Soccer beats jogging

Soccer burns more fat and builds more muscle than jogging, concludes a three-month Danish study that looked at men ages 31 to 33. The researchers also found that soccer players felt less tired after their workout because they had had more fun.

At the start of the study, the men were divided into groups that were told to play soccer, jog, or do no exercise. They all had similar health profiles at the start of the study.

After 12 weeks, there was a 3.7 percent decline in body fat among the soccer players and a two percent decline among joggers, the Associated Press reported.

The soccer players increased their muscle mass by about two kilograms (4.5 pounds), but there was no significant muscle mass change noted in the joggers. Men who did no exercise had little change in body fat or muscle mass. The study was presented last week at the annual conference of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences.

The findings are interesting but it's difficult enough to get people to do moderate exercise, let alone participate in a high-intensity sport like soccer, noted Nick Cavill, a research associate at the British Heart Foundation at Oxford University, the AP reported.

"There might be enormous benefits to telling people to play (soccer) twice a week. But if they're not going to do it, then that message may be useless," he said. – (HealthDayNews)

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Fitness Centre

September 2007