Is Running Making You Fatter?

Written by: Shin Ohtake, Fitness & Fat-Loss Expert
Author of MAX Workouts, The Ultimate Lean Body Fitness Program

Every morning, shortly after we get up we take our dog out for an hour walk. It’s our daily morning ritual. Fortunately weather in southern California allows us to participate in this joyful activity and we take full advantage of it.

Luckily we live close to the beach, so we take our walks along the beach and every morning we see all sorts of people partaking in fun activities like rollerblading, bike riding, walking. But by far the most common activity we see is running…although I’m not sure if I’d consider running as a “fun” activity for me personally…I know many people love to run.

I think it’s partly the endorphin rush you get when you run, not to mention it’s also the easiest form of exercise. It’s something anyone can do…but easy isn’t always the best. The biggest problem I see with people running is that majority of them aren’t physically strong enough to run properly.

If you slowed down the motion and saw the biomechanics of running, you would quickly see that running is a plyometric exercise. When you run, you actually put all of your weight on one foot and then push off with enough force to lift your entire body off the ground, while you switch legs and land on your other foot. Running forces you to bear all of your weight on one foot at a time and then it’s repeated thousands of times or more depending on how far you run.

That’s a lot of force being applied to the joints on your legs. It’s no wonder so many people that run suffer from foot, ankle, knees and hip injuries. Their joints aren’t capable of handling that kind of forceful repetitive stress.

When you think about it, running requires a lot of muscle, tendon and ligament support. So really, it should only be performed by people that are in good shape and strong enough to handle the repetitive force running places on your body.

Unfortunately most of the people I see running are nowhere near in the kind of shape they should be in. It’s completely backwards…the people I see most often running are exactly the kind of people that shouldn’t be running. It’s painful to see so many of these people that’s trying to get into shape by “literally” pounding their poor joints into the ground.

The truth is when you begin running you will burn more calories, hence you will lose weight. However, what you’re not realizing is that you’re setting yourself up for eventual halt in progression.

Why?

Because your body has an innate ability to adapt and make things more proficient, so your body doesn’t have to expend as much energy. What this means is that as you get better at running, your body ends up burning less calories when you run! A double edge sword…right? You want to get fit and be able to run better, but you also want to keep burning calories so you can lose weight. So if your body keeps getting more efficient at conserving energy when you run, you have to either increase the distance you run OR increase the pace of your runs.

And for most part, people tend to increase the distance, because it’s easier to do. Increasing your pace for a long distance run is difficult, challenging and it’s too hard to keep the pace up without stopping or resting, so if your running continuously your pace automatically slows down to a pace that you can keep running for long periods of time. And this usually ends up in one of the two scenarios:

The first scenario is - you end up running the same distances at the same steady pace, day in and day out and your weight loss progress complete comes to a halt.

The second scenario is - that you get injured. Your body and joints can only handle the constant pounding and the repetitive stress eventually causes inflammation on one or more of your joints..

Either way, neither scenario is good.

Not to mention that running long distances causes you to lose lean muscle mass, which is your body’s most effective calorie burner. Less lean muscle mass means less calories burned as well as decreased strength, which makes you more susceptible to injuries. It’s a vicious cycle.

So what’s a runner to do? STOP RUNNING.

There are far better and more effective ways to get into shape then just hitting the pavement and going for a long run. Running has it’s place in a fitness regimen, but only after you’ve gotten strong enough to be able to sustain the kind of force running generates. Even then, I think long runs should only be done sparingly…unless you’re training for an endurance event that requires you to do so.

I’d stick to doing short bursts of sprints or fast paced running followed by rest and recovery. This way you’re only putting pressure on your joints for a short period of time followed by rest so your muscles, tendons and ligaments can recover…hopefully enough for you to be able to sustain the force for multiple rounds of short runs. You can repeat this process as many times as you want (or as many as your body lets you)...although I see no need to do anymore than 20 - 30 minutes worth.

I would also recommend running on grass, sand or any surface that has some give instead of concrete…to reduce the amount of stress put on your joints.

Even then, these short bursts of running may still be too strenuous for some of you that are just starting out and need more time to develop proper conditioning and strength before tackling the runs. Which is why it’s vital that you include strength training as part of your regular fitness regimen.

Now, I’m not talking about ineffective isolated exercises…sorry to disappoint, but if you’ve been hittin’ the weights doing bicep curls or tricep kick backs, it’s just not going to cut it. You need to be doing full body exercises that build functional strength. Functional strength enables you to carry the benefits over to activities like running, hiking, climbing as well as essential primal movements such as lifting, carrying, jumping, pulling and pushing…all activities/movements that your body performs on a daily basis.

And let’s not forget that performing full body functional exercises also builds lean muscle mass which increases your ability to burn more calories…especially from fat…hence getting you leaner and fitter, much more effectively than “just” running.


Source: http://www.maxworkouts.com/articles/entry/is-running-making-you-fatter