How to Jog for Toning

Jogging improves your cardiovascular strength, aerobic endurance and metabolism, and it can help tone and tighten the muscles all over your body. Jogging incorporates everything from your neck, shoulders and arms to your abs, core, hips, butt and leg muscles. Consciously contracting different muscle groups as you jog will increase the toning and muscle-building benefits of jogging even more.

Things You'll Need

  • Running shoes
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Instructions

  1. Build a Base

    • 1

      Lace up your sneakers and get out the door. If you can jog for 20 minutes straight, do it.

    • 2

      Add one more minute to each jog until you can jog for 20 minutes straight. Keep your jogs slow and steady while you're building your aerobic base. You should be jogging at a pace slow enough that you can carry on a conversation with a friend as you go. Don't increase the amount of time or speed of your jogs until you have been running for 20 minutes straight three times per week for at least three weeks.

    • 3

      Increase the distance of your jogs by not more than 10 percent each week. Logging these miles helps develop your aerobic conditioning, increases your ability to process oxygen and glycogen, strengthens your muscles and connective tissues, and enhances your ability to burn fat.

    Tone Your Legs, Butt and Arms

    • 4
      Hill repeats tone and strengthen your entire body.

      Find a hill and run up it. A study of 20 runners in New Zealand showed that hill repeats increased their speed during 5K time trials by 2 percent. Hill repeats increase the power and strength in your legs and improve the efficiency with which your body operates during a run. Try doing three hill repeats once per week.

    • 5

      Run backward for a few minutes at the end of each run. This will give your legs a break from the repetitive motion of running, you'll burn more calories than while you're running forward and you'll strengthen your calves, quads and shins, the muscles opposite the ones that normally get a workout during running.

    • 6

      Jog with wrist weights. The gentle repetitive swinging motion of your arms will give your shoulders, upper back and biceps a greater workout if you add a bit of resistance. One or two pounds is quite sufficient for most joggers.