Running 

Elements of good running technique

Upright posture and a slight forward leanLeaning forward places a runner's center of mass on the front part of the foot, which avoids landing on the heel and facilitates the use of the spring mechanism of the foot. It also makes it easier for the runner to avoid landing the foot in front of the center of mass and the resultant braking effect. While upright posture is essential, a runner should maintain a relaxed frame and use his/her core to keep posture upright and stable. This helps prevent injury as long as the body is neither rigid nor tense. The most common running mistakes are tilting the chin up and scrunching shoulders.

Stride rate and typesExercise physiologists have found that the stride rates are extremely consistent across professional runners, between 185 and 200 steps per minute. The main difference between long- and short-distance runners is the length of stride rather than the rate of stride.

During running, the speed at which the runner moves may be calculated by multiplying the cadence (steps per second) by the stride length. Running is often measured in terms of pace in minutes per mile or kilometer. Fast stride rates coincide with the rate one pumps one's arms. The faster one's arms move up and down, parallel with the body, the faster the rate of stride. Different types of stride are necessary for different types of running. When sprinting, runners stay on their toes bringing their legs up, using shorter and faster strides. Long distance runners tend to have more relaxed strides that vary.

Benefits of running

While there is the potential for injury in running (just as there is in any sport), there are many benefits. Some of these benefits include potential weight loss, improved cardiovascular and respiratory health (reducing the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases), improved cardiovascular fitness, reduced total blood cholesterol, strengthening of bones (and potentially increased bone density), possible strengthening of the immune system and an improved self-esteem and emotional state. Running, like all forms of regular exercise, can effectively slow or reverse the effects of aging.

Running can assist people in losing weight, staying in shape and improving body composition. Running increases your metabolism. Different speeds and distances are appropriate for different individual health and fitness levels. For new runners, it takes time to get into shape. The key is consistency and a slow increase in speed and distance. While running, it is best to pay attention to how one's body feels. If a runner is gasping for breath or feels exhausted while running, it may be beneficial to slow down or try a shorter distance for a few weeks. If a runner feels that the pace or distance is no longer challenging, then the runner may want to speed up or run farther.

Running can also have psychological benefits, as many participants in the sport report feeling an elated, euphoric state, often referred to as a "runner's high". Running is frequently recommended as therapy for people with clinical depression and people coping with addiction. A possible benefit may be the enjoyment of nature and scenery, which also improves psychological well-being.

In animal models, running has been shown to increase the number of newly born neurons within the brain. This finding could have significant implications in aging as well as learning and memory.

Running events

Running is both a competition and a type of training for sports that have running or endurance components. As a sport, it is split into events divided by distance and sometimes includes permutations such as the obstacles in steeplechase and hurdles. Running races are contests to determine which of the competitors is able to run a certain distance in the shortest time. Today, competitive running events make up the core of the sport of athletics. Events are usually grouped into several classes, each requiring substantially different athletic strengths and involving different tactics, training methods, and types of competitors.

Running competitions have probably existed for most of humanity's history and were a key part of the ancient Olympic Games as well as the modern Olympics. The activity of running went through a period of widespread popularity in the United States during the running boom of the 1970s. Over the next two decades, as many as 25 million Americans were doing some form of running or jogging – accounting for roughly one tenth of the population. Today, road racing is a popular sport among non-professional athletes, who included over 7.7 million people in America alone in 2002.

Limits of speed

Footspeed, or sprint speed, is the maximum speed at which a human can run. It is affected by many factors, varies greatly throughout the population, and is important in athletics and many sports.

The fastest human footspeed on record is 44.72 km/h (27.79 mph), seen during a 100-meter sprint (average speed between the 60th and the 80th meter) by Usain Bolt.

Running speed over increasing distance:

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Running to lose weigh 
by medimanage.com

Why should we run to lose weight?

Running with the wind whipping across our face and the rhythmic pounding of the ground underneath our feet makes us feel good for sure along with helping us to relieve the stress. But what really makes our bodies feel good about running is the fact that it helps to burn more calories as compared to say walking on the treadmill in a gym. Running also serves to strengthen leg muscles such as calves and tendons which get toned in the process.

Also opting for running is a good idea for weight loss, as it a vigorous physical activity which helps to burn more calories as it raises your metabolism and trains your body even more calories.

How do we lose weight when we run?

Most beginners are in a shock if they expect to lose weight the moment they start running, in fact a much bigger shock awaits once they start running to lose weight, in the form of a weight gain! The weight gain is a result of development of muscle in the early days of running for a beginner, once he gets past this slight weight gain, his body begins to burn calories which gets him the expected weight loss.

To go deeper in the science of weight loss due to running, we first need to understand that the body prefers to burn carbohydrates for fuel as compared to fat. This is because fat takes a lot of time to burn and metabolize and contains more calories as compared to carbohydrates, as a result of which the body prefers to store fats and burn carbohydrates when in need of immediate fuel i.e. whilst running.

Running regularly trains the body to rely more on burning fat rather than carbohydrates for fuel purpose. To make it even clearer 1 pound of body fat contains 3500 calories, thereby burning fat leads to a greater weight loss. Regular running helps our body to start burning fat which is where the weight loss occurs! Moreover daily running also ups the body’s metabolism, which means that the body keeps on burning calories even after we have stopped running!

How should I run to lose weight?

The best way to achieve weight loss from running is to use the High Impact Interval Training or HIIT method of running, which includes a combination of sprints and light jogging or running at slow speeds.

This method works because according to recent research it has been proven that running at a constant speed over a period of time, helps the body to adjust itself to that speed thereby reducing the number of calories burnt and slowing down the weight loss. Hence HIIT includes sprints mixed with light jogging to not let the body get accustomed to a pace, which helps to burn more calories and lose more weight.

Another way of losing weight is trying to run as long as you can at least once a week as this will not only help you build up your stamina but also let you burn more calories with the more number of miles that you will cover!

So, now that you know how to run, where to run and most importantly why to run, we are sure that you’ll already be looking out for those old sneakers to put on and get set to go running!