Join The Movement and Stay Active With Jogging Exercises

More than 15 percent of American adults are inactive. People who are classified as inactive do not participate in leisure-time physical activity such as running, walking, gardening, golfing, etc. Unfortunately, it has become all too easy to be inactive. There are dozens of daily distractions from your phone to your TV to your computer. Unfortunately, an inactive lifestyle leads to an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and even cancer.

So what does it mean to lead a healthy, active life? In general, the CDC recommends getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity. While you can certainly find multiple fitness fads and workouts, nothing really beats good old fashioned jogging. The best part is that you can jog pretty much anywhere and you don’t really need any fancy gear to reap the benefits. Even if you’re not much of a runner, jogging might still be a good option if you’re looking for a way to be more active.

What is Jogging?

You might be wondering what the difference is between running and jogging. Essentially, jogging is a form of running, but falls a bit on the easier end of the spectrum. It’s much slower than running but faster than walking. It’s a perfect in-between that will help you get your heart rate up but put less strain on your body than running. Since it is less taxing on the body, you are able to sustain your pace for much longer making it a great option for people who are just getting started on their fitness journey.

If you’ve never jogged before, everything can feel strange as you aren’t used to controlling your breath or pushing through the initial discomfort. Some of this might be due to jogging incorrectly. There are few common running mistakes many beginners make:

• You are looking down at your feet when you run. When people first start off they often look down to see where they are going. However, this puts unnecessary strain on your neck leaving you sore the next day.

• You are working out right before bed. While exercise has been shown to help improve sleep quality, if you jog too close to bedtime it can have the opposite effect and keep you up.

• You aren’t wearing the appropriate shoes. Although it might be expensive, invest in a good pair of running shoes. Otherwise, you’ll end up with sore feet after a few days. If you keep jogging with poorly fitted shoes, you could end up injuring yourself.

• You’re out of breath. While this is normal in the beginning, if you want to keep jogging you’ll need to control your breathing. If possible, train yourself to inhale over two steps then exhale over two steps as you run.

• You’re running too fast. Many new joggers start off with a pace that is too fast for them, often leading to exhaustion and discouragement. If possible, shoot for a 12 to 13 minute pace per mile and intersperse it with walk breaks as necessary. As you get more accustomed to jogging, you will be able to go for longer without needing to walk.

Benefits

Besides being relatively affordable and accessible, jogging’s biggest benefit is that it is a complete workout. Not only are you giving your legs a workout, you’re also exercising your arms, core muscles, and neck! As well, jogging prepares your body for other physical activities which helps reduce potential injuries.

There’s a long list of ways jogging benefits your body. It helps build your endurance and stamina so that you are able to improve your cardiovascular health without straining your body too much. While it might be hard to get into at first, if you keep up the habit, you will start to reap the benefits over time. In order to create a successful habit, you should start off slow. It might mean that you just start with walking for a few minutes. Once you get used to that, extend your time to a few more minutes. After you are used to that, start lightly jogging for a minute or so. Slowly build up so that no step seems too extreme and you’ll be jogging in no time. Of course, the following list of benefits might help motivate you to continue your habit even more.

Jogging Helps In Weight Loss

Most experts agree that when it comes to losing weight, diet is more important than exercise. For many, exercise increases appetite and most people will overestimate how many calories they burned in a workout and underestimate how much they eat. With that said, jogging is still a great way to help aid you on your weight loss journey.

Yes, jogging burns calories - around 300 calories for a 30 minute jog. More importantly, jogging boosts your metabolism well after your workout and may also help suppress appetite and target belly fat. It also helps build your muscles, which in turn burns more calories than fat. Jogging, when you commit to a consistent, long-term regimen, can also help you keep the weight off long-term.

Improves Bone Strength

One of the biggest advantages of jogging is that it helps you maintain bone health. This might sound counterintuitive as running is an impact sport, so it must be bad on the joints and bones, right? While you can certainly develop knee issues if you’re a lifelong runner, you can also develop the same issues if you live a sedentary life. More importantly, you’re not more prone to developing these problems if you start running.

The proof is in the pudding. A study found that of 675 marathon runners, the arthritis rate was actually below that of the general US population with even ultramarathoners faring well. Even those who just ran their first marathon actually had sustained improvement in their knees and joints up to six months after their initial marathon. Running also is great for the back with long-term endurance runners exhibiting less age-related decline than those who were inactive.

Develops Muscles

Lifting weights isn’t the only way you can build muscle. Jogging can also help since the repeated impact of your body on pavement acts as a form of stress. Unsurprisingly, running mainly works your lower body muscles with your calves and glutes being the main force drivers. Other muscles that get a workout include your hip flexors and hamstrings.

Still, developing muscles through running alone can be difficult as it is a repetitive exercise. At a certain point, you will plateau so it’s important to change up your training plan as you will actually lose muscle if you run the same distance at the same heart rate. That means you will need to challenge yourself in various ways. That might mean incorporating high resistance runs, intervals, and sprints to switch up your routine.

Keeps The Mind Healthy

Running doesn’t just keep your body healthy, it also keeps your mind healthy. Studies have found that people who exercised the heart and muscles on a regular basis had improved thinking and memory skills. The best part is that people of all ages benefitted even if they were already over 50.

How does it work? The theory is that through exercise the brain receives a greater supply of blood, oxygen, and other nutrients as your heart rate increases. The part of the brain that benefits the most from jogging is the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory. Those who engaged in regular, moderate exercise saw a boost in their overall memory. Some studies have even found that running could also trigger the growth of new brain cells, which is great news as humans begin losing brain tissue after the late 20s.

Good For The Heart

Like other forms of aerobic exercise, jogging helps improve your overall cardiovascular health. Exercises that raise your heart rate help deliver more oxygen to your muscles. The more you exercise, the better your heart works, which reduces the risk of heart attacks. Since blood is pumped faster through your body, it also helps maintain a good blood pressure and keeps your cholesterol and glucose levels under control.

To get the best results, you should get in the recommended 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week. Interestingly, some studies have found that those who were strenuous joggers had higher mortality rates than moderate joggers. As always, moderation is key even in exercise.

Boosts The Respiratory System

Naturally, when you first start running you’ll find yourself out of breath quickly, but over time your breathing will sync up with your footfall. This is because your lungs learn how to deliver oxygen to your body faster and remove carbon dioxide more efficiently. Your lungs contain millions of tiny sacs called alveoli. These sacs collect oxygenated air and transfer it to the capillaries, which then transport the oxygenated blood to the rest of your body. At the same time, the capillaries exchange carbon dioxide to the alveoli, which is then expelled when you exhale. Jogging improves the overall efficiency of this system as it processes the oxygen from the air better and increases the amount of air you get by upping your respiration rate.

As you continue running, you will improve the endurance capacity of your respiratory muscles - including your diaphragm - allowing deeper, fuller breaths. As well, you will grow more capillaries which allows faster transfer of oxygen. You’ll even grow more alveoli which will further improve your oxygen intake.

Prevents Infections and Communicable Diseases

When you jog, your heart rate increases, thus moving blood through your body faster. This naturally increases the amount of immune cells in your body within seconds, sometimes getting as high as ten times the normal amount. When you stop exercising, these immune cells then move out of your bloodstream and go into immune surveillance, which is a process by which the immune cells move out of the bloodstream and look for infections. Jogging helps make this process faster and more efficient in the short-term.

In the long-term, regular exercise definitely has its advantages. Long-term exercising and training encourages an anti-inflammatory environment and helps strengthen the adaptive (aka acquired) immune system. This might mean that older adults who exercise might respond better to vaccines. With that said, if you jog too much you might see the opposite effect. Overtraining can lead to a weakened immune system. So if you find that you are getting sick more often, you might need to take a break.

Curbs Mental Stress

When you run or exercise, your body releases a host of hormones including endorphins and serotonin. Running in particular releases a chemical called endocannabinoids, a biochemical substance similar to cannabis. This chemical floods your bloodstream and then moves into your brain giving you short-term feelings of reduced stress and calm. It’s also the chemical that experts believe causes the runner’s high.

When you’re just getting started, jogging also forces you to focus on your body and breath. Stray thoughts about your job, marriage, finances, etc. flies out the window as you try to even out your ragged breath and push your body just a little further. In a sense, jogging is another way to practice mindfulness as you will be fully present and aware of what you are doing.

Jogging has Anti-Ageing Benefits

You don’t need any fancy drugs or skin care creams to look young (except maybe sunscreen). The best way you can ward off disease and prevent, even reverse, the telltale signs of aging is by jogging. Various studies have found that runners have a 25 to 30 percent lower rate of all-cause mortality than non-runners gaining around 3 years of extra life. More importantly, those who run tend to be healthier overall and reach ‘disability scores’ 11 to 16 years later than non-runners.

Running also increases the production of human growth hormones - which is your body’s natural fountain of youth. It helps produce new cells, which makes your skin look a lot more supple. Of course, if you run outside you’ll still need to wear plenty of sunscreen as the effects of the sun’s UV rays can counteract the youthful benefits you can get from jogging.

Stay Motivated and Healthy With A Daily Jogging Exercise Routine

Many people who say they don’t like running actually have no issues when they focus on jogging instead of trying to run fast. If you still need some motivation, enlist a friend or family member to be your jogging buddy. It will make the 30 minutes go much faster when you have someone exercising with you.

The human body was made to run. For over 2 million years, running was integral to our survival whether we were running to or from our food. It’s not so easy to change our innate biology. So while it might be tempting to just sit in front of a TV and lounge after work, make the effort to walk and/or jog a bit each day and you’ll start seeing the benefits in your life.

Shana Thompson is a full time professional writer and editor. Shana has worked extensively in the fields of content marketing, on-page and off-page SEO (guest posts, backlink acquisition), and creative writing. As an experienced pro content writer, Shana has worked on several magazines, publishing companies and marketing agencies. Many recent projects have included everything from nutrition and health services, where a lot of research and citations were needed, to writing about health, sustainable, eco-friendly products.

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