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An easy, effective way to improve your fitness is with a stretching routine. You can experience many benefits when you establish a regular stretching regimen. This kind of fitness program is recommended by the pros as a way to regain or improve flexibility and to give yourself some protection against possible injury while working out, playing a sport or just your normal activities.

The most noticeable benefit of regular stretching routines is greatly increased mobility. As you continue to stretch your body’s muscles, you don′t just maintain your flexibility, you will continually improve it. If you give up on your regular stretching program, you will lose any gains in flexibility that you achieved, and it won′t be easy to regain them without a lot of hard work.

The goal of many people in a stretching routine is to improve their overall flexibility, and they usually opt for a program that utilizes all their muscle groups. A well designed stretching program can be a big help in preventing a range of injuries that commonly take place in day to day life. If you’re flexible, you’re a lot less likely to sprain your ankle, strain a muscle, or pull a ligament. The reason for this is that your muscles get used to moving in many directions.

As you advance with your stretching program, you’ll discover that your joint pain is considerably reduced because they are used more frequently. As well, muscles that are stretched regularly are usually more healthy because they get better blood circulation. Your muscles will benefit from improved blood flow because they will more efficiently receive the oxygen and nutrients that will make them stronger.

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Since you are not a professional runner you have doubtless been told over and over again that you should run against yourself and do the best you can without worrying about how other runners are doing. That’s fair enough because as an amateur runner your main interest is normally in keeping fit and the enjoyment you derive from running. But lets face it, man is a competitive animal and we all want to outshine others when we can. This is never more true that in a race when the race results are a generally accepted measure of success or the lack of it. You may be a weekend or occasional jogger who decides to enter a 5K Training just to see how your performance level compares with others of your age group. You really need to look at your age against your age group to get a realy accurate depiction of how you are doing. The problem lies in the fact that while its nice to know that you are as good as your peers, you can’t help wishing that you could outperform them and rather than finishing the race in the midst of 50 year olds you could do it among the 40 year olds. The thoughts that go through your mind are about how great you would feel in that good of shape at that age?

Pushing yourself and your body too hard is not just foolish but also dangerous and you could do yourself serious harm. However, taking that into consideration, there are certain things that can be done to help to improve your 5K Times.

The most common method of improving your timing is to practice tempo running. This simply means maintaining an even pace (or tempo) throughout your run. Start with 1k and run it at a pace that brings you to the threshold of exhaustion at the end of it. Knowing when you have reached your threshold is important – overdo it and you could hurt yourself. When you muscles ache and your breathing becomes labored, you have passed your threshold. Once your have established a maximum pace for 1k, start gradually extending the distance (without letting your pace drop) – remembering again not to cross the threshold. Keep doing this until you are running the full 5K Running as fast as you can. This is you maximum pace and will give you the best 5k race results you can expect without hurting yourself.

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Okay, so you run for fitness and fun. You enjoy Jogging because it enables you to run along with others, unlike your normal practice which you do in solitary splendor. And you can measure you performance against that of your peers. The last is important. Its really good to ensure that you are not comparing or trying to keep up with the elite pro runners. As an amateur runner, it would be foolish to expect to be able to match their performance. Finishing the race on par with others of your sex, age, level of fitness and motivations is good enough. That means you are doing okay. But everyone would like to do better. And you can, without spending money on training, half a day doing roadwork or changing your lifestyle. There are a few simple tricks that you can fit into your training routine that will not perform miracles and keep you up with the pros, but at least keep you among the first of your equals.

· Don’t push to increase your Jogging speed, but rather increase your distance. Keep to the pace you are comfortable with but gradually work the distance up to 6k. If you are wanting to feel better at the end of your race, then you need to work up to these distances and work outs at least 3 times per week.
· Pick you your speed for short bursts. Try for a 10% increase in your pace over a few hundred meters at some point in your training. Once you are comfortable, do this 3 or 4 times. Once again, do not try to increase you pace for the full 5k. The idea is to enable you to have the speed to overtake with ease when you need to.
· Try and include and incline or slope in your run. Sometimes running uphill can be great for your stamina. Its good to remember that you only want to do this for a max of 1K out of 5.
· Practice increasing your 5K Training stride for the last 200 meters of your practice and slowly increase this distance to about 0.5k. Once again, increase your stride and not your pace. The idea here is to cover more distance with each stride, not to increase the number of strides. When you really need stamina is at the end of the race and this will help you as you reach the finish line.

You may wonder at the repeated warning about not trying to run faster. That’s because since you are not a professional runner, it is taken for granted that you are running at a pace that you are comfortable with and which is appropriate for your age and sex. Pushing yourself to run faster can affect your long term health and take the fun out of running. Following these tips will not put too much additional strain on your body or increase the amount and type to training you do (remember, running is fun, not a chore or an end in itself). They will however, improve your performance as a runner and enable you to run 5k races with more confidence, stamina and do better without straining yourself.

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So you have been Jogging hard in preparation for running in a 5k race. You have run a few before and now you want to up your performance and results. Here are a few things to keep in mind that will help you improve your 5k running and your race times.

First of all. Don not over train yourself. You are running 5K and there’s not point in conditioning your body to run 7 or 8k. At the most run an extra kilometer to build up your stamina and energy reserves. Start building up to this a few weeks before the race – not 3 days ahead of time!

Do not change your 5K Running system at the last minute to accommodate what you think may be the demands of the race. Any changes should be implemented at least 3 or 4 weeks before the race or you may find the last minute changes, which your body has not had time to adapt to, are having a negative affect on your performance.

At the start of the Jogging you will find a lot of beginners starting out like they are doing a 100 meter sprint. You know better so let them rush off and burn themselves out. Stick to your own pace and avoid the temptation of trying to keep up with the pros out in front. That is not the kind of runner you are or have trained to be, so don’t even try.

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Getting ready for a 5K Running run does not need any drastic changes to your life style, taking it for granted that you live a reasonably healthy life and are in good physical condition. Running is not just good exercise, but it should also be fun and over doing the training and preparation will not just take the fun out of it but can also result in overstraining yourself and, in fact, reducing your running abilities.

Remember the tips that are given here are good general guidelines and can help you get to where you need to go. Just remember that the plan has a focus of getting you ready in 8 to 10 weeks for running the 5k and tampering with it too much can make the plan less effective. The plan calls for 4 days a week of active exercise and training, 1 day of relaxed exercise designed to keep you loose and flexible and 2 days of rest.

Many people tend to ignore the rest days and put in more exercise. They think that the more effort they put in, the faster they will be ready for the 5K Training . They also feel that since they are not suffering from any form of tiredness or soreness, they don’t need the rest. Wrong on both counts. Your muscles need rest not just to recover from the exertions of the exercise, but also to build themselves up which they cannot do while being is constant use. If you don’t let this naturally happen and you don’t let your body recover like this you won’t have a chance of seeing the results you want to see. Another thing to watch out for is to not feel too tired or sore which is a good thing to not feel that way. It means you are not pushing your body too hard, which can be counter productive. So never ignore the rest your body needs. Keep Mondays and Fridays as your rest days.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are the days when you run. Find a good warm up routine to start the session with. After that, begin your 5K Running at a comfortable pace. You really want to try to not push yourself too hard and you especially don’t want to be too lazy and not work hard enough. At first running 1k like this is fine. You can build up the distance slowly. You don’t have to run a longer distance everyday, but a good target to set is to increase the distance by 0.5k a week. If you are really listening to your body and you would like to increase your training, then go ahead with a little bit of caution because too much too fast will be hard to handle.5k a week too much. The idea is to run 5k, and whether it takes you 8 or 12 weeks to reach that level doesn’t make much difference.

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