Health

Soccer beats jogging for fitness
by Delia Cruceru

Researchers from Denmark presented a study last week at the 2007 British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences Annual Conference, in which they suggested that soccer works off more fat and builds up more muscle than jogging. The research was led by Peter Krustrup, an associate professor in exercise physiology at the University of Copenhagen and colleagues at the Copenhagen University Hospital and Bispebjerg Hospital. For the study they evaluated 37 sedentary males with age from 20 to 40, some of them had played soccer in the past. The subjects were split into groups of soccer players, joggers and couch potatoes. They were strapped with heart monitors and after 12 weeks, with one hour of matches or jogging for three times a week, the scientists found out that the body fat percentage in the soccer players dropped by 3.7 percent, compared to about 2 percent for the joggers. Also the muscle mass of soccer players increased with 4.5 pounds while joggers didn't have any significant changes. Of course the group of couch potatoes showed no changes in any of the measurements. The soccer group gained a significant reduction in so-called "bad" LDL cholesterol, while the jogging group's cholesterol was unchanged. Researchers said the soccer players considered the matches fun without presenting signs of tiredness, unlike the joggers that were exhausted. "The soccer players were having more fun, so they were more focused on scoring goals and helping the team, rather than the feeling of strain and muscle pain," Krustrup said.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070920/ap_on_he_me/fitness_soccer_vs_jogging;_ylt=Ao4TNcikgaZIeL9q46H4nkms0NUE

by Delia Cruceru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 1:59 PM