3 Definitive Reasons Why Walking Is Much Better Than Running

You can easily solve health conditions with regular walking and running. These aerobic exercises are great for stimulating weight loss, but also it helps you improve your sleep. Regular exercising can contribute to the improvement of your mood, energy level during the day, blood pressure and decrease cholesterol levels. All these benefits lead to prevention of developing serious health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and even cancer.

Many people don’t see walking as health benefit, but rather they consider it as transportation. In fact, walking has long term health benefits for your body and it is regarded as the easiest way and form of exercise. If you walk regularly you can improve the strength of muscles, heart, and reduce the risk of diseases.

Comparison between walking and running:

Scientists have found that brisk walking is more efficient than running when it comes to preventing and reducing heart disease. Researchers have collected data from a study that lasted six years in order to compare the results of runners and walkers. The data included 33,060 runners and 15,045 walkers, aged 18-75. The results suggest walkers had greater health benefits than runners even though both spent the same level of energy.

Results also suggest that walking reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease by 9.3%, whereas running reduced it by 4.6%. Also walking reduced the following risk factors of heart disease:

1. Reduced risk of experiencing first time high blood pressure by 7.2%, running reduced it by 4.2%
2. Reduced risk of experiencing first time high cholesterol level by 7%, running reduced it by 4.3%
3. Reduces risk of developing diabetes by 12% for both walking and running

Dr. Paul Williams conducted a study at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and found that moderate intensity walking and running lead to great health benefits. This is due to the fact that both exercises involve the same groups of muscles. The main difference between these two types of exercises is the intensity levels.

After all runners and walkers spend the same energy in order to get the same benefits, the difference is that walkers will need to walk longer than runners if they want to have the same effect.

These two exercises are at no cost at all and you can do it everywhere you want during the year.
You should be aware of the dangers of pushing too hard. One Danish study which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that people who overstrain their bodies end up with no benefits from the exercise. Also people that ran at a fast pace for four hours a week have the same risk of dying as those who almost never exercise.

This finding was confirmed during the 12 year study.
The study in fact found that people who ran less than 2.4 hours and three times per week have reduced the risk of dying. Those people that ran 2.5-4 hours in less than three times a week have higher mortality risk of 66%.
These results prove that you can simply use walking on regular basis for improvement of your overall health.

Here is why walking is great for everyone:

Walking is great for people that simply find constant excuses for not having time to exercise. It is great for improvement of your health and it provides less stress to your body. Also walking can be used for losing weight processes, but only if followed up by healthy diet. On the other hand running could lead to injury which might have worse impact on your health than before starting to exercise. Therefore it is highly recommended to walk regularly.

You can follow up your walking exercise with lunges or squats at least twice a week for better results.
If you still want to run rather than walk you should consider lowering the risk of injury. In order to do so you can run on soft surfaces such as grass, woodland trails, and soil. Also you should have good quality shoes in order to avoid any injury.

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