One of those life-changing habits you can adopt is running. It will positively change you (it has changed mine). Running habit is not just a way to exercise, but it will also improve other areas in your life. So what are the benefits of running 5km everyday benefits?
Here are the most significant benefits of running 5km everyday benefits, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
- It will help you develop muscle
- It will improve your overall cardiovascular fitness
- It may help you lose weight
- It will improve your mood and mental health
- It may help you sleep better
See also: 10 Benefits of Running – What Does Running Do to Your Body – Science Backed.
Check out a video summarizing this article that we have uploaded to our YouTube channel.
Table of Contents
Is Running 5k Good for Weight Loss?
To lose weight, you want to create a calorie deficit, meaning you need to burn more calories than you take in. You can accomplish this by decreasing calories consumed or increasing your amount or intensity of exercise.
If you consume more than you burn, you will gain muscle or fat instead of losing weight. In other words, you can lose weight by running 5k 3 times per week as long as you are creating a calorie deficit.
Running 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) burns about 300–350 calories for an average human. So, running three times a week will help weight loss, assuming you are eating in a caloric deficit.
If you are not into tracking calories, I suggest you watch your diet and then eat only three meals a day, maybe a small snack in between.
Nutrition is an essential factor in losing weight, even more than physical exercise, keeping that in mind and maintaining the routine.
See also: 32 Foods That Burn Belly Fat Fast – Based on Science
What Are The Benefits of Running 5k 3 Times a Week?
Below are the benefits of running 5k 3 Times a week.
1- Running a 5K Every Day Will Help You Develop Muscle
Running a 5K every day will help you develop muscle, particularly the muscles used while running, like your quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, and calves.
Cardio, including running, is an effective countermeasure for muscle loss due to age, concluded a 2014 study in Exercise Sports Science Review.
However, If your goal is to increase your muscle size, known as hypertrophy, you will need to incorporate strength training.
2- Running a 5K Every Day Will Help You Improve Your Overall Cardiovascular Fitness
Another benefit of running 5k is that you will increase your fitness by increasing the strength of your heart and the amount of oxygen your lungs can take in.
Cardio exercise, including running, is especially effective at improving your overall cardiovascular fitness, which refers to your body’s ability to take in and utilize oxygen while exercising.
The more and longer you run, the more your cardiovascular fitness will increase, according to a study published by the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Even though running 5k every day might not challenge you through intensity or duration, it is more likely to have a maintenance effect on your health and fitness.
In other words, if you are already running frequently at a steady pace over similar distances, running 5K will help you maintain your current level of fitness.
However, if you haven’t been running or are new to running, you can expect significant improvements in your cardio. If you want to improve your body, you need to keep challenging yourself.
See also: 17 Benefits of Running In The Morning – Science-Based
3- Running 5K Every Day May Help You Lose Weight
Running 5K every day will increase your chance of losing weight. Increasing running distance by 5 kilometers was linked with weight loss in both males and females in an April 2013 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.
And performing cardio, including running five days a week for ten months, helped individuals lose weight even if they had no strict restrictions on their diet, according to a study in Obesity.
Torching more calories than you take in is the key to losing weight. By running a 5K every day, you will increase the number of calories you burn and raise the likelihood that you will lose weight, especially if you adopt a healthy diet.
See also: Does Running Burn Fat: Helpful Running for Weight Loss Tips For Beginner.
4- Running a 5K Every Day Will Improve Your Mood and Mental Health.
Just 15 minutes of intense, heart-pumping activity like a fast-paced run or even an hour of more steady-state cardio like jogging was associated with a lower risk of depression in the study.
So while depression is a complicated condition and has no simple cure, running a daily 5K is a form of exercise that could help improve your overall mood and mental well-being.
A 2020 Review issued by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that running has significant positive implications for mental health, particularly depression and anxiety disorders.
If you suffer from depression or experiencing mental illness discuss with a health professional for appropriate treatment.
Running a 5K every day will positively affect your mood and mental health. In addition, staying more physical activity appears to protect against developing depression, according to a study.
5- Running Your Daily 5k May Help You Sleep Better.
Regular workouts, including running, improve sleep quality in 29 out of 34 studies analyzed in a 2014 review by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
Just make sure to leave enough time to cool down before you go to sleep.
A challenging running workout within an hour of bedtime has been shown to affect your ability to fall asleep and your sleep quality, according to a review in Sports Medicine.
Is Running 5k Everyday Bad?
Establishing good exercise habits is crucial because we know this is a long-term healthy habit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that people exercise moderately for 150 minutes per week or 75 minutes vigorously.
Just doing one physical activity, in the long run, is pretty much always a bad idea as it may result in an overuse injury. So instead, run because you enjoy it and do other training to supplement it. I run 3 to 4 times a week, and I find it the perfect amount.
On my other days, I do yoga and strength training. Also, learn how to train running and do cool stuff to remain interested in it and keep yourself injury-free.
Getting your heart rate up 20–30 minutes a day and resistance training 2–3 times a week is generally ideal or more (resistance training elevates the heart rate, so it has some heart benefits).
Cardiovascular exercise is primarily suitable for energy expenditure and heart/cardiovascular system health or performance ability but not really for muscle size.
See also: 7 Helpful Yoga Props and How to Use Them
If You Run 5k 3 Times a Week, How Much Weight Will You Lose?
Losing weight is almost totally driven by your food choices (what and how much). In addition, you need exercise, such as walking, running, and workouts for stamina and strength, and ensure that the weight you lose is fat and not muscle.
A 150-pound individual running at 5 miles per hour will burn about 360 calories over 5 kilometers. Burning 360 calories every day can surely help you lose weight. But, if you’re overeating, you may not see noticeable results, according to the American Council on Exercise‘s Physical Activity Calorie Counter estimates.
Workout combined with a healthy diet is a perfect combination for weight loss and beauty.
See also: 18 Veggies That Destroy Stomach Fat – Backed By Science
What Does Running 5k Do to Your Body?
There would be different benefits depending on the intensity of the run, the degree that you elevate your heart rate, and the duration that the elevated heart is sustained.
Any cardiovascular exercise will burn calories regardless of the duration or intensity; however, the number of calories burned would be dose-dependent. The longer the duration and intensity, the more calories burned.
From a cardiovascular conditioning perspective, you would initially improve your vo2max, but improvements would soon plateau unless you gradually increase the exercise’s duration, intensity, or frequency.
Additionally, depending on your training zone, you would either improve calories burned or cardiovascular conditioning. HIIT (High Intense Interval Training – a shorter but more intense burst of intensity at or near 80 to 85% of max heart rate) is effective at both.
Either way, three days per week of consistent running will have very beneficial results. In addition, you will quickly find that as your conditioning improves, you will be able to increase your duration and intensity levels.
My advice is that you need a balance of different forms of exercise to achieve optimal health results. You may want to consider reducing the number of times per week you go running and replacing those running sessions with other forms of exercise, such as weight lifting or high-intensity training.
Vary your running by doing some hills and at different speeds to challenge your body system. To complement the above, start doing some general resistance exercises to target the upper body muscles and the core muscles. Pushups, dips, and pull-ups. You can do it during your run or afterward.
See also: Is Doing Pull Ups Everyday Overtraining – Here’s the answer
Is Running 5k Everyday Bad?
It depends. Running produces some of the best physiological adaptations in the body as far as exercise goes. So the only “damage” you could be doing is if:
- Your running mechanics are wrong, so your knees are absorbing the force of your steps
- You are running on unforgiving surfaces (concrete mostly), which leads to a harder impact on your step, which could allow your knees to take a beating.
- You aren’t adequately feeding your body for intense cardiovascular training (not enough carbs), and you are forcing your body to break down muscle tissue for energy.
If you have proper running form, have the right shoes to help with shock absorption, and are eating enough carbs to fuel your workouts, you have nothing to worry about.
Conclusion
Running a 5K every day can be an excellent way to improve your cardiovascular health and strengthen and maintain your muscles. In addition, when combined with a healthy diet, running 5K every day may even help you lose weight.
Always remember to listen to the signs your body sends you, including weight-loss plateaus, stress, fatigue, and trouble sleeping. Then, whenever you notice any of these signs, take a rest day and recharge, or maybe at least make tomorrow’s 5K a little less intense.
