Cardio Health
Beginner Run/Walk
A nineteen-week run/walk ladder, three days a week, that takes somebody who does not run to a continuous thirty-minute run.
- Days a week
- 3
- A session
- 40 min
- Sessions in it
- 3
- Split
- Run/Walk Progression to Continuous Running
How it runs
The sessions on this page are week one; the shape of the rest is written out below.
What you actually train
3 sessions, in order. Every movement links to how to do it.
Day 1: Run/Walk (short) - Zone 3 - sentences
8 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Leg Swings2 minutes
- Ankle Circles1 minute
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Outdoor Running8 rounds of 1 minute
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch2 minutes
Day 2: Run/Walk (quick) - Zone 3 - sentences
8 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Leg Swings2 minutes
- World's Greatest Stretch2 minutes
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Outdoor Running10 rounds of 45 seconds
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- Doorway Chest Stretch1 minute
Day 3: Run/Walk (long) - Zone 3 - sentences
8 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Leg Swings2 minutes
- Ankle Circles1 minute
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Outdoor Running6 rounds of 1 minute 30 seconds
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Brisk Walking5 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- 90/90 Hip Stretch2 minutes
Why it works
- Every repetition in all nineteen weeks is run at the same pace — about eight and a half kilometres an hour — and only the duration ever changes.
- The ladder adds repetitions before it lengthens them, which is the order that protects tendon and bone. A ten-per-cent rule alone will not tell you that.
- Most of every session is walking, and that stays true for months.
- Never two running days in a row, and every fourth week repeats the week before last instead of going up.
- There are no sprints in it anywhere, and there never will be.
This is the one programme on this shelf with no impact-free version, because running is the point of it. If your joints, your body weight or a tendon that has objected before rules out impact, Low-Impact Cardio does the same weekly minutes on a machine.
Aerobic work is half of what the guidelines ask for. The other half is muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days a week, and this programme does not contain any — run it alongside one of the Build Muscle programmes rather than instead of one.
What to expect
Expect most of every session to be walking, and expect that to stay true for months.
Before you start
Three sessions a week that alternate running and walking, for somebody who wants to run and cannot yet, and who can already walk comfortably for half an hour. If that last part is not true yet, start on Daily Cardio Foundations and come back.
Week one is twenty-four and a half minutes of actual running, in pieces of forty-five to ninety seconds, spread across three sessions of about forty minutes each.
Nineteen weeks later it is eighty-eight minutes of running a week, and the third session is thirty continuous minutes. Before you start, please read this one.
Aerobic exercise is among the safest and most useful things most people can do for their health, and it is also the setting in which a heart problem nobody knew about is most likely to announce itself.
Get medical clearance before you begin if any of the following is true of you. Chest pain, pressure or tightness on exertion, including anything that comes on when you hurry, climb stairs or carry shopping and eases when you stop.
Dizziness, light-headedness or fainting, on effort or when you stand up. Known heart disease, a heart-rhythm problem, or a heart attack, stent, bypass, ablation or any cardiac procedure at any point in your life.
Or no regular exercise for a year or more, if you are also over 40, or you smoke, or you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, or a parent or sibling who had heart disease before 55 Pain in a tendon or a joint that is worst on the first few steps in the morning and eases as you move is a loading problem rather than stiffness.
It does not respond to stretching or to pushing through.
Take the impact out of the week straight away, come back at the rung you last finished rather than the one you were about to start, and see a physiotherapist if it is still there in a fortnight.
in men or 65 in women. Any of those means speak to your GP before you start, and follow what they tell you over anything written here.
This programme contains running, which is the hardest thing on this shelf for an unprepared heart and the only thing on it with an impact.
Do not begin it until you have been cleared, and if you are waiting, start on Daily Cardio Foundations or Low-Impact Cardio instead — both of them are walking or easy machine work at a pace where you can talk in full sentences.
Also speak to your GP or a physiotherapist first if you are pregnant or within a year of giving birth, if your blood pressure or diabetes is not currently controlled, if you have low bone density or osteoporosis, if you have a lung condition, or if a joint or tendon is flaring.
Stop the session and get medical advice the same day for chest pain, pressure or tightness; pain spreading into the jaw, neck, back or an arm; breathlessness far out of proportion to the effort; dizziness or feeling you might faint; a heartbeat that is unusually fast, slow or irregular; or a cold sweat with any of those.
Call emergency services rather than driving yourself. Nothing here is medical advice.
What you need
- Bodyweight
- Mat