As we get older sometimes we may need to incorporate certain exercises in order to stay healthy and at our best.
Obesity released findings from a study that showed 10,500 men aged 40+ that completed 20 minutes of strength training every day as well as running, ended up with less girth on their waistline over a 12 year period than the individuals that just ran.
Nonetheless, researchers have also found the opposite of this study to be true! Individuals that completed just strength training and did not run, got the same results and benefits as those men that combined both the strength training and running.
Therefore, we can see from the results of the above study that in order to “maintain a healthy weight and waistline, it is critical to incorporate weight training and aerobic exercise.”
Let’s look at why running is so great for bodyweight training.
The main reason this is a popular additional aerobic exercise is because it is a good calorie burner.
Say you were a 50 year old male that weighed approx. 150 pounds and was 5’7” in height, you would burn around 156 calories in body weight training, but with running you would burn around 384 calories which is over double!
You will improve your muscles that you use for everyday life with bodyweight training as these will firm and tone up gradually, but with running you minimize the build-up of body fat weight from an excess of calories.
As your muscles weigh more than fat, if you incorporate running into your training program, you may see that the weight scales are climbing, but this will be from your muscle mass gain and not from fat.
You can keep an eye on your weight gain more closely by monitoring your BMI.
Make a note of what your BMI is before you start any training program (strength or running) and when you start to notice an increase in weight you can get a rough idea of where the extra weight has come from.
If your BMI is greater than when you first started then the extra weight gain is from body fat, but if the BMI is smaller or the same from your baseline then this means that the extra weight gain is from muscle mass.
The good thing about gaining muscle mass is that even when you are resting you are still burning calories, meaning that it is a long-term burn but with running you are instantly burning calories.
If you want to combine the 2 together in your training program you will reap all of the above benefits and more and it will make your workouts all the more worthwhile.