The Walking Workout
Widely recommended for its health benefits, walking is a simple yet effective exercise. Let’s put on the walking shoes and incorporate this workout en route to our journey of becoming fitter
As the rising sun gently smiles at the break of a new dawn, striding legs and pumping arms are a common sight. Walking, a form of workout, is a gentle low impact exercise, easing you into a higher level of health and fitness. It’s one of the simplest ways to get fit, stay in shape and experience a surge of freshness engulfing your body.
Walking, like any other form of exercise, helps you achieve a number of health benefits like:
Brisk Walking
A brisk walk is walking at the pace you’d walk if you were late for an important meeting or if you were hurrying to catch a bus. It’s walking fast enough so that you begin to feel winded. “When we say brisk, we mean brisk,” says Dr. Andrea Dunn, an exercise scientist. She stresses that your walk qualifies as a brisk walk only if you can cover around 6 kilometres per hour.
Brisk walking is a form of aerobic exercise. According to Dr. John Harvey, a respiratory consultant, activities like brisk walking strengthen the muscles around our rib cage. This ventilates the lungs by broadening the chest cage and absorbing in more oxygen, keeping the lung muscles toned and healthy. It also makes the heart beat faster, thereby exercising and strengthening the heart muscle. Aerobic exercise helps you stay at a healthy weight. It improves your mood and energy, reducing anxiety and depression.
Water Walking
An effective exercise, water walking can be practised in a swimming pool or a lake. Broadly, there are two types of water walking. Deep water walking is when your feet don’t touch the bottom of the water body. You can either use a flotation belt or vest or take some support of the boundaries and mimic the usual walking movements in deep waters. Shallow water walking, on the other hand, is practised in thigh to chest deep water where your feet are touching the ground and you literally walk across the length of the water body. Don’t worry about speed. You won’t move very fast but you will burn those calories.
It is a wonderful way to be active even if you are nursing an injury as it reduces the stress on joints. Hence, it is good for patients with arthritis, osteoporosis, joint pain and back pain. Walking in water involves the upper body as well as the lower body and since water gives all the submerged muscles 12-14 times the resistance of air, it burns more calories and helps in weight reduction.
Interval Training
Interval training is an athletic training system that combines short bursts of intense activity, called intervals, with periods of lower intensity, or rest periods. By alternating the two throughout the workout, the body is forced to exert more effort than it normally would during a steady, continuous workout of moderate intensity. Interval training takes your walking workout to the next level. This technique requires you to walk as fast as you can for about 1 minute followed by a moderate pace walk for 2 minutes, repeating the same process for about 30 minutes. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, short, high- intensity exercises burn more calories than longer, low-intensity aerobic workouts. In a fast paced world where time is an essence for everyone, isn’t it worth trying a technique which gives similar benefits in lesser amount of time? This training improves cardiovascular fitness and constantly challenges your body, preventing it from reaching a plateau.
Leisure Walking
Leisure walking is simply adding more steps in your daily life. There are many ways to walk more without going on a long walk. At work, use the stairs instead of the elevator, park farther away from office, walk over to your colleagues’ desk instead of calling them or walk when you talk over the phone. At home, you can walk during television commercials or take an after dinner walk with your family. But can these extra steps really help people walk away the pounds, even if they’re not breaking a sweat? “Yes, they can,” says Richard Cotton, an exercise physiologist, “Because in comparison to what you’ve been doing in the past, it quite possibly can create a caloric deficit – as long as you don’t increase their eating.”
Beginning a walking workout takes initiative, sticking to it takes commitment. But when you think of the potential health benefits, it’s well worth the effort. “Just a few extra steps each day is a simple and easy way to take an active role in maintaining a significantly healthier life,” says Timothy Gardner, MD, past president of the American Heart Association. Juggle between any of the walking techniques as per your schedule and in consultation with your physician. Stay motivated and be ready to experience a flood of freshness.
Benefits of Walking
Walking, like any other form of exercise, helps you achieve a number of health benefits like:
- Reduced risk of hypertension, heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and depression
- Lower levels of undesirable low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and higher levels of the more useful and desirable high-density lipoprotein (HDL)cholesterol
- Burning calories which helps in the elimination of unwanted fats and carbohydrates from the body thereby helping in weight reduction
- Lesser stress on the body joints since it is a low impact exercise
- Stronger heart muscles, lungs and bones
- Release of pent-up stress thereby improving one’s mood
Types of Walking
For many, walking is a hobby which clears their mind and brightens their mood. But for those considering it as an exercise, walking is not just about putting one foot in front of the other. There are various types of walking, each having specific benefits. Let’s have a look at a few of the walking styles:Brisk Walking
A brisk walk is walking at the pace you’d walk if you were late for an important meeting or if you were hurrying to catch a bus. It’s walking fast enough so that you begin to feel winded. “When we say brisk, we mean brisk,” says Dr. Andrea Dunn, an exercise scientist. She stresses that your walk qualifies as a brisk walk only if you can cover around 6 kilometres per hour.
Brisk walking is a form of aerobic exercise. According to Dr. John Harvey, a respiratory consultant, activities like brisk walking strengthen the muscles around our rib cage. This ventilates the lungs by broadening the chest cage and absorbing in more oxygen, keeping the lung muscles toned and healthy. It also makes the heart beat faster, thereby exercising and strengthening the heart muscle. Aerobic exercise helps you stay at a healthy weight. It improves your mood and energy, reducing anxiety and depression.
Water Walking
An effective exercise, water walking can be practised in a swimming pool or a lake. Broadly, there are two types of water walking. Deep water walking is when your feet don’t touch the bottom of the water body. You can either use a flotation belt or vest or take some support of the boundaries and mimic the usual walking movements in deep waters. Shallow water walking, on the other hand, is practised in thigh to chest deep water where your feet are touching the ground and you literally walk across the length of the water body. Don’t worry about speed. You won’t move very fast but you will burn those calories.
It is a wonderful way to be active even if you are nursing an injury as it reduces the stress on joints. Hence, it is good for patients with arthritis, osteoporosis, joint pain and back pain. Walking in water involves the upper body as well as the lower body and since water gives all the submerged muscles 12-14 times the resistance of air, it burns more calories and helps in weight reduction.
Interval Training
Interval training is an athletic training system that combines short bursts of intense activity, called intervals, with periods of lower intensity, or rest periods. By alternating the two throughout the workout, the body is forced to exert more effort than it normally would during a steady, continuous workout of moderate intensity. Interval training takes your walking workout to the next level. This technique requires you to walk as fast as you can for about 1 minute followed by a moderate pace walk for 2 minutes, repeating the same process for about 30 minutes. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, short, high- intensity exercises burn more calories than longer, low-intensity aerobic workouts. In a fast paced world where time is an essence for everyone, isn’t it worth trying a technique which gives similar benefits in lesser amount of time? This training improves cardiovascular fitness and constantly challenges your body, preventing it from reaching a plateau.
Leisure Walking
Leisure walking is simply adding more steps in your daily life. There are many ways to walk more without going on a long walk. At work, use the stairs instead of the elevator, park farther away from office, walk over to your colleagues’ desk instead of calling them or walk when you talk over the phone. At home, you can walk during television commercials or take an after dinner walk with your family. But can these extra steps really help people walk away the pounds, even if they’re not breaking a sweat? “Yes, they can,” says Richard Cotton, an exercise physiologist, “Because in comparison to what you’ve been doing in the past, it quite possibly can create a caloric deficit – as long as you don’t increase their eating.”
Beginning a walking workout takes initiative, sticking to it takes commitment. But when you think of the potential health benefits, it’s well worth the effort. “Just a few extra steps each day is a simple and easy way to take an active role in maintaining a significantly healthier life,” says Timothy Gardner, MD, past president of the American Heart Association. Juggle between any of the walking techniques as per your schedule and in consultation with your physician. Stay motivated and be ready to experience a flood of freshness.