Hardcore running as bad for you as staying on the couch

As chiropractors we are intimately aware of the benefits of exercise to improving health and wellbeing, and incorporate some form of exercise in almost all of our care plans for patients. So what about jogging? Is jogging actually good for you?

Danish study

A 2015 Danish study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology looked at this very question. Out of a pool of 5,000 healthy adults, Professor Jacob Marott and his colleagues selected 1,100 healthy joggers and 413 sedentary people and followed them for a period of 12 years.

Moderate runners live longer

The results showed that moderate joggers lived longer than the sedentary group. No surprise there.

Can exercise be bad for you?

What was interesting was that the more serious runners – those who ran fast pace, more than 3times/week and for long distances – had no greater life expectancy than those that stayed on the couch! So how can exercise be bad for you? ‘We believe that long-term strenuous exercise may induce pathological structural remodeling of the heart and large arteries,’ Marott said.

All in moderation

If you are already stressed out from day to day living, you don’t want your exercise to be another stress on the body. Seems like the old phrase, ‘All in moderation’ still rings true.