In this fast-paced lifestyle, staying fit has become essential yet difficult to achieve because of the time shortage or the busy schedules. In order to keep your body in shape, it has now become important to delve into exercises. Exercises not only keeps a check on the body weight but also has great health benefits like improved blood circulation and muscle growth and toning up of the tissues. The lifestyle you lead can be indicative of the fact that what kind of exercise schedule you should follow. A person having a tight schedule must be inclined towards performing high-intensity training but in shorter time frame, like sprinting. In this kind of exercise, you are able to burn more calories by the process of incineration, than by running a long distance continuously.
Overall improvement in physical fitness
Getting your body into shape requires a few components of physical fitness that needs to be in place to get that perfect shape, like improved muscular strength, cardiovascular and muscular endurance, flexibility and composition of the body. Below, some of the criterion are given that differentiate sprinting from distance running-
- Timing- sprinting becomes intense only when you have been inactive for quite a long time and haven’t run for some time. Running is excellent for maintaining the acquired shape and sprinting helps in enhancing the fitness of the body.
- Risk of injury-it definitely has greater probabilities of muscular as well as skeletal injuries than that of running, which can continue for a longer duration but at lower intensities. If a person suffers from cardiovascular diseases, that person should not perform sprints as that can lead to adverse effects afterward. So in that case, sprinting does not lead to a better shape but is rather dangerous. Running is better in all these respects as it is safer an easier way of losing weight and is not harmful or dangerous to anybody’s health.
- Benefits- both long-distance running and sprinting help you lose weight, but with sprinting you can burn more calories than running if you perform both exercises for the same amount of time. The former burns out your calories by incineration and thus losing more weight giving equal time for both. On the other hand, running improves the fat- burning capacity by utilizing the fat in the body as fuel to run continuously for longer periods of time.
Long distance running- an old-school exercise?
In recent times, many trainers look down upon running and focus more on hard resistance exercises and promote them over long-distance running. A great advantage of sprinting over running is the fact that it can be completed in a shorter interval of time yet getting equal benefits as in long distance running. People with busy schedules and active social lives are more prone to doing this. Sprinting is a lot more efficient in terms of losing out on calories but not everyone can sprint as this is quite difficult and the skill needs to be mastered well. A person requires that amount of energy and a certain level of fitness to master sprinting as it demands the right technique to be performed perfectly.
Benefits and risks
Popular studies have shown that sprinting has one advantage over running and that is, burning more calories per minute, but if you compare on an overall basis, the long-distance runners have a better aerobic capacity and heart function, along with greater glucose metabolism and an improved lipid profile. Sprinters, on the other hand, have greater muscle mass and higher bone density. Both forms of exercises are excellent in maintaining a lower body fat levels.
Whatever form of exercise you choose one thing that you should keep in mind is the fact that you enjoy the tenure at its fullest. For beginners, it is always advisable to choose running, as it is risk-free and helps in acquiring stamina and endurance. Sprinting is difficult and comes along with lots of risks of gaining injuries, thus not recommended for all ages.
All in all, both exercises, essentially comes handy when you aim at losing weight and maintain your body fat levels at the optimum level. Your body as well mental health improves if you are engaged with one or the other form of exercise.