Is it Time to Stop Running / Jogging?

Running the risk:

It can cause cellulite, heart attacks and joint strain.

For many years, running has seemed the ideal form of exercise. It improves your fitness levels and the health of your heart. It boosts your metabolism and can help you lose weight.

It costs nothing - after the initial outlay on a decent pair of trainers - and can be done anywhere. Since jogging became popular in the late Seventies, running has often been promoted as a panacea for a range of health issues.

But is running really all it's cracked up to be?

Every person who takes up running has been confronted by a “helpful” critic who is more than happy to reel off the reasons running will ruin your life. Here’s a look at three questionable claims about running and health:

1. Running will give you a heart attack or other heart problems. It is true that exercise temporarily raises the odds of a heart attack while you're mid-workout, but doing it consistently reduces that risk over the long haul, leading to a net benefit. Going for a run most days of the week is doing far more good than bad for your heart.

2. Running will ruin your bones and joints. A study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found no evidence of accelerated rates of osteoarthritis among long-distance runners. Weight-bearing exercise like running helps stave off osteoporosis by maintaining bone mineral density.

3. Running will kill you before your time. According to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, running and other vigorous exercise in middle age is associated with a longer life. Not only that, it will make your later years more pleasant by reducing disability. 

Pain and no gain:

Running can cause cellulite and won't help you lose weight according to some experts.

Small muscles use less energy and are more efficient,' he says. 'The heart is a muscle and if you force it to keep working for long periods of time it will naturally shrink to use less energy and become more efficient. 

If you want to increase the size of your heart then you must strength-train your heart, not endurance- train it.

The next is that running causes injury through repetitive movements - an accusation that will be familiar to many whose knees or ankles have proved unequal to the demands placed on them. 

When you run, two-and-a-half times your bodyweight is transmitted through your joints

If that force is repeated over and over, eventually your weakest joint will give out.

For running to be truly beneficial to you, you need to have enough spiritual energy (not calories) to do that exercise, and your body and energy system must be in harmony with the exercise.

If too much of your spiritual energy is spent on fighting toxins and just make you survive, then running could actually be detrimental to your health (or any more-intense exercise).

Another way to tell, is to see a chiropractor and have him assess you. If he tells you that your spine is truly healthy, that your muscles are relaxed, then there is a good chance that your body can handle the exercise, as long as it's not too strenuous.

Yes, listening to your body is vital, but be aware that your ego is in the way, and the will of your ego may override some of the signals that your body is sending, and thus you might miss the signals. Also, after the exercise, it's beneficial to have your chiropractor assess you again - if he tells you that your body tightened up, that one of your leg is shorter, the exercise was too taxing for your body.

The more you run, the more your body prepares itself for your next run - you will actually start to hold on to more fat.

Usually the ankles or the knees are the first to go, generally because of poor hip and core stability.

Wearing a brace only exacerbates the problem by moving the strain on to the next weakest joint while maintaining the old injury.

Contrary to popular belief that any exercise will speed up your metabolism, running can,  do the opposite.

Long-distance running will often deplete your energy stores and then start breaking down your muscle tissue to use as energy.

If you want some serious muscle wastage and to reduce your metabolic rate, 'then keep running.

Note also that far from making your body leaner, running can cause it to gain fat.

Fat is one of our body's favorite sources of energy. The more you run, the more your body prepares itself for your next run. You will actually start to hold on to more fat.

Another reason that you won't get leaner is that the body is an amazing machine and will adapt to anything.

The more time you spend running, the better you become at running and the more efficient you get, the less energy you use and the fewer calories you burn.

And then there's the vexatious issue of cellulite and running. Standard wisdom holds that lack of proper exercise causes poor lymphatic and blood circulation and poor lymph drainage, which contribute to causing cellulite.

But according to Marco Mastrorocco, head coach and gym manager at the Epic kickboxing gym in West London, exercising in the wrong way - for example, by running - can increase your chances of developing cellulite.

“Cellulite is primarily a malfunction of the circulatory system and bad drainage in tissue under the skin,” says Mastrorocco.

“If exercise is sustained for too long - through lots of running - it causes free radicals which in turn damage cells. Our body can cope with over-exertion if it's in quick bursts.”

Laughter is inner jogging.

When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I think. Thinking is excellent exercise, as much as swimming or jogging.

How about you ?