Participants from the Start to Run programme carry on running
The Dutch running programme Start to Run positively influences physical activity levels of participants, both in the short- and longer-term. After completing the programme, participants were seen to do more physical activity and even after four and a half months 69% were still running. This has been shown by a publication by researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) in the scientific journal BMC Public Health.
Twice a year the Dutch Athletics Organisation offers a training programme known as Start to Run in more than one hundred locations in the Netherlands. The programme is aimed at novice runners. The six-week training programme introduces the participants to running. They run once a week under guidance from a professional coach and twice a week on their own as ‘homework’. They are given information about good sports shoes and nutrition and after six weeks the programme is rounded off with a test run of three kilometres.
Being fit
The effectiveness of the programme is evident considering the number of people who reach the international recommended level of fitness (Fitnorm), i.e. twenty minutes’ intensive activity three times a week. Running is an intensive physical activity. The programme has proved to be suitable for attracting a relatively large group of people who are generally less active. NIVEL researcher Linda Ooms explains: “Running is an easily accessible sport that can be enjoyed by many people. It isn’t time consuming and it’s inexpensive as the only thing you need is a pair of running shoes. A programme such as Start to Run gives people that little push they need to join a group in order to start running in an enjoyable way and to continue doing so, either in a group or by themselves.”
Vigorous intensity
The researchers also looked at the intensity of the physical activity. An increase was found in the levels of vigorous-intensity activities done by the participants and not in the levels of light-intensity and moderate-intensity activities. An increase could only be seen in sports activities. “The participants of Start to Run have not become more active in other areas of their lives: the increase in vigorous-intensity activity can therefore be completely ascribed to running,” concludes Linda Ooms. “When compared with the control group four and a half months after the programme had ended, the participants were performing two and a half hours more vigorous-intensity activity per week.”
Research design
This study included 100 Start to Run participants. Their activity behaviour was compared with 100 people in a control group which was made up of members of the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel of the NIVEL and matched for age and sex. In the Start to Run participants the physical activity behaviour was measured both at the start and at the end of the training programme and six months later. The control group was likewise measured at the start of the training and after six months. The study was subsidised by the Netherlands Olympic Committee and Netherlands Sports Federation (NOC*NSF).