Beginner Running Program for Your Reboot (VERY EASY AND HELPFUL!!!)

Exercising during a reboot is one of the best decisions you can make. Not only does it help reduce the urges for porn and physical manifestations of porn withdrawal, exercise can also be part of someone's journey to change every aspect of their life for the better.

However, getting into a new exercise routine, especially when you're out of shape, can be a daunting and confusing task. Even without considering how hard the actual act of exercising is, knowing what to do, having time to do it, and not getting injured provide just as much rationale for someone not to exercise.

I'm usually in pretty good shape and play a weekend sport pretty competitively each summer, but ever since quarantine began in my home in March, I have spent way too much time inside, not being active, and gaining a lot of fat. I decided to make a change several weeks ago, and found a great resource and running plan on this military fitness website which I will link below.

***Before you read "military fitness" and go "fuck this that's gonna be too intense", the exercise plan I did literally starts off with running 1 mile a day for 3 days a week, so just 3 miles total in the first week at ANY PACE YOU WANT. In fact, there is never a goal pace in the entire workout; improving your speed between weeks that have similar total mile distances is the only suggested criteria for improvement. The workout plan was designed for people who are very overweight/out of shape to get back into running. Keep reading, trust me, literally anyone can do it.***

I'll let the military guy explain why running is a good idea, but let me tell you why a running plan is great for a reboot:

1. Running is one of the best ways to distract your mind from porn and artificially arousing material. It's really hard for your mind to pay attention to porn when you're gasping for air and your legs are about to fall off. Doing your run of the day whenever your porn urges peak is a fantastic idea for avoiding a reset or relapse. Additionally, training yourself to run whenever you get horny is a great way to turn an addiction into a good habit.
2. Running is a great exercise for relaxing/exhausting your pelvic area and pumping blood and in out. It's easy to ignore porn for a split second, look away, and then do something else. But what about the huge boner you got? That aint gonna go away soon. And don't even talk about the blue balls. Running tires out your pelvic region, so if you're brain is thinking porn, your body is thinking "nah fam too tired". Additionally, blue balls and swelling from arousal is greatly alleviated by running, which will pump that extra blood out to get fresh oxygenated blood to your pelvic region and legs.
3. Running is the single best exercise for having better, longer, faster, and more satisfying sex. Running works out your legs, core, and pelvic region, which I would say are the most important areas for experiencing and giving pleasurable sex. It also helps increase your muscular endurance and lung and heart function/capacity. No other exercise, when done alone, can match running's ability to improve your sex life. When you inevitably end your reboot and start having sex, running is your go to exercising for having the best sex.

Now, here is the plan I found great success with during the last few months.

Week 1 (3-6 miles)
M 1-2 miles
T bike or swim
W 1-2 Miles
Th bike or swim
F 1-2 miles

Week 2 (6-9 miles)
M 2-3 miles
T bike or swim
W 2-3 miles
Th bike or swim
F 2-3 miles

Week 3
M bike or swim
T bike or swim
W bike or swim
Th bike or swim
F bike or swim

Week 4 (9 miles)
M 3 miles
T bike or swim
W 3 miles
Th bike or swim
F 3 miles

Week 5 (11 miles)
M 2 miles
T 3 miles
W off
Th 4 miles
F 2 miles

Week 6 (11-15 miles)
M 2-3 miles
T 3-4 miles
W off
Th 4-5 miles
F 2-3 miles

Week 7 (18 miles)
M 3 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 3 miles
F 5 miles
Sa 2 miles
Su off

Week 8 (18 miles)
M 3 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 3 miles
F 5 miles
Sa 2 miles
Su off

Week 9 (22 miles)
M 4 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 6 miles
F 4 miles
Sa 3 miles
Su off

Week 10 (22 miles)
M 4 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 6 miles
F 4 miles
Sa 3 miles
Su off

Week 11 (24 miles)
M 5 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 6 miles
F 4 miles
Sa 4 miles
Su off

Week 12 (27 miles)
M 5 miles
T 6 miles
W off
Th 6 miles
F 6 miles
Sa 4 miles
Su off

Week 13 (30 miles)
M 6 miles
T 6 miles
W off
Th 6 miles
F 6 miles
Sa 6 miles
Su off

This running schedule was taken from a military fitness website, and is designed to train people who are overweight and out of shape for marathons in just 27 weeks; I obviously only included the first 13 weeks because it matches a 90 day reboot. Check out the whole thing at (https://www.military.com/military-fitness/running/running-plan-for-marathons). If you had a good time doing it and think you can push yourself longer, fucking go for it, and maybe do a marathon. That'd be pretty awesome.

Now I'm gonna go through some FAQ that I'm expecting.

1. Why are there no goal paces or times/How fast should I be running? This is gonna change for every person, so it really wouldn't make sense for me or the original writer to include paces and times. Each time you run, try to improve your total time and mile time. Always be pushing yourself and trying to improve. Never finish a run and think "Man that was good but I probably could have gone a bit faster"; whenever you finish, you should be thinking "Motherfucker I cannot run another 30 feet." If you ran 3 miles last week and you're going to do it again this week, try to run a few seconds faster this time. Worry less about the times, and worry more about just finishing the runs and going just a tiny bit faster than last time.

2. Have you done this whole plan? I myself only went up to week 8, took an offload week, and now I'm switching to a half running half calisthenics workout week schedule. To keep things consistent for your reboot (especially if you haven't done one before or have serious PIED or compulsive behavior), I highly suggest you do the running plan up to Week 13 and beyond to stay consistent and structured. I'm beginning to train for a sport I'll be playing in June, and anything past 6 miles isn't going to help me play better, so I'm changing my routine for my personal fitness needs. For everyone else, I suggest sticking to the running schedule.

3. I'm not feeling like I need rest/recovery days or I don't feel tired from the schedule, should I run more days a week or longer distances than the plan says to? NO. Doing that is almost certainly going to result in an injury. This plan was designed by a military fitness guru with years of experience in getting the most unfit people into service ready fitness. Doing more than the plan says is very likely going to lead to tendonitis, shin splints, and other injuries which come from increasing your mileage too fast. Even if you don't feel sore or pain when running or after, injuries still happen and can be debilitating for your progress. I myself tried running earlier in the summer by starting out with a weekly mileage similar to Week 8, got foot tendonitis after 3 days, and couldn't walk for a month. Do what the plan says to challenge yourself while also keeping your body out of harms way.

4. This plan takes too much time or doesn't fit my schedule. I understand time and scheduling can be hard, but once you get into a habit of this, it becomes very easy to keep up. Each run in Week 1 should take no more than 20 minutes if you do one mile, no matter how out of shape you are. Each time you run, you're also getting faster and fitter, so what may seem long now will be a short run in the future. Eventually, you're going to be feeling and looking so good from the runs that you're going to enjoy it more than other activities, and begin cutting the excess out of your life.

Besides not finding time in the day to run, a more serious concern is having the runs be on days where you don't have much time compared to others. Once you get passed Week 3, Wednesday and Sundays are your rest days. But what if I'm usually free on those days and would prefer to run then, or I want to switch up the order of days?

An easy solution is to shift the days of the week in which you do the run or slightly change the scheduling, while still allowing your body to rest.

I'll do a couple examples. Let's say you're up to Week 7, which looks like this:

Week 7 (18 miles)
M 3 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 3 miles
F 5 miles
Sa 2 miles
Su off

For whatever reason, you'd rather run on Sundays and Wednesdays than Saturdays and Tuesdays, so you shift the routine to this:

Week 7 (18 miles)
S 3 miles
M 5 miles
Tu off
W 3 miles
Th 5 miles
F 2 miles
Sa off

Let's say another person would rather run Wednesday than Thursday, so their schedule goes from:

Week 7 (18 miles)
M 3 miles
T 5 miles
W off
Th 3 miles
F 5 miles
Sa 2 miles
Su off

to:

Week 7 (18 miles)
M 3 miles
T 5 miles
W 3 miles
Th off
F 5 miles
Sa 2 miles
Su off

While changing the schedule of days is not advised, this schedule change only alters the order of continuous work days (3 work days>>>off>>>2 work days>>>off>>>repeat). As long as you don't drastically change the number of consecutive work days in a week, you aren't risking injury or getting mismatched running times.

5. Where should I run/How should I track how far I'm running? The best place to run is a standard track at a high school or other public area. Each track should be 1/4 mile per lap, making 4 laps 1 mile. Multiply the miles you have to run by 4 to get your lap count. All high school tracks should be the 1/4 per lap standard, but if you know of a track but don't know how big it is, I suggest using this website to map out the distance (https://onthegomap.com/#/create).

If you don't have access to a track, I suggest using the same website to map out routes that match your distance of the day. It can be tricky and require a lot of trial and error, but the tool is fairly accurate easy to figure out.

When you run, you should obviously track how long it takes you from start to finish. Additionally, if you are running more than 1 mile but are able to track 1 mile intervals (easiest on a track), I suggest you also keep track of each time you run a mile; on digital an analogue stop watches, this function is known as the "lap" button. While it doesn't matter too much, it lets you know immediately how fast you are running and if you should go faster or slower.

For example, the last time you ran 3 miles, you did it in 25:56, or 8:39/mile (divide by 3 or use an online pace calculator). Using the lap function, you can see that on your first mile, you only ran it in 8:42, so you need to run faster to make up the time and improve.



Ok this is taking a ton of time and is way longer than I expected. Imma cut it off here, and put some other links to the military fitness website; trust me it's not super crazy or intense, just workouts for beginners or people recovering from injuries. Reply or DM me if you have any questions.

Running Faster: https://www.military.com/military-fitness/running/pft-run-workouts

Losing Love Handles: https://www.military.com/military-fitness/weight-loss/lose-love-handles

How to get Abs: https://www.military.com/military-fitness/workouts/achieving-washboard-abs

Beginner Leg Workouts: https://www.military.com/military-fitness/workouts/run-and-leg-pt

 

I'm sure this progression would also work on a treadmill, but I really recommend running outside if you live in a weather permitting area.

When running on a treadmill, you get less of a workout in your legs and core because your legs aren't pushing forward to keep you moving, and your core muscles aren't having to flex and relax to match the leg movements. I'm not a professional nor do I have any sort of training expertise, but I know that doing exercises that reflect real life and real situations are gonna give you an all around better workout and better cardio.

Treadmills are good if you're trying to reach a goal pace time, but since this schedule is all about personal improvement, there are no goal times; you start off at whatever pace you want in the beginning, and try to replicate or do bette each time you run that distance again.

Also just personal opinion, running outside or on a track is way better experience than a treadmill. Fresh cool air is gonna replenish your lungs way better than humid gym air, and you can just run in cool places. Running on a treadmill can be monotonous and cause burnout. Also, even though I have no evidence to back it up, I would place money on running outside to be working the pelvic muscles and other muscles used during sex more than a treadmill; since running on a treadmill also pads your steps and landings, running outside would also relax your pelvic region and promote bloodflow if blue balls or lack of bloodflow in that region is a problem for you.

 

Anything that's low impact should be fine. I did like 30-45 minute hikes on those days. A walk in the same amount of time should work as well.

Injury is a risk when you're increasing your mileage, so cardio that doesn't put as much stress on your legs or joints is ideal for the recovery days.

 

The low impact days are meant to keep you loose and refreshed without placing too much stress on your legs and joints. Calisthenics should be fine if you throw some leg exercises in there. Consistency will also really help you get results.