Want to know something a lot of people overlook when it comes to making progress?
And no – it’s not some magic secret…
Because in spite of what a lot of marketing might tell you – including some of mine from years past – there is no “secret” to progress.
It’s always just a lot of consistent work over a long period of time.
Different people will have different starting points.
Some people might begin their journey with an ability to easily run their goal pace.
Yet even for them…
If we’re looking at making progress, it’s just a lot of consistent work over a long period of time.
But that’s not the thing most people overlook.
(We just don’t want to believe it.)
The part a lot of us overlook when it comes to progress is skill development.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at running or lifting or something you do for work.
When you begin something new, there will always be an initial period where you’re just kinda flailing around and trying to get good enough to actually do real work.
I don’t mean that negatively.
I don’t mean it as criticism.
It’s an essential part of the process.
Most of the time, we’re going to spend at least some time on skill development before we can create progress in other areas.
For some movements, you might develop that skill pretty quickly.
For example, a bicep curl.
Not that complicated.
Bend your elbow and squeeze your bicep.
Simple.
Hard to screw up.
You might not know that by the number of people who decide their hips, legs, and low back need to join the party when it comes to curls…
But theoretically pretty simple.
We can probably learn to do that in about 10 seconds.
Maybe 20 if we want to do it really well.
Then we can start using weights that might actually create progress in strength.
Could we spend time discussing details and really diving into “good form” on a curl?
Sure.
But I’d bet in about 10 seconds, you can get good enough form where if you want to get bigger arms, the only thing you would have to do is move a little more weight every week and it’ll happen.
On the other hand… running.
Incredibly complicated.
Your entire body is involved in the movement, leading to a lot more opportunities for errors and problems.
In the beginning, we’re going to spend a lot of time just trying to figure out how to run well.
Days, weeks, months…
It’ll be a bit.
So as much as we all love to talk about VO2 Max and Lactate and Intervals and developing the cardio system and all of these things I spend so much time discussing…
We’re not going to be able to really target any of that until we get a little better at running.
For most of us, this will be a lifelong back-and-forth.
We’ll make a little progress on form, which will allow us to build our cardio, which will highlight some more issues with our form, which we’ll then improve and allow us to build more cardio…
Back and forth for as long as we choose to run.
That’s just kinda what training is…
Now, if you’re new to fitness (or it’s been a really long time since you’ve been active) and you want to run… great.
It doesn’t really matter what you do.
Focus on form.
Play with it.
See if you can learn to run in a way that feels good.
As you do that, your cardio will also improve and at some point, you’ll be able to make targeted progress on specific aspects of your fitness.
If you’re already pretty fit but new to running, then you’re going to need to learn to run before you can actually use it for any real aerobic development.
Unless you just love battling injuries.
Because you’re going to need to build slowly and practice the skill, which probably isn’t going to lead to a ton of cardiovascular volume for someone with decent cardio.
I’m going through this myself quite a bit this week.
I haven’t biked with any level of frequency in about 10 years.
I used to do it a lot. ~200 miles per week for a few years, then it was a primary form of transportation for me in Korea.
But it’s been so long that I need to relearn the skill in order for it to be a productive form of training while my foot heals.
For the first few days, I couldn’t get my heart rate up because every time I pushed, my quads just filled with fire.
Now, a week later, there’s less fire in the quads and I’m starting to remember how to do this.
If I were completely new to biking, I all but guarantee it would take even longer.
This is actually one of the reasons I think people hate cross-training.
Because they do it once per week, which just isn’t enough time to actually develop any sort of appreciable skill – so it just feels like a waste of time.
I’ve been at it for a week and I’m still tinkering with my seat position.
And I’ve put tens of thousands of miles on a bike in my life.
Hopefully, by the end of this injury, I might actually remember how to bike well enough to have a real cross-training modality.
I also know I’m going to go through it again next month.
When I return to running, I’m going to follow a very strict “return to run” program.
It’s going to be tedious.
It’s going to be boring.
But I’ve helped enough athletes return from injuries to know that the ones who follow the program actually get back to running in a few weeks, whereas the ones who try to rush it end up reinjuring themselves and having to start the whole process over again.
For 2-3 weeks, I’ll be running in a way that will provide almost zero cardiovascular development.
But I need to rebuild the skill and test the bones and make sure everything’s okay.
Sometimes, we have to build a skill before we can really use it to make progress.
That can sound negative, but it’s just part of the process.
Skill first.
Then work.
Then probably a lot of back and forth for the rest of time.
So if you’re struggling to make progress, maybe take a second and ask yourself…
“Is this a fitness problem or a skill problem?”
It could save you a bunch of frustration.