Sept. 20, 2007 — There's a new slogan for weight-watchers: Burn it like Beckham. A friendly game of soccer, a new study has found, works off more fat and builds up more muscle than jogging.
Danish scientists, who conducted their research on 37 men, also found the soccer players felt less tired after exercising than the joggers because they were having more fun.
"This is good news for men who prefer to play football with their mates," said Gary O'Donovan, a sports medicine expert at the University of Exeter who was not connected to the study.
To measure how hard the men were working out, the researchers strapped heart monitors to their chests and compared blood samples and muscle tissue from before and after matches and jogging sessions.
The researchers selected men with similar health profiles aged 31 to 33 and split them into groups of soccer players, joggers, and couch potatoes — who not surprisingly ended the three month-long study in the worst shape.
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Each period of exercise lasted about one hour and took place three times a week. After 12 weeks, researchers found that the body fat percentage in the soccer players dropped by 3.7 percent, compared to about 2 percent for the joggers.
The soccer players also increased their muscle mass by almost 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds), whereas the joggers didn't have any significant change. Those who did no exercise registered little change in body fat and muscle mass.
