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Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

Well it depends on how hard and how long you run. Sprinting is one of the best muscle building activities you can do.

I thought it was crazy to try, but I swear it's added 50lbs to my deadlift with one sprint work out a week for 3 months.

Going from 475 to 525 is a pretty incredible increase in my deadlift considering I was adding about 5lbs a month before.

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I'd just like to add that while running is great, one of the most effective forms of running is HIITs (High Intensity Interval Training). Basically, you run at maximum speed (80-100% of your capacity) for short bursts (10-15 seconds when you're starting out), and at about 50-60% for the warm-up and cool-down periods before and after (around 2 minutes) [1]. You do a total of about 20 minutes of this (and believe me, this will destroy you the first few times).

The results are drastic, and unlike with marathon running, you don't lose muscle, instead you gain it.

You lose fat FAST and gain strength in the process [2]. Can't recommend it enough!

Note: I thought that EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) meant you burnt calories for the next 24 hours, but that's possibly not as significant as it appears :( [3]

[1]: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=... [2]: http://greatist.com/fitness/complete-guide-interval-training... [3]: http://ca.askmen.com/sports/bodybuilding_900/962_popular-met...

Interestingly, this is what Bruce Lee advocated too.

I'm quite capable of running a half-marathon and decided to try the HIITs. They were terrible for me. My knees couldn't handle the added stress, and I had to give up HIIT and go back to 'regular' training. I'll certainly grant that it was an interesting training technique, though, and I can well see that it would be good for most people.

My knees couldn't handle the added stress

This. I didn't know what HIIT was, but I figured out something like it for my daily exercise. Result was repeated shin-splits and painful knee injuries

You may want to try and find specific excercises to improve your joint-stabilizing muscles - even something very simple like http://archive.mensjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/picture-81... should allow your body to do higher intensities safely.

Agreed, sprinting can be considered a form of HIIT if you squint enough:). It might not have the sustained 50% intervals but sprinting is definitely a 90% effort activity.

I've found the same thing, if you do a repetitive workout for too long you miss a lot of the other muscles that you need to train, so switching it up for a few months or adding complexity to a workout can help boost your gains.

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