Running or jogging can improve your fitness, as well as your leg muscle strength and balance. It can also help to prevent common conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. It helps to improve your sleep and reduce tiredness. It helps you manage your weight, especially if combined with a healthy diet, reduces your risk of osteoporosis (thin bones) and helps you to live longer.
It’s also great for your mood, mental focus, and overall energy levels.
If you’re starting from scratch, many people find it helpful to begin with walking, cycling, or other low-impact activities to gently build fitness before adding short jogs. You don’t need to go fast or far to feel the benefits.
Running is fantastic for cardio fitness. Start at a pace that feels easy and build up from there.
Running builds leg strength, but other strength work helps you stay injury-free.
Running can improve your balance, especially running on uneven ground or hills.
No. In fact, running can help protect your joints. People who run regularly have a lower risk of developing osteoarthritis.
If you already have arthritis and can still run, it’s usually safe to keep going. It might help to mix running with other gentle activities like cycling, swimming, or pilates to support your body in different ways.
In the early days of running, it is common to experience pain in your muscles or joints (around 25% in one study).
Most of these injuries resolve with time. The best way to prevent injury is to start at a comfortable level and build up as gradually as you feel comfortable.
Supporting your joints with strong muscles is also important, so consider adding one or two strength sessions a week, focussing on your core and leg muscles.
The key is to start low and build slow. If you’re new to running, a programme like couch to 5K is a great place to begin. It helps you gradually increase your running time over a few weeks, safely and at your own pace.
That’s very common! Try running with a friend or joining a local group. Listening to music or podcasts can help too.
Top tip: promise yourself the easiest run ever before you head out, once you’re moving, you’ll likely feel more motivated to keep going
It can be hard to know where to start when trying to move more. Everyone begins at a different point, depending on how active they are, how easily they move, and how strong they feel.
To get started, choose the option that best matches what you usually do on an average day in each column below. Look at your daily activities, mobility, and strength to find a sensible place to begin. Then click on the ‘see results’ button to reveal where you should start.
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If you used to run but can’t anymore, that can feel tough. Focus on what you can do right now. Start small and aim to progress a little each day. Chair-based marching exercises are a good place to begin to build strength again.
Continue with chair-based activities and gently work your way up to standing movements and short walks. Progress slowly and listen to your body.
If you’re ready to try jogging, the couch to 5K programme is a great guide. Mix your training with other exercises like Pilates or strength work to help your body adapt. Adding in low-impact activities, like cycling, can also support your fitness.
Keep building at your own pace with the couch to 5K programme or a similar plan. Combine your running with activities that support balance and strength, such as swimming, Pilates, or gym-based exercises.
If you’re already running and looking for something new, consider joining a local running group or club. You could even become a guide runner for someone who is blind or visually impaired. Or try something like GoodGym, where you can combine running with volunteering — it’s a great way to stay motivated while helping others.
Yes, there are great inclusive options. Here are some useful resources:
Kickstart your running journey with NHS Couch to 5K — a free, step-by-step program designed to take you from walking to running 5K in just 9 weeks.
Parkrun is a global charity that organises free, weekly, 5 kilometre and 2 kilometre community events in parks and outdoor spaces.
This site has been put together by specialists in exercise medicine and supported and funded by Nuffield Health Charity. In collaboration with academic experts, specialists in behavioural change, medics across a wide spectrum of specialties, physiotherapists, nurses and most importantly, people living with the symptoms of long term conditions. Through our rigorous academic process we have carefully ensured that all the information on this website is trustworthy and evidence based.
The following organisations have contributed to and endorsed the content of this website.
