The Better Exercise: Walking or Running?
As aerobic activities, walking and running alike have excellent health benefits. Both facilitate weight loss and better health management, both boost energy and mood, improve sleep, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. These activities also decrease the risks for cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
However, there are differences in their immediate and long-term effects. Walking for 30 minutes can burn up to 187 calories, while running at 6mph for the same amount of time burns 365 calories. Walking enables burning more for extended periods. Running can accomplish the same for a lesser period, but may take greater amounts of energy.
Targeting Weight Loss
A study published recently in the Medicine and Science, in Sports and Exercise, called “Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking,” reports that runners became consistently thinner than walkers from the time they joined the study. Participants were measured for their weight, waistline, diets, and weekly mileage, and measured again six years later. The results show that the runners were able to maintain body mass and waist circumference more successfully than the walkers.
Preventing Disease
Both activities have benefits, but walking reduced risk for diseases more significantly. According to Runners and Walkers Health Study, when compared to walkers, runners are less at risk for high blood pressure by 4.2 percent and unhealthy cholesterol levels by 4.3 percent, as well as diabetes by 12.1 percent and cardiovascular disease by 4.5 percent, for every metabolic energy expenditure. In the same report, walkers’ risk decreased by 7.2 percent for high blood pressure, 7 percent for high cholesterol, 12.3 percent for diabetes and 9.3 percent for cardiovascular disease.
A different study published in the same periodical reveals that both runners and walkers has a decreased risk for the development of age-related cataracts, when compared to non-exercisers.
Managing Appetite
Running reduces appetite and consumption more effectively than walking, based on a report published in The Journal of Obesity. In the study held at the University of Wyoming, participants either walked or ran on a treadmill for an hour. The next day, they were allowed to rest for one hour. Their total energy expenditure was monitored in each session. Their blood levels were taken as well, in order to measure certain appetite hormones. They were then exposed to a buffet, where they could eat at to their heart’s content.
The walkers consumed 50 calories more than they had burned. The runners were a little cautious, consuming as much as 200 calories less than they had burned. They also showed significantly higher levels of a peptide hormone, an appetite suppressant, which the walkers did not have.
Conditioning the Aerobic System
Running entails a greater energy requirement than walking. A running program should be able to maximise aerobic conditioning in the least amount of time. For overweight exercisers, walking may be a better alternative.
For beginners, walking 10,000 steps a day is the perfect low impact fitness regimen, with a lesser injury risk. It is also easier on the hips and knees. For advanced health buffs, running 10,000 paces is an excellent way to optimise the body and condition it to its limits.
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