How Jogging Can Improve Body Composition
Guest blog post by Luke Douglas from ripped.me
Being physically active is extremely important if you want to stay healthy and strong. However, choosing those activities that suit you best can be quite difficult and you must make sure you know how they affect your body. In order to help you with this, we will explain how jogging influences your body composition. So, let’s take a look.
Your cardiovascular fitness will improve
One of the biggest advantages of jogging is that it can significantly improve your cardiovascular fitness. Just remember how hard the first day of jogging can be, when your heart is pumping fast and when you can barely breathe. However, after only three weeks, you’ll notice significant changes – no more heavy breathing and extremely high heart rate. You may be wondering how this is possible, but the answer is actually quite simple – your body can now efficiently get the oxygen from your blood and replace it with carbon dioxide, which means that your cardiovascular fitness has improved. Consequently, the amount of blood that your heart pumps per minute will increase as well.
Jogging has an impact on muscle mass
There is a widespread belief that jogging causes muscle loss, but guess what – this is not entirely true. Of course, prolonged running and overtraining can cause such changes, but it doesn’t mean that an average runner will experience this as well. On the contrary, it has been proven that jogging has a positive effect on muscle mass and can even help fight muscle loss caused by ageing. Finally, you should set a proper diet plan as well, which will additionally help you retain your muscle mass. So, don’t skip foods like eggs, spinach, beef which are rich in protein and vitamins necessary for building lean muscles. In addition to that, you can always incorporate healthy supplements such as Ethical Nutrients to support your healthy diet, proper muscle maintenance and ensure a strong immune system. You can also include other exercises into your jogging routine for the same purpose, such as weightlifting, squats and pull-ups, which will help you build muscle mass more quickly.
It reduces body fat
Jogging also improves your body composition by reducing body fat. However, the duration and intensity of jogging will affect the amount of fat you’ll burn. For example, it has been shown that in order to lose one pound, you have to burn around 3 and a half thousand calories. So, aside from creating your jogging routine, you must make sure not to increase the amount of food you eat daily since if the calorie intake is bigger, it will require much more effort. One of the great ways to follow how much fat you’re burning during your training is by using a fitness tracking app to keep an eye on your progress. Thanks to it, you’ll know how effective your training is, how hard you should push yourself and when it’s time to stop and take a break. Finally, since jogging accelerates your metabolism significantly, you’ll efficiently burn calories even several hours after you’ve finished running. It has been shown that for such effects, only 20 to 30 minutes of training will be enough.
It makes you feel more energetic
Aside from these concrete changes in your body composition, jogging influences your whole being and it helps you feel much more energetic. The reason for this is simple – your blood is flowing faster thus providing your body with oxygen and necessary nutrients for it to function properly. However, although you’ll find yourself more alert during the day thanks to running, it has been shown that you’ll sleep better during the night. And, this will additionally help you feel energized and ready for the next round of jogging the following day.
As you can see, jogging can be quite impactful on your body composition, both in terms of your muscle mass and the amount of body fat. On top of that, it helps you feel much healthier and more energized since it makes your blood flow faster keeping you alert and ready for all the work that you have to get done. So, let’s go jogging now!
Guest blog post by Luke Douglas from ripped.me