Too Much Running, Not Enough Running

Too Much Running, Not Enough Running

            Just about everyone that works out, tries to be healthy, tries to lose fat, or is in a sport knows about the goodness of running.  It can be one of the healthiest things for the body.  Most people do it to slim down or lose weight.  Although some people get a bit too reliant and extreme on their running habits.  The occasional five mile run or race with friends is a great and fun way to stay healthy but too much can be treacherous to someone trying to gain muscle. 

            Many people get the mistake that running a lot improves your leg muscles, thing can be true only under certain circumstances.  Yes, it strengthens your legs, but only if you are do quick bursts of sprinting and occasional resting in between will it.  For most people, they do long miles of jogging and cardio on the pavement, this actually diminishes your leg muscles because of the slow and burning from all that cardio.  Instead of exhausting your muscles and making them get stronger from the running, you are instead making them used to the repetition of a jog and slowly burning muscle mass.

            If you think of it like a car with a full tank of gas and your muscles are the engine.  In order for your legs to gain mass, the engine needs to get as hot as possible without burning all it’s gas at once.  The way you would do this is to rev the engine at a high acceleration for short amounts of time and then shutting it off as to not waste fuel and then repeating.  Your engine is getting very hot and you aren’t wasting any unnecessary gas.  A jog is more like you turn on the engine and run it on a medium acceleration for a long period of time.  By the end your car is out of gas and your engine never really got very hot.  Running is like that.

            I’m not saying that you shouldn’t jog or run in general all I am saying is that if you are trying to maintain muscles mass and gain strength from your legs you really should stop having your fun runs with your friends every week and maybe change it to a “see who can run to Wal-Mart the fastest” run instead.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.