The Running Shoes

Running. It’s the exercise goal that many people want to be able to do, and for a lot of good reasons. It’s famous for its dramatic benefits to cardiovascular health and weight loss, but it doesn’t stop there. Running causes your body to produce a powerful anti-aging element known as the Human Growth Hormone. This is a substance that celebrities pay a lot of money for and take every day to help keep themselves looking young. It will also improve your bone health, making your bones stronger and able to handle more stress, helping to prevent bone-related diseases later in life.

Unfortunately, as well known as running is for its health benefits, it’s also almost equally as famous for its rate of quitters. Every day thousands of people decide to take up this health-boosting activity, but there are very few people who stick with it long enough to really receive the benefits. They get outside and start running, only to find that in a very short amount of time they are exhausted, out of energy, and completely winded. It seems like this is an impossible task, and they feel that they are just too out of shape to tackle it. The issue here, however, doesn’t come from running itself – it comes from people not preparing themselves and going about it all wrong.

You can’t simply go straight outside and start running cold turkey. Not only is it incredibly difficult, but your body won’t realize any weight loss benefits at all, and only minimal other benefits. This is significant – research has shown that at least 60% of people who decided to take up running did so because they wanted to lose some weight. How is it possible? It’s simple – if your body isn’t conditioned towards physical activity, it won’t burn fat. Instead, it will burn other, more easily accessed fuels such as sugar. These sources of energy are quickly used, and before long, a person finds themselves out of gas and breathing heavily. They have only been running for a short period of time, but already can go no further. This builds up the task of running in their minds as impossible and even more difficult than it really is, when in fact, they simply haven’t gone about it the right way for their body to handle the task.

The trick is to start small. Don’t begin by running at all. Go outside, do your stretches, and take a very long walk. By doing this, your body isn’t going to turn to high-output energy solutions because it’s doing something it’s more used to. It can then access deeper resources of energy, such as glucose, or fat. More importantly, your body is building up its stamina. After a day or so of taking a long walk, take a long, quick walk. Pick up your stride a little and try to maintain it. The goal is to get your body slowly more accustomed to a harder work load. Push yourself, but don’t overdo it. When you’ve been walking at a certain pace for a bout a week or so, pick it up again. Your first goal is to get to power walking. You want to eventually be able to walk at a very fast pace for long periods of time. When you are finally able to accomplish this, keep it up for a month or so. Then start introducing jogging into your routine gradually. Power walk for a few minutes, and then jog for thirty seconds to a minute. Ease yourself into it.

Procrastination is the biggest enemy of exercising, so make sure you start walking as soon as you possibly can. For you to be able to exercise effectively you must allow running to become a common routine. Don’t put it off. - Make sure you have a habitual schedule that you follow, even if it’s only for a short time each day. Once you start procrastinating and making excuses, your efforts are going to be completely ruined before you ever even start. Exercising takes extreme discipline, and while it may be an enjoyable thing to do, a person has to be determined to do it.

Running is a fantastic way to boost your health, appearance, and energy in one simple exercise. It’s a great way to get outside and experience the beauty of the outdoors while you strengthen your bones, heart, and make yourself feel better. Just make sure you ease yourself into it, and don’t overdo it. Stick with it, and you’ll reap the rewards of an exercise that burns more calories than almost any other exercise available and is completely free.

By: Cole Carson

jogging