Running

[thebigcheese]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/62787/

Sorry to bring up running again. I know that most of you hate it. But does anybody on this board have any exercise expertise? Because this answer pretty much goes against everything I've ever thought about running. Granted, I'm no expert, so...take this with a grain of salt. But I've always heard that running (ESPECIALLY long distance running because it's super low intensity) is pretty much a terrible way to lose weight because it burns too few calories to make much of a difference. I've always heard that higher intensity workouts are better if your goal is burning lots of calories.

Also, I would say that you won't make much progress if you repeat the exact same routine every single day. This might not be super important to people who are not training for a specific event, but I think you'll find that you'll peak at a certain point and basically stay there forever because you've only worked on endurance and nothing else. Varied workouts give you more strengths than just endurance, it gives you things like power and speed (assuming that you actually run faster on the short workouts). Overall, variance makes you a better runner and less prone to injury. And faster. Let's not forget that one. Even the casual runner likes to go faster.

So...in conclusion, I'd like to see some hard evidence to prove either case. This is just from my experience on the track team in high school and what I've heard from people over the years.

[SMP]

I've heard people say that walking burns more calories than running. But what they mean is that walking burns more calories per mile. So I don't know about you, when it comes to working out, I don't allot a fixed number of miles. I prefer to think more in terms of how much time do I have. And per hour, walking does not burn nearly as many calories as running.

I am not an expert on exercise, and I hate running. It might be true that running long distances at a slower pace burns more calories per mile than high intensity. But if you want to make the most of your time, I definitely think high intensity is the way to go.

I recognize that my argument is based on a probably-overly-simplistic idea that more calories burned = more fat lost. There is probably more to it, and perhaps this could result in my answer being completely wrong.

[Dragon Lady]

This is not answering your question at all, but is about running, which is the title of this thread. So I'm good, right?

Despite my hatred of running, I'm actually tempted to buy the Couch to 5K app for my iPod and try it out. That is crazy talk to me.

[Eirene]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/62787/
But I've always heard that running (ESPECIALLY long distance running because it's super low intensity) is pretty much a terrible way to lose weight because it burns too few calories to make much of a difference. I've always heard that higher intensity workouts are better if your goal is burning lots of calories.

Yes, you burn more calories per amount of time at high intensity, but if you go for much longer distances (like ten miles instead of three), you'll burn more calories per workout, even if it takes way longer to go that far, and even if going long distances necessitates lower intensity.

[wired]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/62787/

Sorry to bring up running again. I know that most of you hate it. But does anybody on this board have any exercise expertise? Because this answer pretty much goes against everything I've ever thought about running. Granted, I'm no expert, so...take this with a grain of salt. But I've always heard that running (ESPECIALLY long distance running because it's super low intensity) is pretty much a terrible way to lose weight because it burns too few calories to make much of a difference. I've always heard that higher intensity workouts are better if your goal is burning lots of calories.

Also, I would say that you won't make much progress if you repeat the exact same routine every single day. This might not be super important to people who are not training for a specific event, but I think you'll find that you'll peak at a certain point and basically stay there forever because you've only worked on endurance and nothing else. Varied workouts give you more strengths than just endurance, it gives you things like power and speed (assuming that you actually run faster on the short workouts). Overall, variance makes you a better runner and less prone to injury. And faster. Let's not forget that one. Even the casual runner likes to go faster.

So...in conclusion, I'd like to see some hard evidence to prove either case. This is just from my experience on the track team in high school and what I've heard from people over the years.

I think what the answer meant was the duration of your workout. If you have the choice between 2 miles quickly (in 15 minutes) and 6 miles much more slowly (60 minutes), the slower but longer workout will be the one that REALLY burns fat. Your body uses glucose (sugar) and glycogen (a quick secondary source of energy) for the beginning duration of a workout. Once your body starts to burn through that, it will began tapping stored energy (fat) to make up for the depleting stores of primary energy. How quickly you hit those stores is a function of the energy you're exerting, the length you're exerting it, and magic wax (individual idiosyncrasies).

So it is feasible that you could workout less time and burn more fat, depending intensity, but the difference is really marked for longer workouts. Ideally, you'll work up endurance so you can add intensity to your longer runs. That's what short-distance speed training is especially helpful for - building up the ability to have higher intensity, longer workouts.

But, back on point, I think the answerer was saying if you have to pick between short, high intensity and long, mild intensity, the latter will burn more fat. Really though, long, high intensity will burn the most fat - it's just not feasible to expect someone to be able to do their two- or three-mile pace over longer distances. (Otherwise we'd have marathoners finishing in an hour and forty minutes instead of the two hours and change it normally takes them.)

[Sky Bones]

This is Sky Bones' husband (again and still without my own alias) and I am a professional, college educated fitness expert and I just wanted to quickly throw in my two cents. The questioner asked about running for weight loss and I just want it to be known that I normally wouldn't recommend running to a client if their only fitness goal was weight loss or general fitness--that is unless they really enjoy running for recreational reasons. It's just not an effective way to lose weight. But, if you do really like to run and that's your exercise of choice, you certainly can lose weight if you do it right.

To clarify, it really doesn't matter how fast you move your body on a flat surface, it takes more or less the same number of calories. Running, sprinting, or walking--it's the same. You can estimate your calories burned per mile with this equation, (2 x (body weight in lbs))/3.5--remember, this is an estimate as everyone's metabolism is different. As you can see in this equation, speed is not considered. So for me, I weigh 130 pounds--double that and divide by 3.5 and my body will burn about 74 kcals/mile. Since there are 3500 kcals in a pound of human fat, if would take me about 47 miles to burn a pound of fat (that is if my calories were otherwise perfectly balanced). So for someone like me, who may only want to lose a little fat, it's a ridiculously terrible way as it would take an insane amount of effort for very little return. However, if someone is very large and out of shape, it can be a somewhat more effective place to start. For example, the questioner weighs 250 pounds so they would have to go about 24 miles to burn a pound or fat. A bit more reasonable, but still a lot of time that could be more effectively used with efficient weight loss exercises. Oh, and let's just throw the 'fat burnings zone' myth in the garbage right now. It doesn't matter what fuel your body uses at any given time during an exercise, at the end of the day it will all equalize out to calories in, calories out. I promise.

But, if running is what you enjoy then go for it. Just be careful, especially if you are deconditioned, that you use or learn proper running technique, proper warm up and cool down, and proper stretching techniques--and I don't just mean your hamstrings and calves. I say that any runner who doesn't own and know how to use a foam roller needs a swift kick in the shins.

As for the questioner's questions, depending on your overall fitness level and running technique, running six days a week could potentially be too taxing on the body, specifically the joints and it's no fun to wait until you are injured or worse develop a chronic problem to realize you've been pushing yourself too hard. I would recommend doing more like 3-5 days a week with rest between days or after a couple days. As for changing things up, incline can burn more calories and varying the speed (if done properly) can improve cardiovascular efficiency so it all depends on your goals. If your only goal is weight loss and running is for you, try to get as many miles under your belt as possible and don't worry about speed. The best thing about this is you can continue to walk all day! Park further away, walk to the grocery store, walk to your friends house, walk to church, walk, walk, walk. The more miles, the more calories--also walking is MUCH less strenuous on your joints which is one reason people say it's such a good exercise.

Okay, that was more than two cents.

[Dragon Lady]

But, if running is what you enjoy then go for it. Just be careful, especially if you are deconditioned, that you use or learn proper running technique, proper warm up and cool down, and proper stretching techniques--and I don't just mean your hamstrings and calves. I say that any runner who doesn't own and know how to use a foam roller needs a swift kick in the shins.

So, as someone who has never been trained in running, how would you suggest learning proper running technique and proper warm up and cool downs and proper stretching techniques?

[Sky Bones]

Get a personal trainer/consult a professional. It's pretty complicated stuff and it's very valuable information.

[Dragon Lady]

Get a personal trainer/consult a professional. It's pretty complicated stuff and it's very valuable information.

This isn't convincing me that I should take up running. I was thinking of doing it because it's, well, free.

[Great Deflector]

I normally wouldn't recommend running to a client if their only fitness goal was weight loss or general fitness

What exercise would you recommend to people trying to lose weight, then?

[thebigcheese]

For our track and cross country workouts, we would usually jog between 0.5 to 1 mile for the warm up, stretch for a while, and then do the actual workout. Then to cool down, we would do these silly things for two laps around the football field. It was kind of like doing jumping jacks while moving sideways. I don't really know if they had a scientific purpose, but we did them every day.

[Whistler]

if you're curious about the foam roller thing like I was, youtube has videos. I... had never heard of this until now.

[TheAnswerIs42]

This is Sky Bones' husband (again and still without my own alias) and I am a professional, college educated fitness expert and I just wanted to quickly throw in my two cents. The questioner asked about running for weight loss and I just want it to be known that I normally wouldn't recommend running to a client if their only fitness goal was weight loss or general fitness--that is unless they really enjoy running for recreational reasons. It's just not an effective way to lose weight. But, if you do really like to run and that's your exercise of choice, you certainly can lose weight if you do it right.

To clarify, it really doesn't matter how fast you move your body on a flat surface, it takes more or less the same number of calories. Running, sprinting, or walking--it's the same. You can estimate your calories burned per mile with this equation, (2 x (body weight in lbs))/3.5--remember, this is an estimate as everyone's metabolism is different. As you can see in this equation, speed is not considered. So for me, I weigh 130 pounds--double that and divide by 3.5 and my body will burn about 74 kcals/mile. Since there are 3500 kcals in a pound of human fat, if would take me about 47 miles to burn a pound of fat (that is if my calories were otherwise perfectly balanced). So for someone like me, who may only want to lose a little fat, it's a ridiculously terrible way as it would take an insane amount of effort for very little return. However, if someone is very large and out of shape, it can be a somewhat more effective place to start. For example, the questioner weighs 250 pounds so they would have to go about 24 miles to burn a pound or fat. A bit more reasonable, but still a lot of time that could be more effectively used with efficient weight loss exercises. Oh, and let's just throw the 'fat burnings zone' myth in the garbage right now. It doesn't matter what fuel your body uses at any given time during an exercise, at the end of the day it will all equalize out to calories in, calories out. I promise.

But, if running is what you enjoy then go for it. Just be careful, especially if you are deconditioned, that you use or learn proper running technique, proper warm up and cool down, and proper stretching techniques--and I don't just mean your hamstrings and calves. I say that any runner who doesn't own and know how to use a foam roller needs a swift kick in the shins.

As for the questioner's questions, depending on your overall fitness level and running technique, running six days a week could potentially be too taxing on the body, specifically the joints and it's no fun to wait until you are injured or worse develop a chronic problem to realize you've been pushing yourself too hard. I would recommend doing more like 3-5 days a week with rest between days or after a couple days. As for changing things up, incline can burn more calories and varying the speed (if done properly) can improve cardiovascular efficiency so it all depends on your goals. If your only goal is weight loss and running is for you, try to get as many miles under your belt as possible and don't worry about speed. The best thing about this is you can continue to walk all day! Park further away, walk to the grocery store, walk to your friends house, walk to church, walk, walk, walk. The more miles, the more calories--also walking is MUCH less strenuous on your joints which is one reason people say it's such a good exercise.

Okay, that was more than two cents.

This is 42's husband, and I wanted to add my two cents as well. However, one of my two cents contradicts one of Mr. Sky Bones' two cents (42 asked me to keep this nice, so I'll try my best to do so)

I ran cross country in high school and in the last 17 years I've run about 20 marathons. As you can imagine, I have a somewhat biased view on the topic of whether or not running is a good thing to do. I also have a little experience with running, so hopefully my experience will help me to gain back some of that credibility I lose through my bias.

When you get down to it, losing weight is generally pretty simple. Burn more calories then you consume. If you do this you will lose weight. No "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s about it. Most people, including myself, gain weight because they eat too much and exercise too little. The key to weight loss is to switch this imbalance so that your body has no choice but to burn some of it's internal food storage.

I'm not a dietician. Therefore, I'll focus on the side of burning more calories. All exercises burn calories. However, when picking exercises for the intent of weight loss, you should pick exercises that burn lots of calories. You can find all kinds of varying opinions as to which exercises burn the most calories. Many people including Sky Bones' husband believe that there is little calorie difference in running a mile vs walking a mile. Some believe that walking burns more calories per mile, while others believe that running burns more per mile. I recently found an article with very good information on the subject, and I highly suggest anyone with an interest in the debate give this article a read:

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7 ... -0,00.html

This article references one of the most scientific studies I have seen on the subject. In summary, the researchers from Syracuse University found that running one mile burns roughly twice the "net" calories of walking one mile under average conditions. I guess that is why it is so much harder to run than to walk.

I suppose it is possible to burn calories doing almost anything, but for those of us that don't want to exercise for hours each day, burning calories quickly is important. I often run for one hour. According to the results from Syracuse, if I walked at half that speed to obtain the same net calorie burn it would take me about four hours and twice the distance.

A final thought... One of our best gauges for determining calorie burn is often overlooked. When we burn calories our bodies produce carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide makes our lungs uncomfortable so they breathe faster. When you are exercising, ask yourself, "How hard am I breathing?" If you aren't breathing hard then you aren't burning many calories. If you are breathing hard then you are burning lots of calories. Running long distances isn't the only way to burn lots of calories. If you've done sprint intervals then you know your body is breathing hard for the entire workout. Steep hikes, challenging bike rides, basketball, can all maintain intense breathing rates.

[Tao]

This is me; duce of all mediums, master of none. Forgive my tangential-seeming ramblings, I've toyed with this thought off and on recently, and figure I'll throw it out here and see what happens.

The reason hydroponics works is that other than trace elements, plants get the majority of their dry biomass from respiration: plants are carbon-based, they 'breathe in' CO2, and 'breathe out' O2, with the carbon going into their structure. (Hydrogen from acids or hydroxides, I presume?)

Humans must do the opposite, as we breathe in O2 and out CO2. I've passingly wondered how much weight we lose this way over the course of our lives, but now wonder if the proper answer isn't "most of it". What I understand of the Kreb cycle means we 'burn' or oxidize carbons off of glucose to energize upgrade di-phosphates into tri-phosphates. {kinda} Weight loss isn't coming as mass-to energy E=mc^2, as much as it is discarding the 'burnt' carbon as CO2.

If I'm not mistaken, this would take 42's other half's point even further, breathing hard is a good indicator of calorie burn, and is in a sense the medium of weight loss. But, as Sky Bones' other half mentioned; if you hate something and/or may be injured thereby, it won't help you out much overall. While weight loss is a matter of calories in vs calories out, such must be sustained, so in my eyes the diet or exercise program that will work best for you is the one you'll stick with.

[Whistler]

but you have to exercise long enough for the anaerobic stuff to wear out, hence aerobics

[TheAnswerIs42]

I normally wouldn't recommend running to a client if their only fitness goal was weight loss or general fitness

What exercise would you recommend to people trying to lose weight, then?

Before this thread dies, I would like to second this question. Unlike my husband, I hate running. And after nearly a year of getting my butt into the gym twice a week and watching what I eat more carefully, I now don't fit into my favorite jeans anymore. Because I got BIGGER.

I have a feeling the answer is that I need a personal trainer. But how do you know if a trainer is actually a good one? I've had a couple of sessions with Gold's Gym guys, and haven't been all that impressed. And no offense, but for $40-$50 an hour I want more than a meathead with no actual education in the subject. Why on earth is it so expensive? I only charge $20 for math tutoring, and I had to get a degree to do that! (No offense to you, Mr. Sky Bones. I'm sure that since you do have a degree, you get a better job that walking around Gold's and flexing your muscles for people.)

[Sky Bones]

Hey all, Sky Bones' husband one last time. First off, I want to thank 42's husband for pointing out that study that I was not yet familiar with. This is a living and continuously evolving field and since coming back from Japan it has been fun to learn of the many advances that have been made in the past couple years. In my defense, as was done in this study, calorie expenditure is measured indirectly (meaning that other things like heat and CO2 are measured to estimate calorie expenditure) and I have seen other studies that estimate walking calorie expenditure to be much closer to what is measured for running. There are a lot of variables involved and it is still not completely understood. Looking into this further has given me quite a few ideas that I could use for a Ph.D. thesis when that time comes.

I also want to apologize to 42's husband and say that I didn't mean to bash running. I think running is a fantastic sport and can be a great way for people to exercise if that is what you like. It can be strenuous on the body, especially if done improperly, but so can any sport. However, I stand by what I said that if your goal is weight loss, there are better ways to do it.

A few people have asked what is best for weight loss. Let me just refer you to question #62770 that I just answered the other day. The questioner was asking about sets and reps, specifically for weight loss. In the answer I described the best types of exercises for weight loss. As part of the answer I wrote "As for weight loss, 1-2 sets of higher repetitions in an unstable environment using a circuit style system and doing full body, dynamic exercises in all three planes of motion is ideal for weight loss." I also link to a couple videos that show some really good types of exercises.

I admit, 42, the best way to learn how to do these types of exercises is with a trainer, and I also admit that all trainers are not created equal. If this is the route you decide to take, my personal recommendations would be to find a trainer that looks like what you want to look like. Not all trainers are body builders--I'm certainly not. Also, look for a trainer that has both a college degree in some sort of exercise science field and a trainer certification. As for certifications, I would look for someone with either NASM or ACSM certifications. In addition, try to find a trainer that offers small group sessions. These tend to be much cheaper and you can go with your friends. It's more fun and more effective. And lastly, talk to them and find out what their philosophies on exercise are and see if they work for you. It's not a cheep service, don't just settle with anyone.

[Talons]

I just read the wikipedia page on foam rollers:

It is accomplished by rolling the foam roller under each muscle group until a tender area is found, and maintaining pressure on the tender area for 30-60 seconds.

This freaks me out enough to not want to ever use one. As far as I've discovered, they just stretch muscles, not prevent knee or foot injuries, so why are they so essential to runners?