We have some news that might help you breathe easier if you think that sprinting, spinning, strength training, and other high-intensity workouts are the only “real” ways to work out. Austin Johnson, a Texas-based NCSF-certified personal trainer, says, “Walking is a great way to start building a baseline level of cardiovascular fitness. It’s also a great form of exercise, especially for people who haven’t been active before or who want to start running.” “To avoid injuries, it’s important for those two types of exercisers to start their routines at lower intensities. Walking is the best way to do that!”
But we’re not talking about a slow, meandering walk. (That can be a great way to relax if that’s what you want!) Put on your walking shoes and read on to find out how to make your next walk a workout.
Why walking is a great way to get exercise
Walking is a great way to get exercise for a number of reasons. Here are some specific health benefits of walking.
Helps with blood sugar
If you have type 2 diabetes, a short walk around the block after you eat could help keep your blood sugar stable. Research shows that taking a 30-minute walk after eating can help keep blood sugar levels stable and could be an easy way to improve health in everyday life.”Walking uses big muscles in your legs and torso, which need a lot of energy,” says Andrew Reynolds, Ph.D. “To get that energy, those muscles take sugar out of the blood and your blood sugar goes down.” He also says that walks after meals might help keep diabetes from happening in the first place.
Helps Your Heart
You don’t have to do very hard cardio to make your heart stronger. The best way to get heart benefits is to do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, like brisk walking, every week.2
Walking more every day can greatly lower the risk of dying from any cause or from heart disease, according to the data. One study found that taking at least 3,867 steps every day lowers the risk of death in general, while taking just 2,337 steps every day lowers the risk of death from heart disease. Plus, the more steps you take beyond these numbers, the better it is for your health.3
Lowers the Risk of Dementia
Walking is a simple but effective way to improve brain health, especially for older adults who are physically able and don’t have dementia. Studies indicate that walking, especially at a rapid pace and commencing in middle age, correlates with enhanced memory performance over time. This is especially true for episodic memory, which helps us remember certain events and experiences and is often hurt by Alzheimer’s disease (AD).4 This may be because walking helps blood flow, which can help brain function, but more research is needed to understand why walking is so good for the brain. Walking is a simple way to get more aerobic exercise into your day, which can help your body and mind get stronger over time.
Aids in Losing Weight
Walking is a great way to get more exercise and even lose weight, even though people sometimes forget about it. When you want to lose weight, one of the most important things you can do is get more exercise and eat a balanced diet.
Walker says that brisk walking at a pace of 4 to 5 miles per hour (which has been shown to help you live longer) can burn almost as many calories per mile as running at a slow speed. And because it doesn’t involve as much pounding, your body is less likely to get hurt, so you might be able to keep up your healthy habit longer and stronger. But if we compare minute by minute, running burns more calories because you cover more distance in the same amount of time and it puts more stress on your heart and lungs, which means it raises your heart rate more.
For instance, a person who weighs 160 pounds and walks at 3.5 miles per hour for an hour will burn about 302 calories. If the same person runs at 6 miles per hour for 20 minutes, they will burn about 356 calories. That’s less than half the time, about the same distance, but a few more calories. Yes, walking is definitely “exercise,” and it can even be all you need to do to get the recommended amount of physical activity each week.
Makes You Feel Better
Walking and other forms of regular exercise can make you feel better right away and over time. People who walk a lot tend to feel better emotionally than people who don’t. It’s interesting that how often people walk each week is more important for their mental health than how long their walks last.5
Also, going for a walk outside can help you spend more time in nature, which is good for your mental health and may help you feel less stressed.
Less Likely to Die Young
According to data presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Conference, walking an extra 1,000 steps every day (up to 4,500 steps) is linked to a 28% lower risk of dying early.6 (Just a reminder: If walking is your main form of exercise, a common goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. But you can also work your way up over time.)
How Much Walking Should You Do Every Day
The World Health Organization, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the American College of Sports Medicine all say that adults should try to get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week for their health and 300 minutes for weight loss.2 “A brisk pace of moderate-intensity walking would be between 3 and 4 miles per hour for most people who don’t have any injuries or diseases. Johnson says this would be the same as walking at a pace of 15 to 20 minutes per mile.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. says that if you don’t want to keep track of your pace, you can just try the talk test. You should be breathing heavily enough to talk but not sing while doing moderate-intensity exercise.7 If 150 minutes sounds like a lot, remember that you don’t have to start with the 150-minute goal right away. “Begin where you are and slowly increase your activity each week,” says Steve Stonehouse, NASM-CPT. “You can split the 150 minutes per week in a lot of different ways. Some people want to walk for 30 minutes five days a week. Some people walk for 10 minutes several times a day.
Johnson says that if you’re new to walking, the most important thing to remember is that it’s not all or nothing. Take it easy. “As easy as walking sounds, you can definitely do too much of it [depending on how] inactive you were before you started.” It’s great to start with two or three days a week and work up to five days a week over the course of a month. Johnson says that if you want to start jogging after you’ve been walking for a while, you should do the same thing: slowly increase your pace.
How to Make Your Walking Workout More Effective
With that in mind, here’s how to get started, how to make things more difficult, and how to go from walking to running (if that’s your goal).
Step 1: Walk for 10 minutes at a steady, comfortable pace. Keep doing this until you can walk for 30 minutes straight every day at your desired pace.
Step 2: Walk at a moderate to brisk pace for 30 minutes every day. You should be able to talk but not sing.
Step 3: Change the ground. Walking on steep ground makes your heart rate go up all the time, which also speeds up your metabolism and burns more calories. Walker says that this also makes the muscles in the lower body work harder, which is like a resistance training workout. “When you walk on rocky or slanted ground, different muscle groups, mostly in your core and lower body, are used to do these movements.” The supporting muscles assist each other, improving our strength and mobility, and make lower body movements easier to perform in everyday life,” Walker says. So adjust the treadmill or find a hiking trail or some hills in your neighborhood.
Step 4: Use the stairs. Find a park, stadium or gym staircase that has several flights of stairs. Try to climb them every 10 minutes during your 30-minute walking workout, then progress to climbing them every 5 minutes for 6 total rounds. “This will increase the level of leg strength you build through walking,” Johnson says, and also raise your heart rate to increase your calorie burn.
Step 5: Try intervals. Pick up the pace for 1 minute, then recover at a moderate walking pace for 4 minutes. Repeat this for 6 rounds to complete your walking workout for the day, Stonehouse suggests. Once that gets easy, try walking fast for 2 minutes, then recover at a moderate pace for 3 minutes; repeating 6 times. Scale up to 6 sets of 3 minutes fast, 2 minutes moderate, then to 6 sets of 4 minutes fast, 1 minute moderate, and finally, to a fast walk for all 30 minutes.
Step 6: Pick up the pace. If you’d like to try jogging, follow the same minute-by-minute breakdown in Step 5, just with jogging for the faster interval. Recover at a moderate to brisk walking pace.
