Build your engine
Twelve minutes tells you where you are. Four weeks moves it.
- Length
- 4 weeks
- Sessions
- 3 a week
- Each
- 35 min
- Improves
- Cooper 12-Minute Run
Cardiorespiratory fitness has one of the strongest relationships with long-term mortality in the literature. It is also the most trainable thing on this site — four weeks of honest work moves the number.
Clip coming: easy run
Your week
Three different sessions, not one repeated. Spread them out.
Easy run or brisk walk, cycling, or swimming
1 × 25-30 min
Conversational pace. If you cannot speak a full sentence, you are going too hard — most people ruin this session by treating it as a workout.
Intervals
6 × 2 min hard, 2 min easy
Hard means you could not hold it for a third minute. This is the session that moves the Cooper number.
Long easy effort or walk, hike, cycle
1 × 40-50 min
Once a week, weekend if that is easier. Pace does not matter.
Strides
6 × 20 seconds
Fast but relaxed, at the end of an easy run. Full recovery between.
Four weeks
- 01Week 1 — all easy. Build the habit before the intensity.
- 02Week 2 — add the interval session.
- 03Week 3 — add two intervals, or hold the pace for longer.
- 04Week 4 — ease off for three days, then retest your 12 minutes.
Then retest your Cooper 12-Minute Run
Four weeks is long enough for this number to move. Take the screen before you start so you have a baseline worth comparing against.