Chapter 4 "Running Life" - 3 Advantages of Running

3 Why run? Running isn't the only sport, but it might be the best A few years ago, I was working in an office in midtown Manhattan.One day, at lunchtime, a friend asked me to accompany him to a health club of which he was a member.The club has a ping-pong table, a horizontal bar, a stationary bike, a steam room, a swimming pool and weights.Most of the entrepreneurs who come here often are entrepreneurs from the central area. During my stay there for about an hour, some entrepreneurs went there to exercise.There is a prescribed schedule.The instructor, a muscular young man named Dan, had a group of members lie on mats and then had them do ten minutes of sit-ups, leg lifts, push-ups, and stretches.When they're done, they're free to do whatever other activity they want -- lifting weights, riding a stationary bike, playing ping-pong, swimming, or heading to the steam room to lose a pound or two by sweating.

At present, there are many, many health clubs in the United States, locally owned clubs, national-scale sports networks, and many so-called spas (which are really nothing more than health clubs, although the name sounds European.) There are all kinds of differences. Men and women of all ages give them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. (In early 1977, the annual membership to the Jack Lallani Health Club with whom I had dealings was $195.) If the health clubs did improve health, it would be worth the money Yes, but they didn't work in that respect - not much anyway.They may make you look more muscular, have a stronger waist, and enable you to do more push-ups and lift heavier.But in general, they can't improve your health at all, because they mostly treat the symptoms rather than the root causes.The average participant does not spend sufficient time swimming, biking, or engaging in any other activity that would greatly improve health.

Commenting on a survey of health clubs, Alan Ryan, editor-in-chief of Physician and Sports Medicine, wrote: "With few exceptions, these gyms and workplaces have teachers and administrators who are not trained in sports or exercise physiology. but the salesman whose chief job is to recruit members and bring back members who leave. Little precautions are taken in prescribing exercise for the unfit and for those who have for some time been physically inactive. However, people do keep coming back because they hear that one day they'll look like gods, or like a California beach baby.Dr. Ernst Jockel of the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, in an illuminating lecture on the aesthetics of motion, showed a picture of Mr. Uniworth's bent limbs on a fluorescent screen, and said: : "Look at those muscles. How amazing! But don't ask what they're for. They're useless for nothing. They can't throw a javelin or put a shot put. They're just beautiful."

Obviously, there is something more than going to the health club that we need to do, but part of the problem is that everyone likes to get something for nothing.There is something magical about exercising thirty minutes a week, doing exercises that don't break a sweat, and eating foods prescribed for drinkers.A former Harvard high jumper I know had a room full of springs, weights, and various exercise machines.He's bought this stuff for years whenever he felt the urge to get in shape.But he admitted with embarrassment that he had used them once or twice at most.When we last talked, he was still eyeing a $325 Abercrombie and Fitch treadmill.

This culture of getting something for nothing is so pervasive that the American Medical Association's Exercise and Wellness Committee recently issued a formal statement blaming so-called effortless exercise machines."They have no mystical benefit or value," the committee said. "Their most serious defect is that most of these exercise machines do little to improve the health of the heart and lungs, which today require the most exercise . . . only It is often the intensity and duration of physical activity that is greatly increased that really makes the body fit." There is no shortage of material on what exactly the various types of physical activity do to our health.Not long ago, the President's Council on Health and Exercise asked seven sports experts to list popular exercises based on their effects on cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, balance, and general health. How much help.Each expert rated an activity on a scale of zero to three, with zero indicating no benefit and three indicating maximum benefit.Therefore, twenty-one points is a perfect score.The results of their survey of selected sports are summarized in the table below.

Eight Sports: What They Help and How Much They Help Running Cycling Swimming Handball Tennis Walking Golf Bocce driving squash tennis ball In good health Cardiorespiratory Endurance 21 19 21 19 16 13 8 5 Muscular Endurance 20 18 20 18 16 14 8 5 Muscle strength 17 16 14 15 14 11 9 5 Flexibility 9 9 15 16 14 7 8 7 Balance 17 18 12 17 16 8 8 6 general health Weight Control 21 20 15 19 16 13 6 5 muscle activity Cardinal 14 15 14 11 13 11 6 5 Digestive capacity 13 12 13 13 12 11 7 7 sleep 16 15 16 12 11 14 6 6 Total 148 142 140 140 128 102 66 51 Also look at the number of calories burned per hour (a measure that directly measures intensity) for these activities:

Running 800-1000 Cycling (13 mph) 66O Swimming 300-650 Handball/Squash 600 Tennis 400-500 Brisk walking (4 mph) 300 Boccia 270 Golf 250 Walk slowly (2 mph) 200 Obviously, running isn't the only activity that improves your health.Cycling, swimming.Both handball and tennis have great benefits and may be more enjoyable for some people.James Michener wrote in "American Sports": "I have jogged many miles, and I have been bored to death. It is, I personally think, one of the most dull pastimes in the world." William Barker, Jr. Leigh once admitted: "During my few jogs, I was just preoccupied with what a pathetic self-punishing exercise jogging is."

But for those who love the elusive, lonesome joy of running, there's no better exercise than running.But forget about the fun of running for a moment and just consider its unique contribution to physical health. Chapter 1 pointed out that running can be an antidote to many of the dangers of twentieth-century life. Moreover, running appears to confer some long-term benefits that are just beginning to be appreciated.Nathan Pritikin, director of the Longevity Institute in Santa Barbara, California, told me that when he checked Who's Who in American Sports, he found that the average life expectancy for former soccer players was fifty-seven, boxers and A baseball player is sixty-one, a track player is seventy-one.Dr. Paul Fadi, a cardiologist at St. Catherine's Hospital in East Chicago, Indiana, reported that a study of more than five hundred people showed that former athletes—

Runners were prominent among them -- their hearts seemed to function better than those of people who had never exercised. * Notes: *However, he goes on to say that sedentary people at work who engage in vigorous exercise can see significant improvements in heart function, and in many cases, they do as well as chronically active people. Fadi is one of a growing number of investigators who have found that running has clear benefits over many other forms of exercise."Walking and jogging are the simplest and perhaps the most popular exercises," he wrote in a recent article in the American Journal of Physical Therapy. The letter read: "It is difficult for me to understand how the medical profession can ignore something of such high value. We claim to be interested in preventive medicine. We know that more than fifty percent of our annual deaths are due to atherosclerosis. disease, especially coronary arteriosclerosis. Studies on animals and humans have shown that endurance training can increase the amount of blood flowing into the heart, improve cardiopulmonary function, reduce the number of pulses at rest, and lower blood lipids. Then why do we Don't more people in between recognize our own need to do endurance training and teach it to our patients?"

It is obvious and natural that Dr. Mo is a man of disappointment, and this may be the price he pays for being far ahead of his time. Although we recognize that other sports are as good for people's health as running, there are still good reasons to choose running.One reason is the time spent running.When I played tennis, I was a member of an official foursome that played every Saturday and Sunday from nine to eleven.When you add up the time to get dressed, shower, and drive to and from the tennis courts, I get six hours of tennis on the weekends.Plus, I'm only consuming 2,000 calories at most.Now, unless I manage to increase the distance I run in order to prepare for a marathon, I only run ten miles a day—a total of about two and a half hours on weekends, and even the longest shower in the world will never make the total The time spent increased to over three hours.So I did the same 2,000-calorie exercise in half the time.

A side benefit is that bereaved runners are rare, if not unheard of; even long-distance runs can be done at unnoticed bits and pieces of the day—either early in the morning or at home Carry out when other people are busy with cooking, housework, or other activities.All it takes is a certain foresight and courtesy. The inner spirit of running is also different from most other sports.It can be competitive or non-competitive, as you please.In touch football, it's inconvenient not to work hard. In tennis, you have to try to get the ball out of reach of your opponent.Golfers are so engrossed in their game that they struggle in friendlies.Runners can jog or run as fast as they want.You can use the stopwatch to try to run faster than before.You can try to wear your friends out on a run, or you can think of running as nothing more than bouncing around the country, just enough to keep your body warm.Even in a race, there's no need to run as fast as you can if you don't want to.You'll get a good workout, even if you're not running at top speed. Many runners—and some of them are great runners—never run a race.All they want is health and the good feeling that a daily run can make one feel.Jack Janino is one such runner.He spends an hour and a half a day in Central Park, and even when show assignments take him out of town, he never stops for a day.However, Giannino does not play."I've tried it, and I don't like the out-of-breath stuff," he said. Because running is not a race, it is a perfect family sport. If a man wants to run ten miles, he can run two miles with his wife and children, and then leave the children to go alone with his wife. Run the second paragraph.After she had run her four miles, he could sprint a few more miles in the country. *Note: ·Will it always be possible to run without race colors?I have no idea.One reason this is currently thought to be possible is that distance running, despite all the hype of late, remains a relatively under-the-radar sport.It is also one of the most difficult sports for spectators.If you don't believe me, look, there is the Boston Marathon that takes place in April of one year.To see a runner more than once required not only a split second, but a certain dangerous gallop and a good deal of luck.Running, in its invisibility, has some of the characteristics of women's sports.As Paul Weiss writes in "Sport: A Philosophical Discussion", "Women are lucky because their games are barely noticed by the public, so they can avoid the big problems that annoy male athletes." Mostly misunderstood. "Those of us who are primarily interested in running itself rather than competing against other people may always have a place in running. Running may still be the most democratic sport in the world.Runners are almost completely free of discrimination based on race, gender, age, class, or anything else.At a recent competition in New York City, I saw a cardiologist, an orthopedic surgeon, a preventive medicine specialist working for a large company, a carver and a printer, a A retired postman competes with a shoe clerk, a judge, an author and a film producer, a Rockefeller foundation trustee and a long-term unemployed man, clerks, housewives, students Compete with senior citizens.If they got together at a cocktail party instead of a race, I don't think they would have much in common, but there is little sense of social hierarchy in a race.Running is an egalitarian and decidedly unsnobbish sport that is in tune with many of the best elements of the American spirit. If I try to make you think there is nothing wrong with running, I might mislead you.You could fall into a ditch by dodging a car.You could have Achilles tendonitis or a pulled muscle (see Chapter 16).You might be cursing the moment you first thought of running at five o'clock on a January morning. (Don't worry, you'll have a good time once you get moving.) But a more common—and more serious—accusation has been leveled at running: It’s simply not doing you any good, it’s doing more harm than good.As I was writing this book, the most explicit supporter of this view I met was a doctor named Schmidt, who practiced in Charlestown, Indiana.The March 1976 issue of Playboy carried an article by Schmidt headlined "Jogging Will Kill You!" (the exclamation point was added by him—or by the Playboy editor).To be fair, Dr. Schmidt starts by acknowledging that running may help your legs and heart, giving you "a tan and an outdoorsy look."But his enthusiasm quickly faded.He wrote: "The reality is that running and jogging are among the most wasteful and dangerous forms of exercise for both men and women. Jogging takes more damage from the body than it brings to it. benefits. It demands a price that no one can afford, nor would anyone want to pay for muscle in the legs or a superficial marker of physical health—tan skin. Dr. Schmidt specifically points out that jogging It can loosen the connection between the sacrum and the hip bone, loosen the pelvic plate, easily cause varicose veins, make the uterus "shed", the breasts sag, and cause men to have inguinal hernias. Jogging can even damage the heart, he said, because it will make the The heart "drags" on its vessels: and loosens the crusty flesh, causing a heart attack. Jogging, he says, also causes structural abnormalities such as a "sagging" stomach, loose spleen, wandering kidneys, The arch of the foot collapsed. When Dr. Schmidt's article was published, it caused quite an uproar, and while no one I spoke to gave up running because of it, there was concern that beginners might feel too panicked to run. ran.For my part, I find the article simply mystifying.I've read the medical literature on running quite carefully, and I think I'm well aware of the dangers.Although the dangers listed by Schmidt are not among them, it is of course possible that I overlook some situations. So one day I spoke to Dr. George Sheehan about this article.Sheen is one of the world's most famous consultants on the effects of running on the human body. He has combined running and medical treatment for several years, and he is the only person who people turn to when they suffer from incurable or troublesome injuries. .Sheehan shrugged and told me that he was not aware of any studies to support Schmidt's view."He judges by what I think we would call common sense," Sheehan said. "But when you start applying common sense to the human body, sometimes you have to stop immediately. The human body is not always a machine. It works as you imagined. The accusation of jogging is being made in an "assumed" way of thinking, but it doesn't work that way. When people say "it makes sense", I am Skeptical. I think the thing to do is go and see for yourself if something actually happened." (Sheehan's sense of humor stands out as much as his energy for exercising. He told me that he took mild revenge on Schmidt after he published a similar article in a newspaper. Sheehan said, At the same time as this article was published, a biography of Schmidt was published, which mentioned that Schmidt's hobby was gardening. Sheehan wrote to warn Schmidt that working in the garden is a dangerous hobby Sheehan laughs: "I told him he probably accidentally got stabbed in the foot with a pitchfork and then got a tetanus.") Yet Schmidt's critique of running still haunts me and bothers me.If there is any truth in this criticism, however slight, I would not wish to make the mistake of dismissing it.So at last I wrote him a letter which contained these words: "As you no doubt know, your article in the March issue of Playboy has generated considerable interest among runners. Now I'm in a difficult position because I'm writing a book about running. . I'm going to have to address the issues you raise somehow. "Specifically, I'm puzzled that none of the staunchly pro-running doctors admit that much of what you say in your Playboy article contains truth, and some doctors say publicly that there's no research Report backing up anything said in the article... I would be very grateful if you could tell me your rationale..." Schmidt replied: "..First of all, let me say that I would not write an article for Playboy that would rewrite known medical material. It would be very tiresome to do that. .The understanding of the relationship between running and the injuries I mentioned (and others!) is just beginning, but I discovered this more than two decades ago through accidental medical events. "For centuries, scientists believed that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. You know how the person who said it was not the case was reviled in the first place!The doctors you mentioned don't understand the dangers of jogging) because they don't suspect jogging.The husband who loves his wife knows least of all her unfaithfulness.It is unconventional to be suspicious of jogging. "Unfortunately I can only speak in such general terms, because I intend to write a book on the subject in which I shall present the evidence." A few months after Schmidt's article was published, I attended a conference hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences that discussed the physiological, medical, epidemiological, and psychological implications of running.The meeting brought together about seventy authorities who spent four days, from morning until late at night, discussing the results of their research.Most authorities document the benefits of running, but four or five do mention occasional adverse effects.The adverse effects mentioned by Schmidt are not among them.Until he presents convincing evidence (and perhaps presents such an argument in the book he promised us to write), it appears that running is not only perfectly safe, but a fashionable thing to do.