Deceleration isn’t really in the runner’s vocabulary. For many of the people who do it, from Olympic champions to 5K enthusiasts, running is the pursuit of speed itself; a sport defined by personal bests, competition, striving and Strava.
Slow? That’s a four-letter word.
Or at least it was, until quite recently. In the last year or two, slow running has become ‘A Thing’, backed not just by wellness gurus on Instagram, but also by a growing number of coaches, amateur runners and exercise scientists, too.
What are the benefits of slow running?
The thinking is that going slow could be a fast way to enjoy the benefits of exercise.
“Slow running helps to reduce resting blood pressure, for example. And it promotes a stronger heart,” says Prof Dan Gordon, an exercise physiologist at Anglia Ruskin University in southeast England. “You’re still putting your system under stress, but what we’re starting to understand, is that you don’t need to put the body under excessive amounts of stress to get a cardiovascular adaptation.”
Slow running is usually defined as a pace at which you can comfortably hold a conversation. Think of it as an effort of 4 or 5 on a scale of 1–10, where 10 is an all-out sprint. If you know your sports science, it’s referred to as ‘zone 2 exercise’ and it’s a physiological sweet spot that can improve and extend your life.
In 2015, researchers in Copenhagen made a surprising discovery when they studied the long-term mortality of light, moderate and strenuous joggers, as well as non-runners. The light and moderate joggers had a lower mortality rate than either the non-runners or the strenuous runners. The strenuous joggers had a mortality rate that wasn’t statistically different to the non-runners.
So, what makes the unhurried approach so healthful? As well as improving the strength and pumping capacity of your heart, slow running boosts your health at the molecular level. It fends off metabolic disease by improving your insulin resistance. It increases the density of mitochondria (essentially, the batteries) in your cells and encourages your body to use fat for energy.
Improved physical and mental health
Slow runners also recover faster and are less likely to suffer fatigue or injuries from overtraining. They’re also more likely to feel good.
“There are huge positives for emotional health,” Gordon says. “The benefits for things like mood state, depression and anxiety don’t really decrease any more if we increase the exercise intensity. And then there’s the social aspect. One of the things to emphasise with slow running is, you can actually have a conversation!”
What we’re starting to understand, is that you don’t need to put the body under excessive amounts of stress to get a cardiovascular adaptation
Gordon believes that promoting slow running might encourage more people to exercise and stick with it, partly because you can do it with friends and partly because there’s no pressure to perform. It might be the reason why Parkrun and Couch To 5K running plans are so popular.
“If you’re trying to get people physically fit, there’s no better way of doing it than in a group,” Gordon says. “You have that sense of encouragement. People struggle to meet targets when they’re exercising on their own.”
All the gains, less of the pain
For runners with one eye on the stopwatch, it might sound like slow running isn’t the way to chase down that PB. Again, researchers like Gordon think otherwise. “It requires a change of mindset. We’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that high-intensity exercise is best, but you don’t need to get a massive sweat on, you don’t need to feel your heart pounding out of your chest. If you run slower, you’ll still get gains.”
He points to research which shows that even elite runners spend up to 80 per cent of their training at a slow, zone 2 pace.
This builds what coaches and researchers call your ‘aerobic base’ – the basic engine of your cardiovascular fitness. Improving it means your heart delivers more oxygen to your legs and your lungs with every heartbeat. It ensures you’ll run farther, faster, and at a lower level of perceived effort.
In other words, slow down and you won’t just live longer, you’ll become a better runner too.
Read more:
- Exercise can reverse ageing in the brain, study claims
- How to boost your metabolism: 5 simple ways to speed up fat loss
- Forget 10,000 steps – walking just 5,000 is enough to lower your risk of death, says science
About our expert, Prof Dan Gordon
Dan Gordon is an associate professor at the Medical Technology Research Centre in Anglia Ruskin University in southeast England. He has over 20 years of experience in the domain of sports physiology, specialising in the assessment of endurance physiology.
