Does jogging really make your calves thicker?

In life, many people have a misunderstanding about running. They think that their legs will be very strong and look very powerful after running. However, women want to have slender long legs, so they will choose to avoid running and other exercises. However, they don’t know that running can help them lose weight. In order to avoid the phenomenon of carrot legs, the most important thing is to find the correct method. Will jogging make your calves thicker? Let’s find out.

When running, if you land on the forefoot first or the entire foot at the same time, it will cause damage to the tibia and knee joint in the front of the calf, and strongly stimulate the calf muscles, causing the calf to become thicker; if your running posture is to try to land on the heel first, and then roll from the heel to the sole of the foot.

Running in this way can reduce the pressure on the ankle joints and avoid injuries. When your foot lands on the ground, keep your knee slightly bent, not straightened. This will have a cushioning effect on the knee joint and stretch the calf, without strongly stimulating the calf muscles. This way of running will not make your calves thicker.

When running, we need to use all our leg muscles to jump up. The front thigh muscles are mainly used for the exercise, but the calf muscles will inevitably be used. To avoid carrot legs, you can do some stretching exercises after running to relax tight muscles.

Even if you adopt the correct running posture, female friends will still feel that their calves are "growing thicker" in the early stages of jogging. This is because after regular running, the calves become tired, stiff, hard, and tight, which gives female friends the illusion that their calves are getting thicker.

When it comes to running, many people think it is an anaerobic exercise, but it is not. When running is intense and vigorous, it is anaerobic exercise, such as sprints of 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 meters. Sprinters land on the forefoot, which allows them to run faster and requires strong calf muscles. Therefore, you will find that sprinters have thick calves. When the running intensity is low and the time is long, it is anaerobic exercise, such as long-distance running like marathon. They run more than ten kilometers every day, and their legs will only become thinner and more symmetrical, not thicker.

Therefore, in addition to adopting the correct running posture, the weight loss method to avoid the thickening of calves is to adopt low-intensity, rhythmic, and long-duration aerobic exercise such as jogging, which consumes sugar and fat in the body. Jogging should last at least 30 minutes and can last up to 1 to 2 hours.

But the speed cannot be too fast, the heart rate must be controlled within the aerobic exercise heart rate range, and it cannot be too slow, otherwise it will not have the effect of exercise. Slow long-distance running for more than 20 minutes can not only deplete the body's glycogen, but also mobilize the body's fat. Since slow long-distance running is not very intense and will not cause the body to be overly hypoxic, it helps to burn fat and thus achieve the goal of losing weight.

The reason why we find that some people's calves are getting thicker and thicker during jogging is because we have not chosen the correct running method. Women will feel that their calves are getting thicker in the early stages of jogging, but later they will find that their legs are gradually becoming thinner.