Jogging for beginners — 5 tips on how to start jogging

Many people start running...

to keep fit, improve your health and/or shape your body. For most, however, it is difficult to implement their plan and develop a long-term habit out of it. Running-related injuries and lack of motivation are the most common reasons for canceling a running plan when you start running as a beginner. Here you can find out why this is the case and what you can do about it!

1. Jogging for beginners means simply doing, but starting small!

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Most people who want to start jogging abandon their running plans or resolutions because they simply want to do too much too fast. You can't change everything at once (well, you can try but it's pretty likely to fail). One tip that every guide for beginners should have is: Start with really small commitments and resolutions! Set yourself small, realistic goals! But be realistic if you want to start jogging. The easier things are for you to do at the beginning, the sooner you will actually tackle them and, above all, keep them! When you start running, 10 minutes is already something! 3 times 10 minutes a week can easily turn into 3 times 15 minutes and later 20 or 30 minutes. Our 5k beginner plan is a very simply structured but very good plan to start with.

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2. Set a goal if you want to start jogging

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Once you get started, it's half the battle. Now the next important step towards success is to set yourself a goal that you can work towards in the long term. You're here today and you can't change anything about who you are today or tomorrow. But once you've started (taking tip 1 into account), you can immediately strive for the next goal and slowly and carefully develop yourself to where you want to be.

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A good and motivating way for many people to get going is to commit yourself to an event in the near future. A half marathon still sounds unrealistic today, but wouldn't it be possible next year?! When you sign up for such an event, you focus your attention on the future and give your actions a bit more commitment and reason (it gives you another answer to the question “Why am I actually doing this? “). If you constantly just jog aimlessly, you will probably succumb to the hardships sooner or later and lose your desire.

3. Set up routines!

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Jogging for beginners is about making decisions every day. “Should I really run today? Can't I do that tomorrow? ” or “If I eat something now, can I still run well later? “Questions about questions that you can avoid if you integrate your training and everyday life in general into fixed routines and structured processes. But how do you develop such routines and “habits”?

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Science says very clearly: The more structured and organized your week is, the easier it will be for you to do all the things you've set out to do. So when you start jogging, you really make appointments with yourself that you irrevocably add to your calendar! Think of your training as a doctor's appointment, which you put on your calendar once and put before many things. Then build your day around your workout with other tasks. This reduces the likelihood that you can fall prey to the excuse: “I couldn't find time to run! ” or “I didn't feel like running! ”. Make running a fixed appointment with yourself.

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A good tip for beginners is to always link the planned running session to something that is already being implemented very extensively. The way you go to work in the morning or brush your teeth... Going for a run every Wednesday evening after work or every Sunday morning on your way to breakfast (two examples) should be irrevocable events that you don't even have to think about. They just happen. They're fully integrated into your daily routine, your calendar, your life!

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4. Team up with a colleague when you start jogging!

After the first phase of starting jogging, many people lose motivation and focus. A key factor is sharing your newfound passion for running and the benefits of running with friends. So go out and look for friends or relatives in your area with whom you can meet regularly. Maybe you can even join someone?!

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In addition to being able to share your joy (and also the not-so-easy moments) with others, there is something else about getting in touch with other people who also start running. You'll create dependencies. Scheduling to run with others regularly is guaranteed to be one of the best ways to start jogging and, above all, stick with it.

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5. Think long term. Don't strive for daily perfection!

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One of the key factors when you start running is certainly success. If this does not happen, it will be difficult to stick with it. It is important that you put your way of thinking about this “project” into a larger, longer-term framework and redefine success for yourself! Here's an example of how things look different when you change your perspective:

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Let's say you have to skip a workout on one day (for whatever reason)... For that one day, that's a loss of 100%. There was a workout before, and now that you've skipped it, you've done 0% of it... it doesn't feel very good, does it? What if you set out on a total of three training sessions this week and still manage to complete the other 2 units? In this case, you have still completed 2 out of 3 training sessions, so that each missed workout means a loss of only 33%.

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But what if you had to skip the whole week? Well, in that scenario, just think about a whole year later... put yourself in the position and look again at the situation in which you had to skip an entire week “back then.” Do you think that at this moment you are still thinking about the missed week with any weighting? The answer is most likely “No! ”. Maybe you're smiling at yourself and thinking about how you could drive yourself so crazy over one stupid week when you started running. That's because at 52 weeks this year, you probably had 156 workouts planned (if you worked out three times a week) and what is 3 out of 156? That is 1.9%! And in your opinion, your success should not fall at this 1.9%!

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Conclusion: Change your perspective and don't think of your project as a short-term battle!

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Once again, you won't win this “battle” in a day or a week. Not even a month! In fact, SKIP SESSIONS FOR EVERY RUNNER! The best way to start running isn't to aim for perfection. It is not about 100%! It's maybe something like 70%! So try to think in this long-term perspective from day 1. Set goals like: “I want to do at least 12 runs this month! “or “I'd like to do at least one more run than last month.” And if you couldn't fully achieve this goal, you still gave what you were able to do during that period of time. And that's a good thing!

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Jogging for beginners means being satisfied with what you can realistically achieve (the 70%)! Don't let what you didn't do (the 30%) get you down!

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