Just today, I was asked twice if I'm "a runner." In fact, I get asked this quite often. How come I never get asked if I'm "a lifter?" When someone is well conditioned and in good physical shape, don't just assume that they run to get that way. The activity that will change your body the most dramatically over time is strength training. You can sprinkle in running with it, but as I've written before, strength training should be your PRIORITY. Why? Let me recap: strength training builds (or at least maintains) your muscle mass and that means burning more calories daily and having a sizzling metabolism. Let's think of it as "muscle burns fat." So, you want to have muscle. Strength training also means stronger bones too. When you build muscle and burn fat, guess what happens? Nice muscle tone showing up for all to see. Take the fat off and see the muscle underneath.
Running, on the other hand, does other things. Serious runners that are training for distance runs (aka-marathons and such) are working to make their bodies more efficient. They generally want to be lighter in their build. What I'm going to say next is important: Run for fun, or run to train, but do NOT run for fat loss. Do not run to build muscle. Don't believe me? Look it up, there are all kinds of articles out that that talk about running for fat loss and how it doesn't work. Look around at the finish line of any distance race...there are people of all shapes and sizes. In fact, I have a good marathon-running friend that says she actually GAINS a few percentages of body fat when she trains for marathons. Why? Her body gets so efficient through all of the endurance training that her body is burning less calories overall. As soon as she's done running for the day, she's done burning calories from her workout. Also, runners may lose muscle if they don't take in enough protein and when you lose muscle, you burn less calories and your body will store those extra calories as fat. When you strength train, you keep burning calories the next day!! This is because your body is in muscle repair and recovery from what you put it through. I heard from someone at the gym today that they run because "then they can eat whatever they want." Huh? This is not a good plan or a good mindset. Will they really burn off those calories or is their body so efficient from all that running that they'll store it as fat?
I have a lot of friends that run and love it a lot. Just beware that running is actually a very advanced activity....it's 5-10 times your body weight on each foot/knee every time you slam it onto the ground. Imagine hopping on one foot 1000 times, then the other foot 1000 times....that's basically what you do to your body when you run a mile. A lot of these runner friends of mine are often injured, and they are well conditioned people! I once read a great statement that puts it into perspective: You have to get in shape to run, not run to get in shape. If you don't like to run, just know that you don't have to- it's not the "go-to" activity. If you do like to run, good for you, do what you enjoy.
I'm not a runner, I'm a lifter, and I'm proud of it.
