10 Benefits Of Running

Life Is Better When You're Running

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Motivation: Go Run

Just Do It

Starting to Run

Starting To Run

Strong legs, strong lungs, strong will. These are qualities of a disciplined runner. You can become a runner too!

Why should you run?

Running has the same benefits of all cardiovascular exercise: it reduces stress, strengthens your heart and lungs, reduces risk of many diseases, increases your confidence, gives you more energy, and provides an overall sense of well-being. Plus, you get to burn calories!

How many calories do you burn running a mile?

Generally, for every mile you run, you will burn 100 calories. Other factors play into the equation as well,such as your running speed and your body weight. A 130-pound person will burn about 100 calories per mile. A 200-pound person, running at the same speed, may burn 150.And of course, the faster you run the more calories you will burn.

Starting to run

Running can be stressful on your body, particularly on your leg muscles and knees. You can minimize your risk of injury with these simple tips:

• Make sure to stretch before and after every run
• Walk briskly for at least 5 minutes at the beginning of each run
• After your body has started to warm up, do some stretches

If you are new to running, here's how you can work up to a 30-minute running routine while reducing the risk of injury:

Your first goal will be to make sure that you can walk at a brisk pace for 30 minutes. If you can do that, start to run at a slow pace until you become short of breath. Then walk briskly until you feel like you can run again. Continue with these intervals. You can challenge yourself by timing these intervals and working toward longer intervals. For example, maybe the first day you will run for 30 seconds and walk for 2 minutes. As your endurance increases, run longer and walk for shorter distances.

The best places to run are smooth dirt roads or paths, which are not as hard as asphalt and concrete.

A running routine is a rewarding way to build strength and endurance.

Running To Lose Weight

Running To Lose Weight

6 Essential Tips to Increase Fat Loss

The running:

There are several ways you can run to lose weight:

• Run at a constant pace for a set amount of time
• Interval training – where you do bursts of higher intensity

Both of these will be discussed in more depth further down the page.

To get the best results out of your running you need to work in your optimum training zone. We can do this by using your heart rate. To find your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) you do the following:

220 – your age = your MHR

Once you have your MHR you can then work out what your heart rate you should be when exercising, you should be looking to exercise at between 70-85% of your MHR.

MHR x % intensity = target heart rate.

Running at a constant pace

This is self explanatory, you will run at the same pace for approx 40-60mins per running session. The duration you run for will depend on your current fitness level, if you are just beginning to exercise then start out at 20mins and then you can increase your time as you become fitter, this could be done by increasing your time by 1 min each time you exercise until you are able to jog/ run for 45-60mins in total. You should be working at approx 60% of your MHR if you are just starting to exercise and then as your fitness increases you can increase the % until you are exercising between 70-85% of your MHR. Exercise 3-5 times per week.

Interval Training

Interval training is where there are bursts of high intensity work between reduced intensity work. For example:

8-10min warm up – low intensity
1min moderate intensity
1min high intensity
1 min moderate intensity
1 min high intensity etc continuing for the desired time of the work out.
10 min cool down

The ratios can be changed so you could do 1min reduced 30 second high intensity etc. When talking high intensity you would be looking at exercising at 85% of your MHR.

If you do not use a heart rate monitor

Knowing the intensity to work out when you don’t use a heart rate monitor.
You do not need to use a heart rate monitor to know when you are working out at different intensities, you will be able to feel it. If you can have a conversation with someone easily and breathing normally then you are working at a low intensity, high intensity would be when you are working as hard as you can this will feel between a hard and very hard pace. So moderate intesity is in between low and high intensity, you will be finding the pace somewhat hard but you feel ok and can keep going at the same pace.  Once you start jogging and running you will find it easy to tell what you feel is moderate intensity and high intesnsity.

Your Heart

If you have any heart issues please get advice from your Doctor first before starting any kind of exercise programme.

If you are taking heart medication you will not be able to rely on using a heart rate monitor when exercising as the medication will affect how your heart rate works so speak with your Doctors first before starting an exercise programme.

Too much running

Remember to take rest days each week as your body needs to recover. There is another issue that isn’t often discussed and that is if you only do cardio exercise and no resistance training then you are at risk of not only burning off fat but also losing lean muscle. If you lose lean muscle your metabolism slows down. Depending on how you want to look physically there is also a chance you will look slim but have very little muscle tone so all your hard work will have made you lose weight but you wont have a firm toned body. To prevent this happening you should include resistance training in your exercise programme.

Resistance training will even help you lose weight, this is because the more muscle you have the better your body burns calories, more muscle increases your metabolism so you will be burning calories when you are not working out. You will also be firming and toning your muscles up which will make you look great.

Don’t worry about “bulking up” by doing resistance training, this is very hard for women to actually do due to having only a small amount of testosterone. It takes guys quite a bit of time to get bigger muscles and they have a much higher amount of testosterone so don’t think you will lift a few weights and suddenly look big and muscley because it just won‘t happen.

Don’t be afraid of using heavy weights either, if you are doing 3 sets of 12 reps then the weight you choose needs to be heavy enough that you can only do 12 reps and no more without losing form, if you can do more reps then use a heavier weight.

Don’t use the scales as a judge of how much weight you have lost because by doing resistance training and increasing your muscle mass you may not see much difference. This is because muscle is more dense than fat and so when you gain muscle it will take up less room than fat but would end up weighing more

Love This - Great Fitness Motivation

Correct way to run

This is a great little info-graphic that teaches you the correct way/posture to run. It really helped me and I hope it helps you to stay fit as well!