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Is It Safe To Jog When Overweight?

Cardio exercises are the most efficient means of reducing weight simply because they are great calorie burners. 20 minutes of jogging can burn close to 30% of your daily calorie intake, depending upon your pace and movement. But the real question is, how healthy are these high impact exercises especially for people who have a heavy body mass? It turns out that the answer is not really black and white – yes it’s healthy, you will lose weight at good pace, but beware of the strain.

When you are overweight, the most strained parts of your body are your joints especially your leg joints. Running, or jogging, is known to create a lot of strain on the leg joints even for people who have a low body mass. In the long term, many joggers have found themselves suffering from knee pains and ligament tears, more so when they are not careful about their jogging routine. Hence, if you are overweight, you need to be extra careful about jogging and not get into the mentality of running heavily to burn weight quickly.

Here are a few tips on how to jog safely when you are overweight.

Get the right shoes for you – Ask any serious jogger and he/she will tell you that your shoes are vital to the health of your legs when you are running. You can’t really pay too much for them if you are serious about jogging, more so when you are overweight. The good quality shoes absorb a good amount of the impact while you run, bad quality shoes will absorb less impact and transfer it onto your joints and ligaments, causing injury.

If possible, consider going in for custom orthotics, these are basically custom made (taking into consideration your foot shape, gait and body mass) insoles that can be fitted inside your footwear. You will need to go to a podiatrist to get the specifications done. Many overweight people have found that custom orthotics made a huge difference to the strain they felt while running.

Sport the right body-wear –  Body wear for jogging cannot be over-empasized when you have body mass flopping up and down. It’s important to wear tights, with compressing bottoms, when you run – this will not only give you a smoother movement but will reduce strain on the joints. A good sports bra is essential for a woman to ensure a comfortable jogging routine.

Avoid the concrete – Where you jog is as an important factor, if you take to concrete or aspalt pavements and roads, it will cause high impact and high strain on your joints, on the other hand if you head for the beach you have strained movement, so the best track would be “tight packed dirt”. Many communities have parks where the tracks are specifically made for jogging, and constructed out of tight packed dirt and sand. These types of tracks are easy on the legs and allow for smoother movement.

Monitor your pace – The best tips for beginners is to keep it slow. Don’t start over straining your body from day one. Take it real slow initially, jog for 2 minutes and then walk for a couple minute before you jog again. Jog at a steady and slow pace as you get started. Be sure to warm up before your jog to avoid ligament injury. You can start hitting higher paces within a month of jogging slowly, increase you pace incrementally but stick to the pace which feels comfortable and don’t over-strain yourself at any cost.

Monitor your breathing – Be sure to breath deeply and steadily while you jog, do this consciously. Many people forget to regulate their breathing while exercising, and there are some who even hold their breath while running which can lead to increased blood pressure, causing strain on your heart, while also suffocating your muscles due to lack of oxygen.

If you keep these tips in mind, jogging can be a highly efficient exercise in helping you reach your desired body weight in a few months time (provided you are disciplined about your routine).

Author’s Note:

Iamnotobese.com offers tips on how to say fit and healthy following a vegan lifestyle. Please visit our site to find more. You can reprint this article as long as the link to Iamnotobese.com is active.