Do You Really Need to Run?

When people think of starting a workout program, running is often one of the first modes of exercise that comes to mind. Running or jogging can be an effective way to exercise and provides a variety of health benefits, but many people find running uncomfortable or downright painful. If this is you, here’s some good news: If you don’t like to run, you don’t have to!

First it's helpful to understand how we measure energy expenditure. The human body expends approximately 5 calories of energy to use one liter of oxygen. Exercise physiologists and researchers use Metabolic Equivalents (METs) to estimate the energy expenditure for many common physical activities based on the amount of oxygen consumed. One MET represents the amount of oxygen used by the body while at rest (such as reading this blog post). An activity that is 4 METs requires the body to use approximately four times as much oxygen than when at rest, making that activity more efficient at expending energy (burning calories). If you run for the purpose of burning calories, but really dislike running or find it painful and uncomfortable, you might want to consider finding other types of physical activity that you can enjoy that also increase your oxygen consumption and caloric expenditure.

The Compendium on Physical Activity identifies MET values for a wide variety of physical activities. Researchers have assigned MET values for everything from common types of exercise to relatively obscure activities like pulling a rickshaw. Walking at a moderate pace of 3 miles per hour (mph) on a level, firm surface is approximately 3.5 METs, which means that the body is using 3.5 times the amount of oxygen than it does while sitting still at rest. Running at 7.0 mph has a MET value of 11.0 (meaning your body uses approximately three times the amount of oxygen that it does when walking and 11 times more oxygen than while sitting at rest). This brief review of energy expenditure can help you see why running is considered effective for burning calories because it increases the total volume of oxygen consumption, but if you don’t want to run you don’t have to. Instead, identify other activities you enjoy that help you consume more oxygen that, in turn, burns more calories. By the way, pulling a rickshaw is 6.3 METs.

To give you an idea of the energy cost of running, here are the MET values for various running speeds:

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TOPFIT Daily Activities --- Upper Table Rock Run
The recent rains had certainly created some slippery slopes on the trail, but I still had a great time running on Upper Table Rock this afternoon.

~Feelin' Alive!~