Running as a Thinking Person’s Sport | Hacker News Reader

Running as a Thinking Person’s Sport

nytimes.com

148 pointsDowwie143 comments

I hate how much the authors of this article imply causality.

>There also, interestingly, was less activity among the runners in a part of the brain that tends to indicate lack of focus and mind wandering.

Could it not be that people who have the willpower to run regularly also have the willpower to stay focused?

>In essence, the runners seemed to have brains in which certain cognitive skills, including multitasking and concentration, were more finely honed than among the inactive men.

"Honed" definitely implies that running hones those skills, when in fact having those very skills could be a confounding factor.

All of that said, I have yet to see a compelling argument against running regularly.

There are plenty of compelling arguments against excessive running:

1) It is destructive to your joints and tendons. Injury rates are very high among runners.

2) It is stressful, resulting in chronically elevated cortisol levels.

3) It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective), and very inefficient at improving fitness.

Pretty sure there have been studies positively correlating running a certain amount with dying younger. I can't imagine sucking in city pollution can be that healthy either. Anecdotally, it helps my anxiety.

There is a tendency, from what I've observed, to use running as a way to have a really bad diet and still stay thin. There is a lot of pressure for people in their 20s and 30s who live in urban areas to both look fit and drink heavily. Not a good recipe for long term health.

Running is not great for losing weight, so I'm having doubts about this one...

It's been pretty effective for me. What are better ways of losing weight?

Restricting calorie intake.

It takes hours of running to offset a couple of beers worth of calories. If you're eating unhealthy and drinking a lot, there is no amount of running to undo it.

A beer is, say, 150 calories. A mile of running burns about 100 calories. When I ran, cruising speed was 7 minutes per mile. So a light 6 mile (10k) run would be about 45 minutes, 600 calories, or 6 miles.

And that doesn't even take into account the increased metabolism after the run is finished, nor the increased resting burn rate (over time) due to increased muscle mass.

Very true. Again this is anecdata, but when I ran my metabolism was insanely high. Runners are notorious for basically being pigs.

One of the marathons I ran had a "carbo-loading" event. Basically huge vats of spaghetti were cooked, and runners would absolutely gorge. It's totally unnecessary, IMHO. It's good to eat enough and cleanly before a big run, but stuffing yourself just weighs you down. And come mile 20 or so, you're not going to be worried about how much energy you have to burn, but rather how much everything hurts.

I wouldn't call 150 calories of beer heavy drinking. A pint of something like Guinness is a little over 200 calories.

"SAMHSA defines heavy drinking as drinking 5 or more drinks on the same occasion"

So you're right that heavy drinking of beer could be undone with running, but it's going to take a 10-11 mile run every day.

Why can't you just admit you were wrong? You said no amount without specifying how much eating/drinking you were talking about. That's a pretty absolute statement, refuted by the facts others have provided.

> If you're eating unhealthy and drinking a lot, there is no amount of running to undo it.

Emphasis mine.

I said "drinking a lot", someone refuting with evidence of running of a single light beer hardly refutes anything.

There is little to gain by behaving like a smug asshole in comments. What could you possibly expect as a response to your comment that would make for good conversation.

Maybe you should ask yourself that question more often. Saying things that are untrue without even an attempt to back them up, and then being abusive to anyone who calls you on it, is kind of "smug asshole" behavior itself and not conducive to good conversation.

This is not true. "A study done by researchers at Syracuse found that men burned about 105 kilocalories/mile on average running a mile in 9 minutes and 30 seconds, and about 52 calories when walking the same mile in 19 minutes." [1]

[1]http://running.competitor.com/2015/03/training/many-calories...

> Running is not great for losing weight

Since when? I'd like a citation on that.

As a sometimes fat runner, I cite myself.

Weight is won or lost in the kitchen. Full stop.

A 1 hour run might burn 500 calories. If you go and eat till you are not hungry, you can easily eat 800 or 900 calories. You are not going to lose much weight at the method.

A 1 hour run for me burns 1000+ calories: https://www.strava.com/activities/800853045

Of course it's possible to eat 1000 calories' worth of food in one sitting, especially if you're eating something with tons of carbs in. But if you keep your diet roughly the same and go on a 1 hour run three times a week, you'll definitely start losing weight..

You are not burning 1200 calories in a hour run at 10min/mile. At an average 25% efficiency that is the equivalent of producing 350W on an ergo for a whole hour, which is well beyond the genetic ability of the vast majority of the population.

(The idea that sport can't help you lose weight is still ridiculous of course, even if you are only burning 600 calories per hour. Bad habits make you overweight and establishing good habits (like exercise) is the key to get out of that.)

May I ask how you came to this calculation? I have a relative in my family that regularly touts they are burning 3,000 calories on an elliptical for an hours worth of use.

It'd be nice to have an outlandish comparison to put towards their claim.

You start with gross efficiency, which for humans is going to be 20-30%. So when the tool says you expended 1200 calories and you assume an average efficiency of 25%, that means you produced 1200/4 = 300 kcal of actual work and 1200-300 = 900 kcal in excess heat.

The 300 kcal of work equate to ~349 Watt hours as WolframAlpha will tell you, so if you want to produce that in a single hour you need to continuously put out 349 Watts.

Now we have put lots of humans on scientific ergos which can accurately measure work, and that is a very high number for a single hour for any individual. There is a chart here that gives you the kind of work rates achievable by category:

http://d4nuk0dd6nrma.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/...

It's normalized by weight but it's more accurately height, someone weighing 300lbs isn't suddenly going to produce more power than at a normal weight. The number you're looking for is "FT" or Functional Threshold, which is generally assumed to be around the absolute maximum average power sustainable for an hour. At the end of that you should fall over and puke your guts out. So for someone doing 350 Watts for a hour, that would put them at world class or domestic pro level.

They would have to chug harder than a train to burn 3,000 calories on an elliptical. Chances are it's less than 1,000 calories [1].

[1] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/walking-vs-elliptic...

I think that 1000 is also including your base calorie burn. I.e. if you sit in chair you burn 300. if you run 10 minute miles, you burn 700. Some of those calorie estimates are a bit off..

> Weight is won or lost in the kitchen. Full stop.

I think this is disingenuous. Certainly regulating caloric intake has more impact than exercise because it's "easier" to achieve a caloric deficit, but that doesn't mean running isn't great for weight loss all else being equal.

Furthermore, exercise is important for other health reasons. So maintaining the same caloric intake and adding running is much better than simply reducing your caloric intake by the same amount.

It's a bit more complex than the commonly spouted calories in/calories out argument.

There is still a lot that we don't know with regards to metabolism. I am usually a higher mileage runner during spring to fall months (70-90km / week) and although I scale my eating to offset my calories burned, I will still lose weight. I will not provide a citation but it's quite widely known that metabolism increases as the body normalizes into a training period or regimen. And increasing with diminutive returns as the training increases. Recovery also burns more calories even while sedentary (as you should be when recovering).

That's the consumer-side of it. The supply-side argument is what's usually 'spouted': if you're gaining weight, its because too many calories in. Full stop.

Of course the body can/will waste calories, burn them at a higher rate depending on other things. That's not most peoples' problem though: unexpectedly losing too much weight. There's not a billion-dollar industry around that issue.

Since forever. The human body is very efficient.

You have to run about 1 mile to burn 100 calories. Skipping a 1000 calorie lunch is the equivalent of running 10 miles when it comes to weight loss.

Put another way, without a diet change, you would have to run about 35 miles to lose just 1 pound of fat.

Running is good for the heart and lungs. For weight loss, not so much.

I think running reduces my appetite.

Ditto.

Figure a 100 calories per mile; not exact for every person, but close enough for our purposes. Now let's take the common "imma have a smoothie, I ran today". I've seen people order smoothies that contain a thousand calories, that's what it said on the sign. But that's ridiculous, lets go with half that. 10K run, carry the 2, comes out to 6.2 miles. Your smoothie cancelled all but 120 calories. And you need to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound.

Put another way, if you ran fifty miles and took in no calories (obviously hypothetical), you'd lose ~1.5 pounds. You still have to make dietary changes if you want to lose weight.

Signed, Skinny, lifelong runner who hasn't the first clue what it's like to try and lose weight

I've walked three miles a day, every weekday this year, and not lost so much as an ounce - I've shed a lot of thigh fat, true, but the increase in calf and thigh muscle mass easily makes up for that.

Same for the situps and pushups I've been doing since August. I'm a hell of a lot more fit than I was, and I move better than I have in years. Hasn't made my gut any smaller. Sure, I've had to put three new holes in my belt, and probably need to go down a waist size next time I buy trousers. But it turns out that improved abdominal muscle tone just means you carry belly fat higher, so even though my waistline's shrunk, I actually look fatter than I did before. (On the other hand, I can move like I did in my twenties, so I'm willing to take the hit to my narcissism here.)

I've twice in the last decade lost fifty pounds or more in under a year. Both times, I did it purely by means of calorie restriction.

Exercise will make you healthier. It will not, by itself, make you lose weight. You do that by making sure that (calories in - calories out) has a negative sign, daily, over a long period of time. Aerobic exercise can help in that you burn more calories that way. But it's an adjunct, and insufficient on its own.

It's not easy, especially when you start out habituated to large meals and highly caloric sugary foods. It is absolutely doable, and the younger you start, the easier it is.

Here's a couple of citations for you. Both are generally exercise vs calorie control, not specific to running. Of course, running lands in the exercise category.

https://youtu.be/ztiHRiFXtoc https://youtu.be/eXTiiz99p9o

My personal experience of a lifetime of moderate amounts of running has been that it didn't help me lose weight at all, it increased my strength and endurance. But when I run and when I exercise, I eat more to compensate. A decade of regular exercise left me healthy, and just as chubby as when I started.

Finally realizing exercise is a strength plan and not a weight loss plan, and getting myself into the right mental place to count calories -- I lost 40 pounds in 6 months and have kept the weight off for years because I learned how to eat & exercise. I get fat by eating more and skinny by eating less, I get strong by exercising and weak by not exercising.

Presumably this varies a lot person to person. I find it much easier to lose weight with a combination of exercise and calorie restriction than with the latter alone. Yes, I get a bit hungrier when I exercise, but that just helps with focusing on eating when I'm hungry. It also allows me to eat somewhat more, thereby enjoying the experience of eating healthy food more, so it lessens the perceived hardship of calorie restriction. Finally, it's motivational: as I eat healthy food and begin losing weight, I feel stronger and more fit when I exercise, which makes exercising more enjoyable, and gives me more motivation to stick with the diet.

I actually haven't tried counting calories without exercising, but I'm absolutely certain you're right that this varies from person to person.

Exercising does afford me the opportunity to eat a little more after a workout, and I get to reward myself with a treat sometimes. I suspect that makes counting calories a lot easier.

Fully agree on it being motivational, and I'd go further about the benefits. Exercise is mandatory for me personally, it is a higher priority than most things, including weight loss.

Calorie restriction isn't nearly as effective at weight loss as it "should" be for me, which sucks because I find it fairly easy. Aerobic exercise also isn't very effective, which is fine because I find it incredibly boring unless it's part of a sport.

Strength training, on the other hand, is way MORE effective at cutting fat for me than it "should" be. Go figure.

Running has served me as an early warning of health problems.

Well, where are the studies? While we are talking about dying; Personally, I would rather die young than die in a "home" shitting myself unable to remember who I am. I see this more than I care to and it is horrible.

I'll try to clarify. According to the studies I've seen, mortality is decreased for all runners compared to non-runners. However, the greatest benefit was for people who ran a moderate amount. People who ran a lot regressed somewhat vs. the moderate runners, but still not to the level of the non-running population.

There are also some serious methodological questions about the studies involved. The best analysis I've seen is here:

http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/will-running-too-m...

So no, there's no solid evidence that any amount of running is harmful. Maybe if someone did a study in a place where pollution was extra bad (e.g. Beijing) they would find such an effect, but I'm not aware of any such efforts.

What qualifies as "excessive", though? Excessive anything is harmful almost by definition.

This comment replies to the wording of the parent comment, not the content. We know what the parent comment means.

No, we don't. I'm not sure even the author has a clear definition of "excessive" in mind, so we might not know even if we were all telepathic. The validity or applicability of their complaints about running is very closely tied to that definition, so it's entirely reasonable to seek clarification.

Anything done excessively can be unhealthy, by definition, but there's only a grain of truth to what you're saying.

To your point 1: done properly, running isn't particularly harmful to joints and tendons, and some studies even seem to show that running can be beneficial in that regard[1]. The rapid changes in direction that cause the most stress are less prevalent in running than just about any other sport, not even considering the impacts that can occur e.g. in contact sports. Injury rates are not particularly high in running compared to other sports, and even if that were so you should be careful about confusing correlation with causation. A lot of people get injured while running mostly because it's an incredibly popular form of exercise. Do you seriously think there would be fewer injuries e.g. among the same number of people playing rugby?

To your point 3: I know a lot of weight-training addicts like to make that claim, but it's just not true for any reasonable definition of fitness. Running isn't particularly good for weight loss, but weight loss has little to do with fitness. Ditto for weight gain, even in the form of muscle. When it comes to the kind of fitness that actually matters - i.e. developing one's heart and lungs to prevent the chronic problems that kill millions every year - only a few kinds of exercise are better than running. Swimming, rowing, and cross-country skiing come to mind. There are probably a few more, but lifting weights is certainly not on the list.

You personally don't like running? Fine. No exercise is ideal for everyone. But spreading FUD that discourages others from pursuing a healthy habit doesn't seem very constructive.

P.S. Instead of getting your friends to downvote, how about suggesting an actually-healthy alternative?

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161209100236.h...

Biking, swimming, and rowing are all better on the joints than the impact from running.

>P.S. Instead of getting your friends to downvote, how about suggesting an actually-healthy alternative?

Don't complain about downvotes, it makes for boring conversation.

I had 2 herniated discs (L4-L5, L5-S1) in 2014 due to swinging an axe over my head for an extended period of time on a large structure fire.

I say that to say this; running is way better for my back than cycling. My left leg, mostly my foot, still haven't completely recovered from the nerve impingement, but I am running 30 to 40 miles a week with no problems (lots of trail running too, check my Strava :) )

I can't cycle like I used to on any "normal" bicycles. This position, bent at 90 degrees or more, that one is required to sit while cycling is actually pretty terrible for the lower back. Also, being male and being part of a large male dominated industry - firefighting, I see lots of male cancers. That is, testicular and prostate cancers. My department is participating in a massive testicular and prostate study; We are being asked to change our chonies often and wash hands before going to the bathroom as the scrotum is a sponge for anything it touches... smashing that region when cycling for extended periods of time seems like a bad idea (and it hurts).

Cycling can be bad for your back but it depends upon your position on the bike. I had problems with my lower back but I cycle regularly on a road bike and I haven't had any issues for a long time. One thing is that the lower handlebars on a road bike takes weight off the lower back and onto the shoulders and arms. It also makes you build up your core which is one of the main causes of back pain. Too low or too stretched out is not good. But if your position is right theres no problem.

I beg you to consider recumbent bikes. I am an avid cyclist. I ride daily to work. (less so now that the roads are icy) I have had back surgery (L4/L5 is now fused).

I went on a bike tour where I rode for 13+hrs a day for a month. At the end of the day the only thing sore was my muscles.

I weigh almost 300lbs.

A recumbent bike is a complete life changing, world altering, paradigm shifting, bundle of awesome. I beg you to look into it, or send me a PM if you have any questions.

On topic: What's a recumbent bike like to ride on the street? I live in Baltimore, and while I've ridden a conventional bike successfully in daytime traffic, it's not something with which I can imagine ever being really comfortable. A recumbent bike, having the rider much lower to the ground, seems like it'd be even scarier - how have you found it? Or do you ride on roads where it's not a problem?

Platform note: Hacker News doesn't support PMs, so you'll want to include in your profile an email address, or some other means of contact outside HN itself, in order to make out-of-band conversations possible.

Welcome! We're glad to have you.

My bike is 'average' height. Lower then some, higher then some. (There is incredible diversity in recumbent designs.)

I am "eyeball-level" with most cars/sedans. I am lower then most mini-vans.

As a general rule-of-thumb 75% of vehicles give me more room then they do when I ride a traditional bike. I would say that the majority of cars give me "half the lane" (which would mean that they pull over far enough that their right-side tires are in the left-side wheel track).

BUT, I still get atleast 1 vehicle a day that drives too close. In some parts of town this is more likely to happen then others, it also depends on road/traffic/other conditions too. When I am areas or during times-of-the-day where it is not as safe for me, I 'Take the Lane' and don't let cars try to drive beside me.

In my city I can either take road (12km route) or dedicated bike paths for most of the trip (20km route). I always prefer the bike paths.

> Biking, swimming, and rowing are all better on the joints than the impact from running.

I was a competitive swimmer for a large portion of life. My back hated me for it. Running has been nothing but good to me.

Competitive sportsmen of any stripe tend to have various injuries. Unless you're a competitive runner too, the two cannot be compared.

Rowing should only be done with a very good coach. Source: Girlfriend has two bulging discs in her back due to a bad coach of her freshman year rowing team.

I second this. I rowed semi-competitively for years in my teens and early twenties, and thought I had good form. I didn't learn until after herniating a disc that it's important to do most of the drive through the heels rather than the ball of the foot. Most people learn not to overreach at the catch, which is part of it, but you also have to focus on not just getting the heels down, but actually driving through them. (Much like squats, another thing I didn't learn to do properly (with weight on the heels) until after that injury.)

Of course there's a bunch else to it - keeping the back straight and strong, etc. - this was just the thing that happened to be missing from my training, so might be for others as well.

Doesn't surprise me. I had some friends in college, men and women, that rowed, and universally they were put through hellish, body-destroying workout regimens that the football team would have looked cross-eyed at.

It still seems weird to me that rowing is a competitive sport. Rowing is something you do with a six-pack of beer in the cooler and a tacklebox and reel by your side, rather than as an end in itself. But I have decidedly plebeian tastes.

Good thing that's not all I wrote, then. Kudos for ignoring most of the rest to focus on that.

As for the other part of your comment, when I mentioned swimming etc. in the context of overall benefit, not harm to joints. I've yet to see evidence that cycling is easier on the joints, and I've seen plenty that it's slightly below running in terms of aerobic benefit. Sure, an elite cyclist probably has a higher VO2max than I do, but if we compare apples to apples then we'd have to compare to an elite marathon runner and I don't think that comparison would look so good.

VO2max has nothing to do with joints. Your post is all over the place.

No, my post is not all over the place. You're just not very good at reading. Effect on joints was the OP's point 1. Effect on fitness was point 3. Must I address those points in separate replies, even though they were made in one? That's absurd. Also, they're not completely unrelated and I've even drawn the lines between them. Talk of running's negatives should be balanced by consideration of its positives. Even if running is harmful to the joints, and already cited evidence suggests otherwise, that might still be outweighed by the aerobic benefits. More people die of heart attacks than of sore knees. I don't think it's unreasonable to counter unremittingly negative commentary with some mention of positives.

Next time, try reading what others write, instead of cherry-picking one piece out of context to address in support of your biases.

>You're just not very good at reading.

Now this is what this site is about.

Unless you are intentionally trolling, I recommend you remove personal attacks from your discourse if you want to engage in any kind of intelligent conversation.

So a one-line comment that's nothing but cherry-picking/diversion is OK, but calling you on it - and also continuing the actual discussion with facts and stuff - is a mortal sin? Look at all the responses in this thread. It's pretty clear that I did a pretty good job spurring an intelligent conversation, and you didn't, so I contend that your criteria/priorities are way out of whack.

> Don't complain about downvotes, it makes for boring conversation.

And more downvotes.

The person you responded to never said that exercise is bad, or that being fit isn't important. They simply were responding to the statement that they had never heard an argument that running could be bad. You really jumped to conclusions by assuming they were saying exercise is not valuable.

The problem is the OP said "against running regularly" and the responder said "excessive". Neither "regularly" nor "excessive" were well-defined. Regular could be anywhere from 2-3 times a week to daily. Excessive could be anywhere from daily to many times daily, and probably is more about time/distance run than frequency of runs (daily 1 mile runs would be hard to consider excessive, but daily marathons?).

Defining our terms is critical in conversation (and something I probably need to work on as well).

> The person you responded to never said that exercise is bad

I never said that they did. Who's jumping to conclusions now? The person I was responding to clearly has an axe to grind with running specifically, and the most likely reason is that they prefer something else. I see that a lot from lifters and cyclists especially. For some reason they feel a need to explain why their choice is as good as running, which is in itself interesting. I don't see swimmers (for example) who feel compelled to explain why their choice is as good as running. Nor do I see anyone trying to impugn exercise in general (because that would be stupid).

I don't know what sport/exercise that person prefers, though, because they didn't say. It would have been nice if they had, to balance out the relentless negativity. When one casually equates "regularly" with "excessive" and then lists only negatives, it implies an overall negative. Identifying a basis for comparison might have been enlightening instead of offensive.

I've been running for years and enjoy running, but everything he said is pretty much true...well, the boring part for me is obviously not true.

#2 (elevated cortisol levels) is a huge problem that is rarely discussed though. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Try ashwagandha, it has some evidence of lowering cortisol.

So 1/3 is "everything" to you? Also, elevated cortisol levels are associated with any exercise done to excess. Why single out running? Why focus on the negative? Running might not be the best possible exercise, there might be others that are even better, but it's highly accessible and running is overall better than not doing anything. That's totally lost in all the FUD the OP was slinging.

This data still isn’t perfect, but it adds another brick to the growing pile suggesting that running will not ruin your knees.[1]

New study explores how exercise may fight joint inflammation[2]

[1]http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/run-for-your-knees

[2]http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/is-running-actuall...

2) Your premise is true but your conclusion is wrong: while cardiovascular induces an aroused state and increases cortisol levels, it is also conditioning the body to be able to quickly return to a resting state, so when it is aroused at a later time (from a stressful encounter with a coworker for example), it will spend less time in that state because it recovers faster.

1) The idea that running is bad for your knees and joints is a popular fitness myth. According to several studies runners, even those who have run competitively for many years, do not have an increased prevalence of osteoarthritis.

2) Chronically elevated cortisol levels are result of overtraining. If you do that, you are doing it wrong. Overtraining happens when a person experiences stress and physical trauma from exercise faster than their body can repair it. Overtraining is not same as training a lot. Gradually increasing the running time and having enough rest days prevents that while the running distances grow.

3) You get runners high and it's not boring.

Of course there are people with conditions that get worse with running. Fat people should start slowly.

The knees is still out. One problem with studying long term runners, I'd often people who get knee pain drop out.

That's me -- went to various physios, they all agree I've messed up my knees, and won't ever recover enough to take up running again.

Like the back problems sometimes associated with rowing, a lot of knee issues from running are due mainly to bad form.

If you over-stride, particularly down-hill (and going "too fast" down hill instead of managing your pace/stride is a recipe for over-striding) the knees will be too straight during impact and so experience excessive impact force (and therefor potential damage) that would otherwise be absorbed by muscles/tendons/elsewhere.

While form is important, it doesn't fix fundamental joint problems unfortunately. I was checked fairly carefully by a couple of NHS physios, who both agreed it was joint problems, not bad form.

No, once you have a significant joint problem (from running or anything else) running is never going to help and will probably make things worse. Cycling possibly too, depending on the problem.

Swimming is probably the thing to go for in such circumstances. While some problems make that difficult too, it doesn't have the impact or strain (depending on stroke) of other options.

> According to several studies runners, even those who have run competitively for many years, do not have an increased prevalence of osteoarthritis.

That smells like survivorship bias to me. ;)

I really wonder how barefoot runners fare on 1) The sensitivity of your feet forbid any kind of pressure, I believe you end up running softly naturally. If true that would be very funny.

> It is time consuming and boring

Not for me. Mentally, it's the most productive part of my day. I "zone out" and work on problems that I haven't solved yet. Most design issues I work out while running, I write papers while running, I put together presentations while running. Many, many perplexing bugs I've solved while out for a run.

Of course, I've been running for decades. When I started out, it was time consuming, painful, and boring. It took maybe 5 years for that to change into what it is now - I look forward to it, I enjoy it, and it works for me.

Also, switching from a heel-strike gait to a ball-strike one has eliminated the knee pain.

I will never argue it's not time-consuming. Last year, I trained for 4 marathons and logged over 2000km of mileage. I don't want to think of the time that went into it, but I had a great time. The lonely "boring" runs I interpret for myself as a way to disconnect from the world and just zone out. Running with a group or with music curbs this greatly.

All sports have a bit of injuries, but those who last are those who take care. Changing shoes every 500km or so, foam-rolling muscles and joints, not running through pain, etc. Proper nutrition (during longer runs AND as a lifestyle) also helps immensely. Slowly optimizing your gait, cadence, and varying your weekly training so you have those back-off weeks for recovery. These are what keep you on your feet.

Here's my kicker that throws people off. I would rather watch a marathon on TV with full commentary than any other sporting event. I love it and follow the scene pretty closely. And this is coming from a guy who played professional soccer in his early 20's.

#1 and #2 seem reasonable points, but

> very inefficient at improving fitness

Efficiency relative to what? Time? Joules? Cost?

I'm skeptical running is "inefficient" at improving fitness.

Body weight exercises such as pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups are the best for fitness.

Again, this depends on how you define both "best" and "fitness". What's best depends a lot on what someone enjoys. I would rather do an activity I enjoy for 40 minutes than get the same benefit doing something I hate for 20. Likewise, fitness means different things to different people and at different times. You may be focusing on cardio-vascular fitness, or on strength, or speed, or weight loss, or performance in a particular sport...

Or, you know, "do something". Throwing a bunch of complexity and equipment cost at someone who doesn't currently exercise at all isn't likely to help anything much. Pushups and situps require only a clear stretch of floor.

Sure! If you're just getting started and can stick with that, maybe that's best for you! Just not for everyone.

I think calisthenics are great, but they focus more on muscular strength than cardiovascular.

There are only so many push-ups you can do before your muscles are fatigued. Running, swimming, and cycling are better for cardio because you can do them for great lengths of time.

Not sure what is meant by that commenter, but weight loss and strength gains are common goals which running isn't the most efficient at achieving. Obviously, it still impacts these and, obviously, those aren't goals for everyone.

Running is great at improving cardiovascular output (honestly not sure how it compares to biking and swimming), but that isn't all of fitness.

According to this [1], running is much more efficient at improving cardiovascular endurance than biking, in terms of time spent training for a particular gain. Particularly trail running.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete...

(ps. As someone who is sort of a weekend outdoors entusiast, without being any kind of a competitive climber or particularly interested in training, I thought it was an interesting read and would recommend.

It's a solid book, although I don't recall the bit that you're citing. I didn't read it that thoroughly. Started it and realized that I'd rather work towards 5.13 than the summit of Everest/Denali/whatever.

#2 is something that can affect your mood, energy, focus, work productivity levels...

what about strength training/weightlifting?

>* It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective)*

Very very subjective...

> and very inefficient at improving fitness

Depends on what your fitness goals are. It is pretty effective at maintaining cardiovascular capability but doesn't do much for overall strength or, on its own, weight management. Anecdotal data point: as a regular runner, 10K in <42m, half marathon in <1h50, I have a cracking set of legs and lungs but my upper body is pretty weak, my core strength "fair-to-middling", and I still carry a little more than I might like around the waist.

The trick to overall fitness, and something I could benefit from addressing, is to not concentrate on just one thing. Mixing running with body-weight exercises (push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, dips, ...) is generally considered a good minimal-equipment combination. For "bulking" or faster muscle strength gains add in some weights. For weight loss: eat less (or, for a more nuanced approach, eat better).

3) is extremely subjective. I have a love for running. You can say it's repetitive, dull, hurtful .. and I'd agree totally.

I was extremely ill last year, couldn't even jog; the first time I could sustain mild jogging I cried of happiness.

I love all kinds of sports, biking, skating, soccer, tennis, badminton you name it. Yet running has a special wire in my spine. When you're in flow, you feel like flying, it's a bit surreal. I'm not a regular runner anymore and I can't have long periods like these but still.

> 3) It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective), and very inefficient at improving fitness.

Whether you run, bike, hike, swim, row, or whatever it doesn't have to be boring.

Running/biking on a rural Midwest road IS insanely boring alone. I frequently listen to audiobooks or podcasts either educational or entertainment and that boring road becomes something I look forward to. The times I elect no audio I use it to think on hard problems I am trying to solve or plan for

These eliminate your counters of time consuming and boring. Regarding the inefficiency, you can do cardio that isn't running if you believe running is bad for you. I listen to the same thing during strength training

There are several studies that show adult neurogenesis from aerobic exercise, particularly running, in rats and mice.

Example: Physical exercise increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis in male rats provided it is aerobic and sustained. https:/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26844666

A review article here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5566493_Neurogenesi...

There is at least one study that allows us to infer that the same effects may occur in humans (quoted below).

Please let us know if there are more studies like this. It looks like a very practical approach to improve your cognition and prevent dementia with little risk.

From: http://www.dana.org/Publications/Brainwork/Details.aspx?id=4...

"Columbia neuroscientist Scott Small and colleagues appear to have found a way around this problem. First, they put mice that had been running voluntarily for two weeks into a magnetic resonance imager to map exercise-induced changes in cerebral blood volume, a measure of increased blood vessel formation in the dentate gyrus. Then, by sacrificing the animals and counting new neurons, they were able to correlate the neuronal proliferation they observed with changes in blood volume.

The researchers then conducted magnetic resonance tests on a small group of middle-aged people who had been exercising about an hour a day, four times a week, for three months. By charting exercise-induced changes in cerebral blood volume in the human hippocampal region and applying the same algorithms used in the mice, they were able to deduce that neurogenesis was also occurring in the humans. Changes in blood volume in the dentate gyrus, they concluded, provide a correlate of neurogenesis in humans."

Anecdotal, yet may not be completely coincidental: Alan Turing was an avid marathon runner. This is not part of the argument--so please don't take it into account when responding. ;)

That first study does not support your claim. This is the main chart: https://i.imgur.com/pTFJkaJ.png. Note how it shows a significant response in Doublecortin+ cells only in the HRT group and not for the LRTs. These acronyms stand "for low (LRT) and high (HRT) response to aerobic exercise training". In particular, quoting from the article:

Starting with a founder population of genetically heterogeneous rats (N/NIH stock), we applied two-way artificial selection based on the magnitude of change in running capacity after completing 8 weeks of standardized aerobic treadmill training. After 15 generations of selection, rats bred as HRT increased maximal treadmill running distance from 646 to 869 m (change, 223 ± 20 m), whereas rats bred as LRT decreased from 620 to 555 m (change, −65 ± 15 m) after completing the same absolute amount of training (Koch et al. 2013).

This is a huge confounding variable. There is a very good chance these cells have an impact on these rats' ability to run long distances after training, so it's completely reasonable to expect that the cell growth would respond well to the very exercise the rats were selected for responding well to! It does not show that the same effect would happen in a normal rat (the LRT rats did not see a difference in this particular cell growth, but they were also nonrandom).

Your point regarding the first study I cited seems to be a good one. There are a number of other studies with similar effects, however; some of which can be found in the review article.

I thought multitasking had been shown not to exist.

Since these people's minds don't wander I expect another study showing how Running is the Non-Creative's Sport.

>Could it not be that people who have the willpower to run regularly also have the willpower to stay focused?

This is just an anecdote, of course, but I notice a major boost to my ability to concentrate, avoid distractions and think after a good aerobic exercise session. My efficiency goes from <1 hour of intellectual work done in a day to >4.

The boost lasts about 2 days, after which the lethargy sets back in.

Well, the article states:

> Of course, this type of study cannot prove that running actually caused the differences in the men’s thinking, only that runners had certain patterns of thought.

Maybe it's just that a prolongated uneasy physical activity trains people into not quitting and understand early sensations are only transient. Just a thought.

As this described by the NYT (maybe the original paper describes it better?), there's all sorts of problems with this conclusion:

- A very small sample size

- Confounding factors: one group consists of collegiate runners (i.e., college students), and another consists of "young men" i.e., presumably men who didn't necessarily go to college. Even if both groups consisted entirely of college students, there might be other confounding factors that could explain the differences rather than running itself (eg: runners spend more time outside; runners' days are more structured; college runners probably drink fewer nights a week than average)

- The control group "said that they had not exercised in the past year" - could it just be that exercise in some form improves brain functioning?

I was a mediocre Division 3 cross country and track runner, so I feel like I'm qualified to say that while there are many benefits of running, improved brain function is not one of them.

Right? There are no conclusions they can draw about running in particular, since they are basically comparing fit people to unfit people.

Intellectuals often take up cycling or running, notice the benefits and then claim cycling and running are great for the mind. Kind of makes me wonder if they'd ever exercised before.

As long as I don't completely exhaust myself, I tend to feel much better after I exercise, which includes playing ball sports... I just don't do it nearly as often as I should!

Team sports require you to process a large stream of input information as a stream for a 1-2 hour window. In my experience (social league basketball, volleyball, soccer, mixed netball) I switch off subconscious (deep) thought processing and focus on handling the high volume of (shallow) inputs from reading other players movements, communicating audibly and feeling through touch/proprioception.

Cycling and running (or hiking), especially solo and on quiet roads or trails does the opposite. You can process a much smaller amount of input information required for navigation and hazard avoidance in "autopilot" mode. This frees your mind to process your subconscious thoughts in a daydream like (meditative?) way.

So to me, both activities are useful ways to modify my thought processes. Team sports let me switch off or de-prioritise my subconscious for a while. Cycling or running lets me work through a subconscious queue.

Often not, or only at school where exercise is a miserable, mandatory thing.

I'm a ultra distance runner and fairly regularly run for over 12 hours. One of the first things people normally ask is "don't you get bored", but honestly the concentration needed to maintain good form, eat, drink, not get lost, doesn't leave much room for much else. I've been running for over ten years, and I'd say it's only in the last year that I've realised how important that concentration is, to do it well that is, it's easy to trundle along allowing ones mind to wander...

It'd be better if they started with control groups of people who don't exercise, and then measured the impact of participating in a running regimen. Pretty cool findings anyways.

Right. It's common for correlations with specific diet and exercise factors in observational studies to disappear when the same things are studied as interventions in randomized controlled trials.

Related,

How Neuroscientists Explain the Mind-Clearing Magic of Running

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/04/how-neuroscientists-exp...

Some things I've realized / hypothesized over the years:

I like and am good at biking, swimming, running, and weight lifting because I'm poorly co-ordinated, so bad at other sports (that involve changing direction right/left quickly)

I like and am good at biking, swimming, running, and weight lifting because I'm kind of socially awkward and you don't need to talk to other people to do those

Regarding exercise and cognition: I was studying for the GMAT and training for a triathlon. If I did practice questions shortly after a workout, I did poorly compared to a no-workout-day, as I was tired. I think exercise helps long-term cognition, but impairs short-term cognition

The first part of the article contrasts running against sports that stress hand-eye coordination and decision making. The author claims that the connection between those sports and overall cognitive performance is more obvious. But the scientific study only compare runners against sedentary people. We don't know how running compares to basketball, etc. on these metrics. The running/cognition correlation is presented as surprising, but it would be a lot less surprising if a stronger version of the same link existed for decision-based sports. The speculation about running->cognition causality should be kept to a minimum until there is data on other sports for comparison.

I'm curious if the effects on the brain from running are the same as from meditation [0]. Any long distance runner will tell you that you can definitely get into a meditative-like state. Personally, I've noticed similarities in my mental state from meditation and running for 30+ minutes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05...

Orienteering is a way to combine running (or walking) with thinking.

I've been running Orienteering for decades and love the sport.

I have reflected on the demographic of the participants many times.

A few years ago I got into MUT (mountain/ultra/trail) running and have been amazed by the mental health benefits it has had on my life. I have come to realize that it's because human beings are natural endurance athletes but the evolution of our minds has far outpaced our biology. Most people just don't use their bodies for what they were evolved for. For me, engaging in regular endurance activities led to great fitness, and more importantly, happiness.

As a developer, I find that taking a mid-day break from coding to run for an hour or two in the mountains refreshes my mind and clarifies my thinking in the afternoon. I often end up solving coding problems when I stop thinking and focus on the moment in running, and then--BAM--out of nowhere a solution will pop into my head.

I miss running.

I feel your pain.

Two running moments that stand out to me: (1) when I first got into a regular running rhythm and noticed how much clearer my thinking felt after runs, and (2) when I injured my foot and was out of commission for a few weeks and noticed how irritable and fidgety I felt.

Running is addictive!

I both lift weights and run, and I've experienced similar irritability even after a 3 day layoff. After a week my muscles start to "itch" and the only thing that provides any relief is exercise.

Yeah. Went to a clinic because I couldn't put any weight on my left foot without collapsing. Referred to a podiatrist. "Peroneal tendonitis".

Flat feet. My legs are like ><. Got custom molded inserts. My legs look like )( with them. Didn't realize the amount of everyday pain I was in 'til I used them.

Doesn't really matter though. I've already developed arthritis in my knees and ankles at the age of 27, any sort of impact exercise is verboten.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I'm also 27. When I was about 11 my left knee collapsed and I was diagnosed with Osgood Schlatter syndrome - the "syndrome" part of the name makes it sound a genetic, I don't believe it strictly is - it's just when the tendon tears off your patella. Anyway, recovered from that with physio.

Later, teenage years, I was also diagnosed with flat feet, needed orthotics. I don't wear them now, I probably should though as my ankles do get sore. This also lead to back problems that I went to the physio for when I was 19.

When I was 17 I tore the ligament in my left ankle playing Rugby. That one hurt for ages whenever I ran or walked until last year where I tripped over in a car park and ended up on crutches because I'd torn it again. Think I might have torn it clear off, because it no longer burns when I run or walk. So that's a win!

I recently started playing basketball again and broke my Scaphoid (left wrist) only 4 games in. It's nearly finished healing... I hope.

I don't know how serious your arthritis is, but if it's manageable then you're almost certainly better off exercising than not - your body will only deteriorate more if you don't.

That's not to say I exercise anywhere near as much as I should (just walking the dogs at the moment), however, at least personally I don't use injuries as an excuse not to exercise, if I don't it's purely because I'm being lazy.

On the plus side, since I started to put on a bit of a gut my back pain has decreased because I've improved my posture by almost always tensing my core to suck in my belly ;)

New year's resolution, more exercise!

Thanks for the shaming brah

It's so unfortunate that so many people don't understand when young people are, effectively, disabled.

A friend's parents stopped talking to him and shamed him because he applied for a handicap parking permit (doctor recommended). He can't walk much more than 100 feet without agonizing pain. He's 28. The father's words were something like "how will you feel when you are taking away that parking spot from an elderly person who really needs it?"

I hope it gets better.

I feel like an ass now- I'm nowhere near as bad as your friend yet- it certainly hasn't hit my hips or back yet, my autonomy isn't affected, I don't need painkillers.

For what it's worth, pass on my support to him- if only for selfish reasons; I see myself becoming like him in the near future.

NB: This may not apply to you, but here's my experience.

I was about 225 lbs and had experienced (mild) arthritis in my knees, starting in my late-20s. Around age 32 I resolved to finally get in shape, the arthritis was, at this point, mild-to-moderate, still in the knees (now in the hands). Losing the weight and regular exercise (in my case running, which I'd been doing as part of soccer on the field, but not for distance until this point) greatly improved my arthritis symptoms. The evenings after a run, my knees felt fantastic. Weeks where I skipped, the symptoms returned (no worse than before, just back to "normal").

Once the weight was lost, however, the symptoms almost completely went away. This is very much a YMMV situation, but it's something to consider.

Exercising the full range-of-motion of the joint + weight loss can help a lot, even if it is just delaying the inevitable. I'll happily accept 5-20 years of improved mobility even if I end up immobilized by this like a good chunk of my ancestors.

The exercise needn't be running. Cycling, elliptical, and rowing machines are low-impact cardio and let you exercise your knees range-of-motion pretty effectively. Bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges and similar, done regularly, will also improve the muscles around the knee, which can help.

Again, for some forms of arthritis this won't help or won't help as much, but for others (like me) it can be a life changer. The path I was on, I'd be unable to run or play soccer at this point (80% confidence in that statement, would've sought medical treatment by this point if I'd stayed on that path).

Don't. Everyone's different and everyone has different struggles. It's unfair to say "well I have problems too but I've never let them stop me." Everyone has different tolerances. Just enjoy what you have and make the most of it.

people in general don't think young disabled people are any less disabled. when they see a young person limping around nobody thinks "what a fake". wtf? where did you get this idea?

your friend's dad is just ashamed, and that's his way of lashing out. he's a mental midget.

and besides, when has anyone seen every disabled parking space taken up? places like hospitals have a huge amount of disabled spots so this barely ever happens.

> the "syndrome" part of the name makes it sound a genetic

That's one meaning of "syndrome", but it also shows up in the names of diseases that were discovered and characterized as unusual clusters of symptoms well before anyone knew what the underlying cause or disease process was (the most well-known example probably being AIDS).

:( Can you swim? Might be somewhat similar with less impact.

I love running but I'm dreading the time when my knees can't take it anymore.

Admittedly I skimmed through it with a preconceived notion, but the research seems to by convenience target endurance runners, but I don't see where it has to be specifically running, or endurance. Why not interval runners, bikers, swimmers, rowers, Tabata interval trainers, any aerobic training?

Specifically since research I've read suggests that VO2 improvments is more efficient with interval training than with endurance training [*].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26243014

I just can't do running, for the sake of running. I will grudgingly run up and down a basketball court, but at least there there is the promise of analyzing and exploiting the geometry of the court on the offensive or defensive end to do something interesting once you've chugged down the court.

The exercise that I miss most, ironically, given how much I cussed about it as a kid, is sawing, splitting and stacking firewood. It can be almost meditative, and its fantastic for building real, functional strength.

Is 11 people a really small sample size for a study like this?

Also, i don't understand it because I'm not a neuroscientist but are the brain networks they're talking about in the abstract of the research related to conscious thinking? I find these kind of articles so frustrating, the articles themselves imply these big dubious claims, then you try to read the research and you don't know what the fk they're talking about.

Well, if it's real random and it's experimental vs observational, then it depends on how big an error you can tolerate. Counter-intuitive fact: the minimum sample size for a T-test is two...

It might be significant that the study was on distance runners (though it's not clear what they mean by that). Road running definitely requires a lot more situational awareness and decision making than track running. Uneven roads or sidewalks require instant reaction, especiall with snow/ice in winter. Cars, bikes, walkers, dogs, etc. can come from all directions and must be accounted for. Following a route and pacing for uphills/downhills also requires at least a little bit of thought. Trail running is even more challenging in some of these areas, though less in others. Running around a track is comparatively simple. It would be interesting to see how much - if any - of these effects exist for that kind of running.

Man, NYT seems to run a piece about exercise and health, especially mental health, and especially running, almost daily. We get it.

Personally, I hate running. I like thinking.

I find I think more while I'm running.

Probably because running is so damn boring!

Me too. I get to the finish line of a half marathon and wonder what I've been doing the past 2 hours because I've been so lost in thought!

appropriate username

Why can't you think while you run? I guess if you're really out of shape, running is so difficult that you can't think.

I run trails, and when I run is the time I get the most thinking done! I listen to podcasts and music, and sometimes just listen to the wildlife around. It's definitely my most concentrated thinking time though.

"There also, interestingly, was less activity among the runners in a part of the brain that tends to indicate lack of focus and mind wandering."

That's also called "thinking". An unfocused, wandering mind is a creative mind.

This article completely reinforces my general opinion of runners tending to be mindless automatons, obsessively rehashing their to-do list and daily schedule while out on their morning jog, before having their extra-foam soy half-caff latte with cinnamon and organic raw agave sweetener and heading out early to 'beat the traffic'.

Einstein wasn't a jogger.

I've had some of my most rambly mental explorations running. This probably isn't in my favor, but I've patented stuff I've come up with while running. Your hostility seems pretty clearly rooted in your own prejudices.

And yet, Turing was.

True, and a good argument for running, however using Turing and the effects on him of running as an example (it clearly led to his breakthrough scientific work as well as every other part of his life), it must be said that many people enjoy the company of women and would not be willing to become gay (from running) for a slight mental improvement.

(this is a joke comment pointing out how silly this thread is being.)

Personally, I walk to let my thoughts ramble. I run to run past my thoughts. In both cases it's both the journey and destination that counts, but in the case of running, it's a little bit more about the destination for me. I feel it in my whole body for the next 6-12 hours and it feels good. My mind also feels more focused as a side effect.

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