Marathon runners and inchworms

by Mia Bremer

Marathon Runners and Inchworms
What do marathon runners and inchworms have in common? Well, besides great determination and maybe some unwarranted optimism, they have physical and mental endurance. They both move with steady, measured steps in order to travel long distances. With Grandma’s Marathon happening this week (as I write this in June), there will be lots of people taking lots of steps. Assume that runners takes about 1400-2000 steps per mile depending on speed. The average runner would run 46,000 steps and collectively,  20,000 people running 26 miles will take more than 936 million steps that day. Impressive! (Well, if my math is correct!)

But maybe you don’t want to run a marathon. Maybe, like my client Shelly, you are a different kind of inch worm. You may be getting ready to take your first step toward improving your fitness. I was Shelly’s trainer a few years ago. She was in her mid-50s: a woman with great success and professional accomplishment. But her physical health had been put on the back burner. She became breathless simply walking across the parking lot at her workplace, much less taking a flight of stairs. She hadn’t exercised before and was afraid of exertion. Her goal was to lose weight and to improve her overall endurance. She didn’t want to run a marathon. She just wanted to live her life without thinking about whether she could go to an outdoor event that required walking or climb the stairs at a parking garage without becoming exhausted. Physically, and mentally, she often felt defeated. So, we started a simple exercise program and later added to it – inch by inch.

Muscular endurance is the ability of the large muscle groups (primarily the lower body) to move for a sustained period. Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart to pump strong enough to provide adequate oxygen and keep you from quickly becoming breathless. And mental endurance is what allows those marathon runners to believe in themselves and keep smiling while they run, or at least running while they grimace. All three types of endurance are equally important and are essential for people of all ages and abilities, not just athletes.

To increase Shelly’s endurance, I applied the F.I.T.T. principle to her workout. F.I.T.T. stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type. To increase your endurance, no matter where you’re starting from, you can use this principle to get there. Here’s how it works.

Choose ONE of the FITT principles and apply it to your current routine. After a few weeks, you’ll notice that your endurance level has adapted to this new workout. Then, add one new principle, or keep adding on to the current principle, every few weeks. You’ll see a tremendous increase in your fitness over time

FREQUENCY – If you walk three days a week for 30 minutes, add one day. Increase the number of workouts per week while leaving the actual workout as is.

INTENSITY – If you bike, walk or run at a steady pace, add hills, intervals or increase your speed to up the intensity without changing the amount of time you work out.

TIME – Increase the actual minutes you spend at each workout. Add five minutes to your walk or swim.

TYPE – This is also known as cross-training. Your body can adapt to any movement pattern so changing to a new activity can challenge your body in new ways.

Shelly started her endurance training by walking around her block three times a week. One year later in December, I stood next to her on a frigid winter morning at Lake Harriet. We were waiting to get our race numbers for the 5K Reindeer Run. Surrounded by people in Santa hats and jingle bells, we took off at an easy, steady walking pace. And this woman of such great personal achievement in so many areas of her life could not have been prouder of her accomplishment as she crossed the finish line. She walked just over 6500 steps – pretty good for an inchworm.