Techniques index

Training and practice methods.

Foundations

• Types of training — a map of the common run types and what each is for
• Training volume versus intensity — what actually drives improvement
• Training for your own ability — calibrate volume to what you can absorb, not to elite mileage
• Warm-up and cool-down — what a warm-up does, and the thin case for the cool-down
• Base building — the aerobic foundation
• The long run — strong rationale, surprisingly thin isolating evidence
• 20 — most easy, some hard; partly supported, partly contested
• Heart-rate and effort-based training — using heart rate and perceived effort, why the zone models disagree, and the limits of a heart-rate cap
• Mental training and sports psychology — effort perception, self-talk, goal-setting and the honest size of the effects
• Music and running — a small, perceptual aid for easy running; the safety and rules caveats
• Treadmill running — a valid substitute, and the truth about the 1% incline rule

Quality and sharpening

• Threshold and tempo training — the most productive everyday quality session, from continuous tempos to cruise intervals to controlled-lactate work
• Interval training — maximising time near VO₂max
• Hill training — strength, power and economy with lower impact than flat sprinting
• Fartlek — flexible “speed play”, a bridge to and from formal intervals
• Double-threshold training (Norwegian method) — controlled sub-threshold volume
• Strength training for runners — well-evidenced economy gains and injury prevention
• Plyometrics — jump training for elastic energy return and economy
• Strides and running drills — low-cost strides for priming and form, and an honest look at why drills probably do not improve economy
• Heat acclimation — reliable for hot races, contested as a cool-weather aid
• Altitude training — reliable haematology, contested performance payoff
• Cold-weather running — cool helps but cold hurts; the lungs do not freeze; manage wind chill and wet

Structure and peaking

• Periodisation — the logic helps; specific schemes are weakly evidenced
• Tapering — one of the best-quantified practices in the sport
• Distance-specific training — how emphasis shifts from 1500 m to the marathon and ultra
• Ultramarathon and trail training — time on feet, power-hiking, quad conditioning and effort-based pacing
• Race pacing — even pacing wins; going out too fast is the classic error

Load, comeback and cross-training

• Training-load management — quantifying and progressing load; why the 10% rule is lore and the ACWR is contested
• Cross-training — non-running aerobic work to hold fitness through injury or add load without the impact
• Return to running — coming back after injury or a layoff with graded walk-run and tissue-specific pain rules
• Run-walk method — planned walk breaks for beginners, comebacks, heat and trail; similar times with less soreness

Systems and people

• Training philosophies — descriptive survey of the major systems
• Canova method — training around race pace
• See also the entities directory for the coaches and scientists behind these systems

Clubs, coaching and community

• Run clubs and group running — social and community running; good for consistency, thin on proven causal benefit
• parkrun — the free weekly timed 5 km; strong on reach, weak on proven causal health benefit
• Athletics clubs — affiliated competitive clubs; real organisational benefits, no proven club effect beyond self-selection
• Coaching — what good coaching offers, and the honest limit that no trial isolates it from self-coaching
• See also training apps for the platforms that track and prescribe training