The Most Popular Cardio Workout You Should Avoid Like The Plague
Those of you who know me know that I’m not a huge fan of machines. Thus, it’s logical to assume that this post will consist of me bashing the elliptical, stationary bike, stair stepper and treadmill.
But contrary to this seemingly obvious presumption, the cardio workout that I want you to avoid has nothing to do with a machine. Instead, I’m going to condemn what is perhaps the most popular bodyweight exercise of all time for fat loss and conditioning.
The sacred exercise that I’m referring to is…jogging! On paper, jogging seems to be quite good. It burns calories, raises heart rate and requires no equipment or skill. But there is a dark side to jogging.
In my 19 years in the biz, I have yet to come across a cardio activity that leads to more soft tissue injuries and degenerative changes in the joints of the lower body than jogging. Injuries to the feet, knees and hips are all too common amongst distance runners.
Here’s why:
1) The jogging stride is actually more like a shuffling of the feet. There is a very limited range of motion, which leads to chronic tightness and loss of mobility.To counter this, a jogger would have to spend a great deal of time doing mobility and flexibility work. I’m talking about a one to one ratio here. Yes that’s correct- jog for an hour and then stretch for an hour. In 20 years in the biz, I’ve yet to see a jogger come close to this ratio.
2) Since the speed is relatively slow during jogging, every foot strike leads to a significant amount of vertical impact into the ground. This high level of impact absorption affects the feet, ankles, hips, and knees and can lead to injuries in these areas. In fact, studies have shown that this impact absorption is greater than three times the impact of power walking at the same speed!
3) Due to the relatively low intensity of jogging, it requires a long duration in order to get an effective (if you even want to call it that) workout. This means that there will be thousands of foot strikes per workout, which will eventually lead to overuse injuries.
If you distance run, get used to this
Here are the injuries that I see over and over again with jogging:
Common hip injuries- hip bursitis, iliotibial band syndrome (IT Band), hip stress fractures.
Common injuries of the feet- bunion formation, planter fasciitis, overpronation syndrome.
Common knee injuries- chrondomylasia, meniscus damage, patelofemerol syndrome, patellar tendonitis.
Common ankle and leg injuries- stress fractures, shin splints, Achilles tendonitis
If the risk of being tight and injured isn’t enough to inspire you to hang up your jogging kicks, there is one more reason that should convince you to quit this nasty habit.
Jogging severely limits one’s ability to build lean muscle and increase strength and power. In fact, in this regard, jogging is just about the worst cardio exercise out there.
Here’s why:
1) Jogging is very difficult to recover from due to its high impact absorption requirement and its inherent eccentric component. This will interfere with your strength training and can lead to overtraining.
Is this really the look you're going for?
2) Jogging raises catabolic hormones. To some degree, all strenuous activity will lead to an elevation of cortisol levels. But a long jog is like taking a bath in this catabolic hormone! This definitely needs to be avoided if strength and lean muscle mass are at all desired.
Okay, let’s summarize. Jogging leads to injuries, tightness, weakness and muscle loss. Pretty nasty, huh? So take my advice: hang up your jogging shoes for good and do some cardio that actually helps you rather than hurts you.
Stay tuned for my next post where I will reveal some of my favorite cardio exercises. These exercises improve conditioning and burn fat without the dreaded downsides of jogging.
Dedicated to your success,
John Alvino
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Comments on The Most Popular Cardio Workout You Should Avoid Like The Plague
great article! I agree 100% to all what you said. here in Italy, a lot of people consider the marathon a prove of strenght since you have to cope with hours of running. gosh they are so dead wrong!!
In addition, marathon and long distance running are activities that are virtually forbidden to older people, due to the damages you mentioned.
In other words, a young guy could attempt to do marathons, if he/she could get out of it in a healty status. a guy like me, at 45, would be forced to stop working out for months if not for years.
instead, using weights or similar activities like mobility and flexibility drills can help older people to be fit almost indefinitely.
regards
Michael, Italy
Good article. As a reformed marathoner (6 marathons, among many other distance races), allow me to also mention the overall “tightening” effects on your body, particularly the hamstring and the spine. This is bad news for anyone interested in optimal health.
Jogging could be the most beneficial excerise/training technique in the world and I still wouldnt do it….
It has to be the most BORING exercise known to mankind.
Find a hill or stairs and sprint/climb. Quicker, faster, more accomplished.
Hey John!
Thanks for delivering again a bit of a controversial article! Because it’s you who wrote it it means a lot to me and it really confuses me when I’m honest.
I went to a seminar lately of Tony Robbins and it was great, I made some shifts and improved my health. What I like about Tony is that he’s saying there’s a difference between being fit and healthy and most important: how much energy you have during the day. If you have more energy you can work harder, be more for your friends, have more fun, exercise etc.
He also taught me about the acid-alkaline balance and when you’re acidic your energy drops down and your cells are less vibrant and you’re creating an environment where germs and deseases arise.
Following things I implemented:
80% waterrich food
less meat
proper food combine, no protein and carbs together and when you do alkalize more
greendrinks
udo’s oil
powerbreaths to activate the lymfsystem
and here it comes: doing some sort of an aerobic activity for 3 – 6 days a week besides lifting weights. Tony says that if you’re working out anaerobic you’re getting acidic but when you’re working out aerobic with a low intensity so that you still van have a conversation you’re cleaning your system and getting more energized. I did this for 4 mornings a week for three weeks now and I must say my energy level during the day was great!
Now I’m reading that jogging is one of the worst exercises you can do! And I believe you to, I’m confused now what to do. I mean, I want to work out, condition myself and also have a good health and energy level. Looking forward to your opinion!
Thanks, Marc
@michael mellner: Hey Michael, you made some great points, thanks for sharing
@Jim: Hi Jim, definitely true. Once the muscles of the hips get tight, it is just a matter of time before this tightness has a negative effect on spine health
@Jeff: Amen brother! I’m totally with you
@Marc: Hey Marc, good to see you are focusing on improving your health. For this goal, I would just turn your morning cardio into brisk walking sessions. Then, depending on your fitness goals, you can hammer out some high intensity stuff later in the day. More on this in the next post. Stay tuned…
I agree with your article. I am a trainer ans say the same things to my clients. Recently I’ve been getting in to boxing training for myself and with a client who is a boxer. Roadwork is a major part of every boxers training and is said to be indispensable. Coaches say it has to be done in order to condition a fighter for a fight. But the last thing a boxer needs is tightness and worn out joints. Obviously boxing training is old school, but most of it really seems to be effective. What is your take on roadwork and what do you think would be a better alternative?
John,
Great article. I find jump roping to be really great for my athleticism and firing up my metabolism for the purposes of staying lean. This is particularly true when done fasted in the morning.
Do you see any similar repetitive motion injuries or similar problems with people who jump rope regularly?
-Chris
I never liked jogging much, even in my 20′s and 30′s, except for in the deep sand at the beach. That is a very different workout, believe me. Simply striding in deep sand is a remarkable aerobic workout, in fact.
I attribute my healthy knees and hips to the fact I refused to jog on pavement back when it was all the rage. I am now in my 60′s and quite athletic. I talk to other guys from my generation and many of them have lower joint problems or joint surgery stories and they all seem to have been joggers.
If I could give any advice to people in their 30′s and 40′s it would be to protect their bodies. Protect their joints. Protect their health. This is the true value of exercise.
Too much attention is given to getting “ripped”, getting “huge”. These things don’t last, and for most people they are as unnecessary as a super-sized meal. If life forces you to stop working out for several months or longer, you will lose your fitness very quickly. But you will still have your joints. And you will still have your eating habits. You can take my word for it when I say you will want those things to be as healthy as possible.
What about acidosis from High Interval Training?
Joggers always look ill to me.
What do you think about about running for like 20-30 minutes at a higher speed a couple of times a week. Would this be better than slow jogging or is it still too slow?
@Greg: Roadwork has definitely been at the cornerstone of a fighters conditioning program since the beginning of boxing training. While this has been tradition, there are better ways to train. I trained a fighter last year who was mentally conditioned to believe that long distance roadwork was essential during fight prep. I was scared to take it out of his program just in case my hypothesis was wrong, but, I did it anyway because I felt strongly that it wasn’t necessary. We did a majority of his conditioning work while doing his actual sport and to supplement, we would alternate short burst of running with dynamic flexibility. He came into the fight in great condition. Not noticeably better than usual but certainly no worse either. Since then, his experience has given me more confidence to experiment more. I’ll keep you posted
@Chris S: No. Rope Jumping is far less injurious. You don’t need to get off of the ground very high to clear a rope so the impact is less. Most rope techniques, require that you land with both feet simultaneously thus absorbing force with both legs.
@Bob: Great points, Bob. Everyone should read your comment, thanks
@Alex: Any type of training involving fast twitch fibers will increase acid. If you’re trained, your body should be pretty efficient at clearing the acids. I’m not quite sure exactly what your question is. Please clarify, thanks
@Andrew Morris: Definitely the ones who are excessive about it
@Bill: 2×20 minute doesn’t seem excessive to me. You could probably get away with it but I believe there are better alternatives
I used to do track and I would always get bladder & stomach cramps from running. I would force myself to jog just because I heard it was the best way to get/stay in shape. Every once in a while I get the urge to jog when I am feeling stressed out- I never knew jogging could contribute to the stress levels. Thanks for the info! One question…if you are doing resistance training a few days a week are you less likely to have joint and tendon injuries from jogging or running every so often?
Great article by the way!
@Jesss: Hey Jess, a well-designing strength training program should result in structural balance. This would help prevent injuries in any other training endeavor.
Hi John,
Just loved this article, I couldn’t agree more. As Greg and you, I have the same problem with boxing and the roadwork. Of course, I don’t do any jogging, and don’t recomend it, but the tradition seems to be so strong, that the last two months, the boxing coach has eliminated some training sessions to do more roadwork, which is a totally nonsense to me. It would be great if you can share your experiments regarding this subject.
Greetings
@Adrià: Hey Adria, it is all too common for coaches just to emulate what others have done in the past. I’m suggesting to think outside the box. Good luck with your fight. Keep us posted on your outcome and I will keep you posted on the training experiments.
Hey John, great post. What is the maximum amount of running that you would recommend? Thanks
Thanks John. Can’t wait to find out what some of your favorite cardio exercises are!
Hey John,
Thanks for your advice! I really like to work out in the morning, I’m curious about the other options, maybe some jumping rope?
Well, I stay tuned for the next article!
Marc
Good explanations of why jogging should be eliminated. While in college I trained to run in the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. That was the skinniest I’ve ever been and as an ectomorph I’ve been pretty skinny at times! haha. It was a good experience, but after that I decided to never run a marathon again.
I actually enjoy running on the hiking trails, however it does beat you up if you go to long/far and lately I’ve just been walking them instead. I found a couple good hills and would like to start doing some hill sprints instead or at the least alternate between them. Personally, I don’t like to jog slow, but actually run at a fairly fast clip for like a mile through hiking trails. You sort of get out of the repetitive linear motion and have to go up and down hills, over roots and through the spider webs! haha
Great post! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to your next article
@Gina: I don’t recommend to long distance jogging at all. But done occasionally, it will not kill you.
@Marc: Hey Marc, I just posted up the follow up the this. I did not include rope jumping but I do like it and do it often. Check it out and feel free to shoot over any questions you may have
@Brandon Cook: Hey Brandon, hill sprinting and running through hiking trails would be great alternatives.
I wrestled at 145 pounds my sophomore year in high school so I know all about ectomorphism! No distance running for us! hahahaha
@Mike: You’re welcome MIke. The next article is written and posted. check it out and let me know what you think