Walk Your Way To Better Health
Warm Up, Cool Down Necessary For Healthy Technique
Nutrio.com Team
Walking is one of the best and most accessible forms of exercise. Walking offers all the fitness benefits of jogging and avoids the pounding on your body. It's a painless way to shed pounds and tone up muscles. You will burn about 100 calories a mile while walking briskly, which is on par with jogging. Walking is also a highly effective protection against the bone loss of osteoporosis.
Walking primarily strengthens muscles in your thighs and calves. You also work your buttocks, trunk and upper body muscles.
Tips To Improve Your Walking
How Many Calories You'd Burn Doing Different Forms Of Exercise
Warm up for five minutes, walking at your normal pace. Then gradually increase your speed until you feel yourself breathing rapidly, but not so hard that you can't talk. Walk for 10 minutes, and go one or two minutes more every other day until you are walking about 20 minutes.
Check your pulse while you walk and gradually increase your pace until you are within your training range (subtract your age from 220, then multiple by .60 and .85). Once you are within your training range for 20 minutes, gradually increase your distance.
Cool down by walking at your warm-up pace for five more minutes.
Stretch your calves (place both hands on a wall, one foot a few feet from the wall, the other a few inches away, and lean into the wall), quadriceps (stand next to a wall, put your left hand on the wall for balance and use the right hand to pull your right foot up behind you toward the buttocks), and hamstrings (sit with right leg extended and left foot on the inside of the right knee, and lean forward as far as possible with both hands). Hold each stretch for 20 seconds, then switch to the opposite body part.
When the weather is bad, walk indoors. Many malls offer free walking time before shopping hours in a safe, pleasant environment.
Set aside a time of day that's most convenient for you. You can also break up your walking time into two or three sessions per day.
How Not To Get Hurt
Being overambitious when you start a walking program can cause an injury or lead to enough discomfort that you may lose interest. If you feel stiff and sore a few days into your program, you may be walking too fast, too far, too soon. Don't worry about distance in the beginning. The total time walked is more important.
Essential Equipment
A good-fitting walking shoe is essential, and may even correct some defects in the way your foot strikes the ground. Try on a number of different brands until you find the one your foot feels comfortable with.
A good walking shoe should provide side-to-side stability and have cushioning in the middle; a flexible, nonskid sole; and a strong heel counter with a low back tab.
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