Once you get bitten by the running bug, you realise it is a culture unto itself. And like any fitness subculture (I'm looking at you, CrossFit), it has a unique vocabulary, too. If you're new to the running world, here are a dozen words you should know. These terms will help you understand training plans that call for specific types of workouts, but they will also just help you navigate the scene. Click through, learn some key words and phrases, then lace up your sneakers and put your newfound knowledge to work.
Warming up for running by just running at a slower pace is pretty much the rule of thumb, with the big takeaway being to not stretch before running. Stretching cold muscles can lead to muscle injuries and doesn't prep the body for the upcoming work of actually running. However, an active, or dynamic, warmup does. Think leg swings, walking lunges, and planks for core activation. Check out this prerun warmup to learn what you should do before hitting the pavement.
After you finish a run, take a moment to cool down with a with less-intense movement to help your heart rate gradually lower. This could be a slow jog, moving into a fast walk, or transitioning to walking lunges, which give the front of your hips a nice stretch. Finish up with your postrun stretches for your hamstrings, quads, calves, and back.
Running alone is not enough to improve your performance and keep you on the road. You need to cross train by doing other activities like strength training, yoga, or even barre. These other activities work areas of your body not used in running and help correct muscular imbalances. And working underused muscles can help prevent overuse injuries. We suggest two things: strength training and yoga.
Try this 10-minute bodyweight workout designed for runners. No mater what you do, be sure to work your glute meds, the muscles on the sides of your pelvis that tend to be weak. This weakness in these muscles can lead to knee, hip, and lower back issues. This side step with a booty band really works the glute med and should become part of your routine.
Yoga is great for keeping your hips and spine flexible, and it feels like the perfect remedy for tight muscles and sore joints the day after a long run. Here's a yoga sequence for runners that stretches the hips, back, and glutes but also works the core too.
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4DOMS
Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography / Kat Borchart
DOMS stands for delayed onset muscle soreness, aka the pain you feel a day or two after exerting yourself in a hard workout. DOMS will likely be part of your life if you're new to running — oh, the quads — but you can also experience it after an intense run or cross training in a new way. The pain is caused by microtears in the muscles you worked, which create inflammation and tender spots. Active rest, like walking or swimming or casual cycling (read: not a quick pace nor a ride with lots of hill climbing) can help by just getting blood flowing to the sore areas. If you're really feeling it, NASIDS, like ibuprofen, can help too. Here are more tips for dealing with DOMS.
Interval training means adding short speed bursts into your run. Rather than always going at a steady pace, adding speed intervals helps you run faster overall but also helps increase your endurance. There's lots to keep track of in an interval workout to keep your brain busy, so interval work is good at beating boredom.
There are many ways to add interval training to your running routine. You can add intervals to your treadmill workout, play around at a track (here's a fun workout to try), or go casual and try a fartlek workout. You definitely get bonus points for knowing the term fartlek, which is Swedish for speed play. In these workouts, you fun faster for however long you want, like to the next stop sign or the next intersection.
You will see the term hill repeats baked into many running plans, because running hills builds stamina and strength. Fighting gravity as you climb the incline requires a serious amount of energy, but think of it as strength training for your legs. If you can't find a hill, don't forget about the treadmill — you can always work the incline to challenge yourself, like with this 40-minute "hilly" treadmill workout.
PR stands for personal record, meaning your fastest time at a certain distance. You might also see PB, which doesn't stand for peanut butter (a favourite snack of many runners). It stands for personal best, which can be used interchangeably with PR.
You may not think about your feet much when you run, but how they make contact with the ground is crucial for setting up an efficient running stride and strong overall running form. Pronation is the natural inward rolling motion of your foot as it hits the ground; it's when there is too much or too little rolling that things become a dicey. When there is an exaggerated inward roll, you're dealing with overpronation, which can be common in people with flat feet. Not rolling in enough is also an issue; underpronation can be common in people with high arches.
Your running shoe can help correct this issue, but you need to know what kind of runner you are. For this reason, specialty running stores will often analyse your gait before selecting shoes for you.
RPE stands for "rate of perceived exertion" and is a way to measure and monitor your effort while exercising. It is often a gauge for interval work. Here's a chart to guide you through the 10 levels of the system.
RPE
What It Means
0-1
No exertion. The only movement you're getting is pushing buttons on the remote.
2-3
Light exertion. This is how you should feel when you're warming up, cooling down, and stretching.
4-5
Medium exertion. You're breathing a little faster. Your heart is pumping a little faster. You're feeling a little warmer.
6-7
Moderate exertion. You're breathing pretty hard now and you're probably sweating. You can talk, but it's getting tougher.
8-9
Hard exertion. You're breathing really hard and you can only say a few words at a time. You're wondering how long you can go on like this.
10
Hardest exertion. You can not keep this pace for more than a minute. Speaking is impossible. This is your limit.
Don't think acrobatic flexibility or bananas and ice cream here — in running, the term splits is used to subdivide a run for tracking your pace to hit specific goals or race times. You take the longer distance and break it into smaller timed parts — these are your splits. For example, if you're running a timed mile, you could check your splits every quarter mile to make sure you're running at your desired pace.
More specific in the splits category is a negative split, which means running the second half of the run or race in a less time than the first half. This is a good thing! It means you paced yourself correctly and really kicked into high gear to finish strong and fast.
