Jogging in place?

Question

Does jogging in place help you run faster/just as healthy for you as regular jogging if you do it for the same amount of time?

Answer 1

Plyometrics helps you get faster. Jogging in place on two bosu balls maybe with trying to make each step faster.

Answer 2

..

That's a fun question!  Actually, you have two questions in one.

Question 1.  Does jogging in place help your run faster than regular jogging?

Well, no.  How well you run, just like any other physical exercise, depends on how well you train to run.

There are certainly activities you can do to improve how well you run that do not involve running, for example, bicycling or fast hill walking, training with weights, bands, or other resistance on your legs.  

But like any other activity, how well you run relies on how well you train the muscles that are specific to running - foot muscles, calf muscles, thigh muscles (both the front - the quadriceps, and the back - the hamstrings), glutes (all of 'em!), even the core muscles of your body.  

And the forward and up motion of jogging is so much closer to the forward and up motion of running (more on the difference in a bit) that "regular jogging" will help you run much faster than an equal amount of time of jogging in place.

Running vs. jogging.  There is technically a difference between running and jogging.  If you videotaped yourself jogging, you would see that at all times in the jogging motion at least one foot is making contact with the ground.  If you videotaped yourself running you would see that for the briefest of moments between your feet making contact with the ground, you are not touching the ground at all - you're airborne!  Without knowing why, I think that's why a lot of people who call themselves "runners" mildly arrogantly separate themselves from "joggers."

Question 2.  Is jogging in place as healthy as regular jogging if you do it for the same amount of time?

Let's put aside the issue of boredom.  (Jogging in place for an hour = mucho boredom, even if it's in front of a TV.)

"Healthy" has a few components to it.  Cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength, for two.  I suspect you are thinking mostly about cardiovascular fitness - how well your heart works.  Let's assume so - this I think should be the first goal of any exercise program.

And the answer is . . . it depends!  It depends on how hard YOU jog in place and how hard YOU do a "regular jog."  This is a very individual comparison.  Interestingly, this is something you can compare.  

Borrow someone's heart monitor, and use it one day while jogging in place for 10 minutes.  Take a day off from exercise, then on the third day do a "regular jog" for 10 minutes.  Compare your average heart rate for the two periods of time (this is using a moderately sophisticated heart monitor, I just realized).  

If for the 10 minutes you jog in place your heart is working as hard - you are sustaining an average heart beat for those 10 minutes as high as when you do a 'regular jog' -  then jogging in place is as healthy as regular jogging FOR YOU.

If doing a regular jog causes you to sustain a higher heartbeat than jogging in place, then doing a regular jog is healthier than jogging in place FOR YOU.

***Frankly, my opinion, it's worth it getting out in the open and jogging or running in public.  It's much more interesting than jogging in place.  I cannot imagine jogging in place for as long a time as you need to get some real fitness in place - which is minimally 40 minutes at a shot.

Regards,

Running_Dad