You may not know it but running is not just an endurance sport. During the run, besides training your breath, you train a lot of muscles.
Those most involved are the muscles of the legsbuttocks, buttocks, but the abdominals and the muscles of the arms and shoulders are also stressed .
Running can have many benefits for the whole body. Let’s find out together!
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Muscle benefits from running
Running is one of the sporting activities that gives the most benefits to your body.
Running produces endorphins that improve your mood, expel toxins and improve the functioning of the heart by life expectancy and improving its quality.
Running and making you feel better is suitable for improving the appearance of your body and making it leaner, more toned and well trained.
There are many amateurs who approach the race to get back in shape. Through aerobic stimulation, many calories are consumed in a short time, it is difficult to achieve the same results with other sports activities.
After losing the extra pounds that bother you, it is important to continue practicing this sport to improve the efficiency of our musculoskeletal system.
During the run, through the impact on the ground, they stimulate the activity of the cells that deal with the formation of the bones, reducing the risk of osteoporosis.
It may seem secondary to you, but this benefit is essential, especially from the age of 30 when bone and muscle mass decrease and it is therefore necessary to stimulate them more actively. With running, you can slow down your aging.
Over time, especially regarding the female body, various problems arise, such as the increase in cellulite.
With running, it is also possible to counteract this problem, as we discover it in the next paragraph.
Muscles you train while running
We talked about the benefits of running for the buttocks. Let’s understand together how these muscles are involved in running and what are the other muscle groups you train while running.
The buttocks
The B side is, in fact, one muscle that is most interested in running. Its tasks are to support balance, stabilize the support and the pelvis.
To get a firm and toned lower back, put aside diets that do not bring results, draining massages and electrostimulation and start running.
With a little effort, a little effort and a constant activity, you will stimulate the large, medium and small buttocks and in a short time you will reach your goals.
To get results, a weekly outing is not enough. You need to run regularly to see the benefits. The advice is, therefore, to run at least three times a week with consistency and commitment.
The muscles of the feet
Nobody thinks about it, but the muscles of the feet are the most stressed during the race.
Every step for them is a reason for stress, so to strengthen them and not risk causing trauma, the advice is to run barefoot for part of the time, and to later use suitable running shoes without saving.
The calves
Besides that of the feet, one of the muscle groups most involved is that and the calves, it is precisely there that the results of the race are most visible.
When you run, the leg muscles do most of the work. For this reason the advice is to combine running with an activity in the gym that can strengthen the muscles.
Alternatively, you can do jumping jacks to strengthen your calf muscles . Do not neglect these activities to avoid the risk of muscle pain or trauma.
The thighs
Continuing to rise along our muscular system, we meet the thigh muscles. These are the engines of your race, as their task is to push you forward as if they were propellers.
To train them in the best way, the advice and to have fast results, the advice is to do some sprints during the race.
Does running increase leg muscle mass?
Now that you have discovered which are the major muscles that are trained during running, you are asking: Does running increase muscle mass in the legs?
Running is an aerobic activity that is especially useful for improving physical endurance, so it is not a targeted training but involves the whole body. However, there are some tricks that can help grow leg muscles.
During the run, the advice is not to go beyond 40 minutes of activity but to prefer a more intense exercise than a more lasting one.
To increase the volume of the calves and quadriceps faster, running can be combined with targeted exercises to this muscle band, such as the squat.
In this way, you will work on targeted strengthening. If you combine some pedaling by bike alongside running and squats, so much the better.
With this sport, your calves and quadriceps are strengthened quickly. If you have free time, add some home activities to these exercises, but beware of recovery times .
Progress occurs during rest time and not while exercising. Overdoing it will not help you. It will damage you. Recover your strength and carry out every workout to the maximum. Only in this way you can get perfect results.
Sometimes a simple recovery is not enough! Depending on the level of physical preparation, age or genetics, bodies respond differently to stresses.
For this reason, there are supplements on the market that help improve performance and promote results, we are not talking about steroids or anabolics but totally natural elements such as synthetic proteins and BCAAs , amino acids, which are substances that are already found in our body.
During an intensive workout, the body seeks energy by drawing from the proteins present in the muscle groups.
This is because I completely emptied the glycogen resources during physical activity. To make the mass grow, therefore, proteins need to be replenished.
BCAAs (which in technical language are called valine, isoleucine and leucine) are amino acids that synthesize proteins within the muscle bands, helping to maintain mass and promote tissue growth and regeneration.
Since low-intensity running can often undermine leg muscle growth, BCCAs help prevent this unpleasant problem.
And to replenish glycogen? To ensure that the glycogen returns to pre-established levels quickly so as not to have to attack the proteins present in the muscle groups, it is possible to take glutamine .
The intake of this substance must take place after training. It is unnecessary to take it before when the glycogen is already present in your blood.
But be careful, don’t forget about nutrition! For muscle growth, training is not enough, but it is necessary to stick to a healthy and protein diet that is calibrated on the activity carried out.
So beware of calorie deficits will make you lose weight and lose mass as the nutrients will not increase your muscle but support your body.
The calories you burn while running need to be replenished mostly with high-protein foods such as white meat, eggs and fish, but don’t give up on carbohydrates.
Sometimes, especially during extra running sessions, a plate of pasta is useful to avoid mass loss.
When is the right time to take carbohydrates? One hour before training, in this way they will be transformed into energy to guarantee your maximum performance. Never run on an empty stomach.
Jogging, here are the muscles involved
Jogging is not just for the growth of the leg muscles, there are other muscles that are involved during running. Let’s see them together.
The muscles of the abdomen and back
The abs are not those muscles that need to be trained just to show the “turtle”. This band is very important for maintaining your stability and balance, especially during your training activity.
More trained abs will allow you to maintain pace and style during your jogging session.
Together with the muscles of the abdomen, even if less stressed, the muscles of the back and shoulders also work, keeping these muscle groups trained is very important to maintain a correct posture during the day and avoid feeling pain, it is these muscles that are they take care of supporting our spine.
The muscles of the arms and shoulders
They involve the muscles of the arms and shoulders during the run to maintain your balance. Their oscillatory movement does not represent a great stress, but with constant training it is possible to notice improvements.