Endurance running: Why it won't get you fit!

There's a reason that up to 79 percent of runners get sidelined with an injury at least once per year: It's an incredibly inefficient way to build strength. A strong body is the number one way to prevent injuries, increase metabolism, burn fat, and stay mobile and functional in old age. Statistically speaking, if you're interested in staying healthy, you run. And sure, it seems like a "natural" exercise. But running at an average, not toohard, not too easy pace isn't which our bodies thrive. It was really only popularised as a combat to being sedentary in the 1960s, and while any movement is usually better than none, running fails almost every test of a worthy exercise.

There are two main reasons that people run, and the most popular is fat loss: Folks "do cardio" because they want to burn off their bellies.

"That's usually what the mentality is, that it's a way to get leaner and lose weight, but doing other things outside of running will probably have a better effect at catalyzing that result,"

Weight bearing, strength exercise, multi-joint movements like the squat, dead lift, overhead press, chin-ups, pull-ups, and push-ups are for effective for strength training and reducing your risk of injury.

To improve cardio fitness, lowering rest periods or stringing together several exercises in a "circuit" in order to keep the heart rate up and improve cardio respiratory capacity. You get more benefits because you're actually challenging your muscles against resistance, which will burn more calories, potentiate a lot more fat loss, and raise your metabolism.

Studies have consistently shown that weight training and sprinting are more effective than running at targeting belly fat and creating a good hormonal environment for fat loss, meaning better insulin sensitivity, less of the stress hormone cortisol, and more growth hormone and testosterone. (Yes, women have levels too.)

A 2008 study , split 27 obese women into three groups: one group did low-intensity running five days per week, the next did high-intensity sprints for just three days per week, and the third control group was instructed to skip exercise altogether.

After a 16 weeks of training, the results were undeniable: The sprinters lost significant amounts of abdominal and thigh fat, and while the low-intensity group did improve their aerobic fitness, their body fat levels didn't budge any more than the group on the bench.

Studies have shown that shorter sessions of anaerobic training, like fast-paced resistance training or sprints, are just as good for heart health as long, drawn-out runs and better at maintaining muscle and increasing aerobic fitness (or VO2 max, if you want to be specific).

A 15 week long study found that people who did just ten sets of ten-second maximum paced sprints on a stationary bike did a better job of improving endurance and power output than medium-intensity workouts lasting 20 to 25 minutes.

Remember, running is only good for cardio because it makes you breathe hard, but there are endless ways to do that.

Just love to run? Don't want to give it up? That's cool, just do it faster! "In many ways, sprinting is safer than running, due to many people having a lot of muscle imbalances.This just leads to chronic pain.

Sprinting with good form remedies the problems of running in multiple ways:

1. You take fewer strides overall (so it has less impact on the joints),

2. You move more efficiently

3, You use more muscles in the body

4. It recruits more fast-twitch muscle fibers, which are more involved with building strength and power.

5. You're doing things that require strength, explosiveness, exertion, and intensity, so your muscles are going to have to work a little bit harder, they're going to burn more calories.

However

An easy, low-intensity run can put less stress on the tendons than the high-intensity kind.

While high-intensity training will burn more calories after the workout, you might burn more calories during a steady run because those kinds of workouts tend to last longer. The really notable benefit of high intensity exercise lies in the hormonal benefits. Sprints increase testosterone, growth hormone, and thyroid hormone production compared to steady cardio. The first two hormones have a powerful effect on fat loss and muscle gain, which is a big reason why sprints win the body-composition game.

If you really prefer endurance style exercise, you'll still achieve longer term health benefits by relying on movement patterns that strengthen and protect the most vulnerable parts of your body. It's lousy for strength gains. Being more resistant to injury is a really important benefit of being strong, particularly as you age.

But If Running Is Life, then run.