Running Is 15X Better Than Walking VS Stomach Fat, Heart Attacks
All aerobic exercise is good exercise, including modest walking--the world’s favorite fitness activity. But it’s also true that vigorous exercise is distinct from moderate exercise, and appears to have strong independent benefits.
For example, this prospective cohort study looked at more than 70,000 individuals in the British Biobank database to distinguish low/moderate exercisers from those who did more vigorous exercise. The primary outcome was any change in the well-established relationship between stomach fat and heart attacks (fatal and non-fatal).
And the differences were dramatic. Basically, every minute of vigorous exercise was equivalent to 15 minutes of moderate exercise. It took only 30 to 35 minutes/week of vigorous exercise “to offset the association between abdominal obesity and incident cardiovascular disease.” Whereas you’d have to walk about 500 minutes to achieve the same results.
Important note: Almost any running, even quite slow, reaches the scientific definition of vigorous exercise, usually pegged at 6+ METS/hour. Some other equivalents: shoveling, soccer, jumping rope, and carrying heavy loads.
Casual walking racks up about 4 METS/hour, and is thus moderate exercise. More at British J of Sports Medicine with free, full text.
Science Of Running Shoes: Is More Cushioning Better?
We’ve all noticed that the minimalist-shoe boom is mostly dead, and the maximalist, highly cushioned shoe is very much alive. This trend got started before the birth of present day super foams (which are light, highly cushioned, energy-returning, and more). The new foams have accelerated the rush to thick, comfy shoes.
We also know these shoes can make us faster, as marathon records keep falling at a dramatic clip. The lingering question is the injury question. Are these thick, cushioned shoes good for our joints and muscles?
A recent paper offers a tentative “Yes.” It investigated ground reaction forces, heel impact, soft tissue vibrations, and bone vibrations among 48 runners, half male and half female. Also, half of the subjects in each sex category were “recreational runners” and half “competitive runners.”
The subjects all ran in 4 different pairs of shoes that were identical except for the cushioning (“midsole deformation”) they supplied. This deformation ranged from 0.9 mm to 8 mm. The 4 pairs of shoes were produced with a 3_D printer.
Here’s what one shoe looked like. I presume this is one with a high degree of cushioning/deformation.
Result: The more cushioned the midsoles, the greater the decrease in “soft tissue vibrations and bone accelerations.” This sounded really good, so I asked first author Robin Trama if it would improve running economy or at least the “fatigue resistance” of the leg muscles. He was cautious about both of these, saying, in effect, “Probably not.”
The authors did, however, predict a likely positive outcome for injury reduction. Conclusion: “Increasing midsole deformation could therefore mitigate the risk of injury, while increasing running comfort and smoothness.” More at J of Sports Sciences.
How To Boost Your Hemoglobin & Run Stronger
Here’s a deep and helpful article by David Roche about hemoglobin--the wonderful molecule that shuttles oxygen to your leg muscles to help them perform at max efficiency. If your hemoglobin is low, so is your performance. Boost your hemoglobin, and you’ll run faster. It’s pretty much that simple.
This is one reason why so many athletes train at altitude during parts of the year: It increases hemoglobin. As does sauna bathing, which Conner Mantz and Clayton Young (2:07:47; 2:08:00) practiced regularly before their impressive Chicago Marathon finishes this fall, according to Young on a recent Carrie Tollefson podcast. So you know they'll be repeating the same strategy before the February 3, 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials.
EPO and autologous blood doping (withdrawing your own blood for a time, then re-infusing when you’re looking for a hemoglobin boost) are known performance-enhancers banned by international sports groups like the Olympics. EPO can be detected in doping tests, but autologous boosting is trickier to pinpoint. Also, too much hemoglobin in the blood, while rare, is a health hazard.
I didn’t know that sleep apnea (closely related to snoring) can also increase hemoglobin. Not that this is a good way to go about it, because it’s not healthy.
Roche believes endurance athletes should get semi-regular blood tests for their iron level, and use an iron supplement as necessary to keep those levels in the high-normal range. Also, fuel your training well. Low calorie intake is often linked to low iron and low hemoglobin. More at Trail Runner.
Pre Race Sex? No Problem--It Won’t Hurt Your Performance
Research (and speculation) about the effect of sexual relations on subsequent athletic performance has been going on for a long time, and isn’t likely to stop soon. The subject is too juicy for authors and publications to resist, so it returns with some regularity.
The study reported here is a year old, but seems to have been in the news a bit lately. It represents a meta-analysis and systematic review of how intercourse or masturbation affect performance.
The first thing to know is that no one has ever studied actual race or time-trial performance--the measures most interesting to runners. Rather researchers have used “various physical fitness tests” after sex. These included aerobic capacity, pushups, jump height, and the like.
Also, 99% of subjects were male. It’s glaringly obvious that we’re missing half the world here.
Anyway, “Performance in several physical fitness measures was unaltered in young men after sexual activity that occurred in the previous 30 min to 24 h.” In other words, the researchers uncovered neither a positive or negative result. Relax, suit yourself. More at Nature with free full text.
3 Core Exercises You Should Do EVERY Day
I actually enjoy core work, unlike my feelings about many other running-related exercises. I do them throughout the day on the floor right next to my computer desk.
Okay, to be totally honest, I’m not a big side-plank fan. But I’ll try to be better now, since it made the short list of 3 great exercises illustrated and explained here. I particularly like the McGill Crunch, new to my repertoire. More at Dango.
Sure, Olympians Do Fierce Interval Workouts. But Should You?
Everyone knows that hard interval training produces great results for top runners. Interval training worked for Roger Bannister, it worked for Emil Zatopek, and it has been working ever since.
But for those not focused on Olympic glory, there’s another more important question regarding interval training, these days often referred to as HIT (high intensity intervals). If you’re not going for the gold, but merely want to boost your health and fitness, do you have to crush your intervals like Roger Bannister?
That’s the question raised and answered in this paper by fitness heavyweights including Andy Jones, Michael Joyner, and Martin Gibala.
Here’s the answer in a word: No. World class performers might have to reach into the “sprint intervals” domain to get the most payback. But athletes with more modest goals can succeed at a lower intensity.
Indeed, for these individuals, the authors “contend that HIIT can be characterized as intermittent bouts performed above moderate intensity.” In other words, you can dial it back a bit. Running intermittent intervals that are hard-but-controlled should gain you substantial rewards. More at Sports Medicine with free full text.
Here’s a nice graphic highlighting the differences between HIT training for “Performance” and HIT training for “Health.”
Dear Santa: Please Bring Me A Massage Gun For Christmas
It’s possible you’ve already put one of those percussive massage units on your personal Christmas wish list, or that of a runner friend. They seem to be everywhere these days, even at the corner drug store.
In theory, these devices can apply higher-speed or higher-force stimulation to muscle groups than a human massage specialist. That could assist in both injury prevention and/or injury recovery.
But we don’t have much evidence so far, and most of what we hear is anecdote from friends. Many users and clinicians report that the muscles--particularly the calf muscles, quads, and hamstrings--feel better, looser, more ready-to-go after massage-gun therapy than before.
One recent meta analysis and systematic review sounded positive, but noted “no changes observed in the lower body.” Oops.
Authors of a new systematic review hoped they might find better, clearer evidence. They didn’t, concluding that existing studies and papers have been of poor quality.
Indeed, when it came to actual performance like “acceleration, agility, and explosive activities,” subjects performed a little worse after massage gun use. Things were better for recovery, where massage guns “were shown to be cost-effective instruments for stiffness reduction, range of motion and strength improvements.”
In other words, they’re more likely to help you get back to your normal training routine than they are to juice a fast race or training performance. That will sound good to many runners. More at J of Functional Morphology & Kinesiology with free full text.
Lauren Fleshman Running Book Wins Big Award (Plus $$$)
A running book, Lauren Fleshman’s Good For A Girl, has become the first book about running to win the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in Great Britain. It’s also the first book written by a woman about women in sports to win the 35-year-old prize, including its payment of .$38,000. (Laura Hildendbrand won for Seabiscuit, but the Biscuit was a stallion.)
Fleshman, a former track star at Stanford and beyond, wrote the book herself without a co-author (ghost writer). It mixes candid memoir with fiery criticism of the sport. It’s also her first book.
In it, Fleshman recalls the mixed messages she received from family and peers, and the male domination of coaching and athletic governance. She rails particularly against male coaches fixated on pressuring women runners to change their body composition for supposed faster performances.
The William Hill judges lauded Fleshman’s books for its “heartfelt narrative” and “compelling writing.” On instagram, she wrote: “My greatest hope is that by the time Zadie [her daughter] reads this book, the topics have become so irrelevant that she asks herself, ‘How the hell did this book win Sports Book of the Year?’ ”
I concur with this selection. I found Good For A Girl the best and most important running book of the year. More at Athletics Weekly.
Apologies and a correction: There seem to be lots of Univ of Florida graduates among RLRH readers. They were quick to point out my mistake in writing that NCAA cross country champ Parker Valby competed for Florida State University (FSU) rather than the Gators of UF. UF is also the site of the Jack Bacheler/Frank Shorter running glory days, the novel, “Once A Runner,” and the invention of Gatorade.
SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss
GREAT QUOTES make great training partners
"No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable."
--Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby