Conditioning before C25K?

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I'm losing weight, but I'm 290lbs right now. I can walk up to 3 miles without feeling like death, but jogging is hard on my joints and I don't feel like I can safely jog any distance without risking injury.
That means I can't complete the first week's exercises since they involve jogging.
I don't know if anyone else has had to deal with the question: if I should keep walking and lose weight before I attempt to jog OR if I should do as much of week one's exercise until I'm able to complete it and move on to week 2?
Any advice would be appreciated :)

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  • jennypapage
    jennypapage Posts: 489 Member
    edited August 2021
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    It depends on how you feel. If you think jogging is too hard right now, just walk . It does get easier the more weight you lose. There's no rush.Maybe try walking a little bit faster each week until you're ready to to make the transition from walking fast to jogging without feeling like you are now.
  • MomFLYer
    MomFLYer Posts: 47 Member
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    I do speedwalking during the intervals at first until I can do the entire program (my route involves some steep hills) without "tapping out". Then I do wogging (jogging, but at a walking pace (hey, I'm short, everyone else isn't)) until I can do that same program without "tapping out" again - it takes a lot of extra time, but I was able to use this program this way with a HR monitor to come back from two seperate stentings (one with a heart attack) and will do this again as soon as my arthritis cooperates!
  • weeblex
    weeblex Posts: 411 Member
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    I couldn't do the start of C25k so I went walking, brisk walks not slow ones, and long, 2+ hours and got my body used to the energy and muscle usage.

    I'm now up to week 6 of the C25k and I'm suffering muscle aches but no other issues.

    I started at 265lbs so a little lighter than you but not much, I was worried about that weight hitting my joints too but that hasn't happened.

    Two things to remember about C25k are that you don't have to go fast, it's just about getting your feet off the ground and secondly listening to your body. Week one is 60 seconds running intervals, if you can't do that, then do 30 seconds and take longer to recover. Use week one as a goal to get jogging.

    Finally, if you are really worried about the impact, you could always use the same intervals on an Elliptical trainer.