Light Jogging is More Beneficial Than Long Runs, Study Finds

When it comes to health benefits, light jogging can be more beneficial than long runs, a new Danish study finds.

For all those fitness junkies who believe in taking long runs in the morning, here’s something you need to take note of the next time you start out on one of your runs. A new study by researchers from the Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark found that people who indulge in light jogging have healthier hearts than strenuous joggers.

"It is important to emphasize that the pace of the slow joggers corresponds to vigorous exercise and strenuous jogging corresponds to very vigorous exercise," said Peter Schnohr, MD, DMSc, a researcher from the Copenhagen City Heart Study, Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, in a press statement. "When performed for decades, this activity level could pose health risks, especially to the cardiovascular system."

The study was conducted on a group of 5,048 healthy participants in the Copenhagen City Heart Study. The study authors tracked their jogging activities for a period of 12 years. Among these were 1,098 healthy joggers and 413 healthy but sedentary non-joggers. At the end of the study period researchers noted that strenuous joggers were as likely to die as sedentary non-joggers, while light joggers had the lowest rates of death.

Strenuous joggers were categorised as those that ran faster than 7 mph for more than four hours a week; or who ran faster than 7 mph for more than 2.5 hours a week with a frequency of more than three times a week.

The study recorded that jogging for 1 to 2.4 hours per week and no more than three times a week was linked to the lowest mortality rate.

"The U-shaped association between jogging and mortality suggests there may be an upper limit for exercise dosing that is optimal for health benefits," Schnohr said. "If your goal is to decrease risk of death and improve life expectancy, jogging a few times a week at a moderate pace is a good strategy. Anything more is not just unnecessary, it may be harmful."

Studies in the past have established that jogging is one of the best ways to improve cardiovascular fitness, lose weight and relieve stress. However, the right amount of jogging remained questionable until recently.

According to government guidelines, first-time joggers should run for 10 to 15 minutes a day with a few minutes break in between. This should progress to 20 minutes in the second or third week.

Findings of the current study were published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

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