Many people use running only as cardio or as a warm-up before strength training, not realizing until the end how many benefits a regular running workout has. Running should never be underestimated! Here are just some of the benefits of running.
Immunity Booster
If you often suffer from colds, running will be your best friend. Running outdoors will harden your body and make it more resistant to germs and viruses. Regular exercise, especially running, strengthens your physical condition and improves your mood. Your immunity depends a lot on your mood and your thoughts.
Runners get sick less, and it’s a proven fact. The main thing is to exercise wisely so that you don’t “overtrain,” and dress for the weather when you run outdoors.
Improved Circulation
Regular exercise of running improves the cardiovascular system, which is the prevention of heart disease. Running intensifies tissues with oxygen, which is a big help to circulation. Thanks to such cardio exercise, the heart muscles gain strength and endurance, the vascular walls are strengthened, and their tone increases. This in turn leads to the stabilization of blood pressure – and it doesn’t matter whether you have high or low blood pressure.
Getting Rid of Depression
During running, your body produces the endorphin, the hormone of joy, which lasts not only during your workout but also afterwards. Psychologists claim that regular exercise makes a person less irritable and helps to get rid of insomnia.
Similarly to eating something tasty or playing at Hellspin, running is emotionally recharging. However, you can help yourself get even more enjoyment from the process. Make a playlist with your favorite exercise music. Make a habit of going out on weekends to run in the countryside – in the woods or at the bank of a river/lake. Look around, listen to birds singing, chirping of insects, splashing of water, observe your sensations in the body.
Try running in company – with a close friend, your family, or your running team. Getting together to run, talk, joke, and unwind in the fresh air is great for depression and anxiety. You get away from bad thoughts and feel a boost of energy, an unprecedented lift.
Strengthening Your Joints
There is an opinion that running “kills” the knees, but in fact it isn’t so. On the contrary, regular running strengthens your joints – of course, if you run correctly and gradually increase the load.
It’s also important to understand that joint health directly depends on how strong and trained are the muscles and tendons that form the “corsets” for the joints. It isn’t enough just to run, you also need to do regular strength exercises for all muscle groups and special running exercises; a warm-up is mandatory at the beginning of training, and stretching after the load.
Improving Endurance
It’s no secret that running builds endurance. With each run, your body will push its limits and become more prepared for cardio. This means your heart and lungs will work better, and you’ll become stronger and fitter – and a better quality of life itself.
Try different types of running to increase your endurance: marathons and ultramarathons, asphalt or mountain running, tempo running. The harder the distance, the more effort you put in, the better your endurance will be.
Muscle Strengthening
Running engages almost all of a person’s muscles. In a running workout, you not only work your legs but also your back, abs and even arms. By the way, you have to learn how to work the arms properly, so that the back strengthens, and not suffers. The coach can tell you how to move your arms, and quite a few video lessons are devoted to this topic.
On top of that, the muscles when running stretch and become more elastic. Not an exercise, but an athlete’s dream! However, it’s still necessary to stretch after a running load – the muscles are “hammered” by the loads, they need help.
Fat Burning
Running will help you lose weight, but you need to understand how it works. During and after running, an active process of lipolysis – the breakdown of fat cells – is triggered. For the first 40 minutes of running, our body works on carbs. After this time, there is a transition to the fat burning stage.
If you want to lose weight, you should start running, but this workout should last at least 50 minutes. And the magic effect depends on the frequency and regularity of training. The more – the better.
Increased Concentration
It has been proven that people who run can concentrate more quickly and effectively on any task and have increased attention span. Running also improves memory!
Many runners say that running is a reboot for them. If you run in the morning, you wake up, find your energy and clarity of thought, and you still have the whole day ahead – so much to do! When you work out in the evening, even if you’re very tired after a day at work, go for a run. Bad mood? Go for a workout right away! You’ll come back with a smile, and you’ll gain strength. See for yourself – it really works.
Strengthening the Respiratory System
Your lungs work hard during a run to saturate your body with the oxygen it needs. Regular running will make your lungs stronger and increase their lung capacity.
And if you run for a long time, your lung capacity increases even more due to the training of the muscles responsible for breathing.
A Boost of Energy
Running is a great way to “energize” your body before an important event or at the beginning of the day. When you run, your metabolism is accelerated, your tissues are saturated with oxygen, which means that the processes in your body are more efficient.
