Walking vs. Running – Which is Better?

Running and walking are both popular ways to get a great cardio workout. But is a brisk walk really as good an exercise as a sweaty, heart-pounding run?

Research reported by the American Heart Association finds that walking is just as good as running when it comes to lowering your risk for heart disease.

Researchers analyzed the health of some 48,000 runners and walkers mainly in [their] 40s and 50s. They found that, mile for mile brisk walking lowers the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure as much as running does.

The difference? You’ll have to spend more time walking than you do running to get the same health benefits simply because it takes longer to walk than to run the same distance. For instance, a 15-minute jog burns about the same number of calories as a half-hour brisk walk.

Keep in mind that the chance of being injured is greater in runners because running puts more stress on the body – on the joints in particular.

But if you’re still thinking of stepping up the pace to running, first check with your doctor, especially if you have arthritis or other health conditions, like heart disease.

Is Running Bad for Your Knees?

It is commonly known that running can leave you sore and swollen. However, a new study suggests running might actually reduce inflammation in joints.

“It flies in the face of intuition,” said study co-author Matt Seeley, an associated professor of exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. “This idea that long-distance running is bad for your knees might be a myth.”

Seeley and his colleagues reached their surprising conclusion after analyzing the knee joint fluid of several healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 35. The researchers looked for signs of inflammation in chemical markers before and after a 30-minute run and found little difference.

“What we now know is that for young healthy individuals, exercise creates an anti-inflammatory environment that may be beneficial in terms of long-term joint health,” lead author Robert Hyldahl said in a university news release. Hyldahl is an assistant professor of exercise science at BYU.

The researchers said the study suggests running could actually delay development of degenerative joint diseases like osteoarthritis.

“This study does not indicate that distance runners are any more likely to get osteoarthritis than any other person,” Seeley said. “Instead, this study suggests exercise can be a type of medicine.”

Wisdom Wednesday: Cross Training

Cross training technically refers to an athlete training in a sport other than one they compete in with the goal of improving performance in their chosen sport. For our purposes, the goal is to improve overall fitness.

All sports focus on specific parts of the body but also ignore other parts. Running places a lot of stress on the legs, but little on the arms. Cycling is very similar in that regard. Swimming places more emphasis on the arms and significantly less on the legs, especially in long distance swims. All these sports benefit from a strong core, but none of them work the core hard enough to really create the strong core you need. Weight training can quickly strengthen the core and strengthen virtually every muscle group but it tends to cause some loss in flexibility. Stretching, an important aspect of any workout will give you that flexibility but it is often neglected because of time restraints.

Rest is the other vital factor in this equation. By cross training, you can workout several days in a row, but still allow alternating parts of your body to rest.

Let’s use my current workout plan as an example. On Monday and Wednesday, I lift weights. Monday is chest and triceps and Wednesday is back and biceps. I do some abs every workout and hate every minute of it. I’ll cover weight lifting in more detail next week. After I lift weights, I swim. Part of it is convenience; the pool is at the gym. However, swimming after lifting elongates the muscle in the arms and helps drive the lactic acid out of the muscles, speeding recovery.

On Tuesday and Thursday I spin. If I missed a lift, or want to do a little extra work in the weight room, I usually do that prior to spinning class. If I were training for a triathlon, I might swim prior to spinning and then run after spinning to mimic an event.

When It Comes to Jogging, Easy Does It

“In this study, the dose of running that was most favorable for reducing mortality was jogging 1 to 2.4 hours per week, with no more than three running days per week,” said study researcher Jacob Marott of the Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. The best pace was slow or average – about 5 miles per hour, he added.

Out of a pool of about 5,000 Danish adults, Marott and his colleagues followed nearly 1,100 healthy joggers and 413 sedentary people for more than 12 years. The joggers noted their hours and frequency of jogging, and their perception of their pace.

The strenuous joggers, the investigators found, were as likely to die during that time period as the sedentary non-joggers. Light joggers and moderate joggers fared better, in that order.

The findings were released online Feb. 2 in advance of publication in the Feb. 10 edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

What is it about strenuous running that might be harmful? “We believe that long-term strenuous endurance exercise may induce pathological structural remodeling of the heart and large arteries,” Marott said.

However, a U.S.-based researcher said the debate about the optimal dose of running for longevity is far from resolved.

The new study has limitations, said D.C. Lee, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University, who co-authored an editorial accompanying the study.

Wisdom Wednesday: The Basics of Running

Running is the most effective exercise for losing weight and improving physical fitness. It requires very little equipment, all you need is a decent pair of running shoes, and it can be performed almost anywhere. When I travel my favorite way to learn my way around a new setting is to go for a run.

For those just starting out or returning to running after a long hiatus, I recommend the Galloway Method. Jeff Galloway was a long distance runner that wrote several books on the subject. He advocated running a mile, then walking a minute, then repeat for as many miles as you plan to run. Many runners have used his method to complete marathons.

If that seems too difficult there is an app called “couch to 5K” that takes you through the beginning stages of running, gradually building to run a 3.1 mile race. Many communities offer couch to 5K classes through their recreation departments for a nominal fee.

Most injuries in running are related to the “3 Ss” – shoe, surface, and speed.

Start by spending some money on a decent pair of running shoes. Running shoes can often exceed $100 but you can save some money by purchasing last year’s model. Nike, Asics, Puma and others are constantly updating their running shoes. All running shoes are rated on 3 factors – cushioning, stability, and durability. I recommend a shoe with high cushioning with neutral stability. Stability shoes reduce supination or pronation (a foot that falls outward or inward excessively). However, mild pronation of foot is a normal action that acts to absorb some of the shock of running. If you reduce pronation, the shock is transferred to the knee, often with disastrous results.

Your local often determines the surface. Short mowed grass (like the edge of the fairway at the local golf course) is the best. My recovery run takes me from home to a nearby park where I run around the football field. It’s a little boring, but easy on the legs.