of them, to avoid boredom) to keep your training volume up. As with the above mobility routines mentioned, new crosstraining should also be eased into. It may be best to do a combination of a few types of activities rather than only biking.
If you’re not sure what to do, a simple method would be to take the running plan you would have expected to do, convert everything to minutes, and do that while cross training. For example, an easy 4 mile run with 8 strides could be changed to an easy 40 minute bike ride with 8 short accelerations.
You may also like: How to Return To Running After a Break
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