Are you a marathon runner? Did you think that running long distances for several hours would bring the best benefits for your health? So get ready to meet this shocking reality. You don’t have to run marathons to stick to a good exercise plan and stay healthy. Scientific studies in fact reveal the opposite.
Many professional athletes, and even marathoners, have a very different training program than you might think. They do not run long distances for hours, but resort to a much more practical and effective method that does not endanger health and that in itself improves physical performance for a competition.
One exercise plan that promises all of these benefits is interval training , which is part of the everyday life of many elite athletes and has also become a powerful tool for all racing and other sports enthusiasts.
What is interval training?
Interval training is an exercise plan that basically consists of doing physical activity as intensely and quickly as you can for a few minutes and then slowing down for a few more minutes and then increasing the intensity again and so on until the end. The best thing about this is that it won’t take you more than 25 minutes in total.
If you do intense exercise sessions for short intervals of time, you will do a lot of good to your health, you will burn more calories without having to spend hours running on a track and you will also save a lot of time that you can invest in other activities. On the other hand, you will avoid negative consequences caused by the physical wear and tear that results from running excessively and repeatedly.
Is interval training healthy?
Despite being much less time consuming than preparing for a marathon, interval running is actually healthier than a long run according to different studies.
Scientific findings suggest that both people who do long, continuous runs and those who do interval training reap almost the same benefits. However there is a small difference. Intervals runners have better oxygen pick-up peaks .
On the other hand, those with type 2 diabetes obtain better control of their blood sugar levels by taking brisk one-hour walks, alternating between three minutes of activity and three minutes of rest, or the Tabata method.
Can running too much be bad for your health?
Intense and prolonged exercise such as a multi-kilometer marathon can cause adverse health effects such as reduced immune system function and digestive problems.
Putting your body under excessive workload can decrease its natural ability to defend itself against respiratory infections such as colds. On the other hand, if you do short periods of activity, your defenses improve. Short exercises not only reduce the chances of you getting sick, but they also lessen the severity of any illnesses you might catch.
Up to 71% of regular marathon runners also suffer from abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and reflux leading to heartburn, indigestion, cough, hoarseness, and asthma during and immediately after a long run.
Is running excessively as bad as a sedentary lifestyle?
A study carried out at the Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen, and published by the American College of Cardiology (Schnohr, O’Keefe, Marott, Lange and Jensen, 2015), concluded that running more than four hours a week can be dangerous for health . The researchers studied a sample of one million people and divided them into two groups: one of runners who trained more than 4 hours a week and the other of sedentary ones and after 12 years of observation they found the same damage to health .
Therefore, this study shows that prolonged and strenuous exercise can cause serious damage to the structures of the heart and arteries. Therefore it is recommended not to run more than three and a half hours a week . In other words, running marathons too often is not a good idea to stay healthy.
References
- Brodwin, E. Why You Should Run A Mile Instead Of A Marathon. For Business Insider [Revised October 2015]
- Dose of Jogging and Long-Term Mortality. Peter Schnohr, MD, DMSc; James H. O’Keefe, MD; Jacob L. Marott, MSc; Peter Lange, MD, DMSc; Gorm B. Jensen, MD, DMSc. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2015; 65 (5): 411-419.
