The Importance of Just Walking

We have just spoken all about cardio and hopefully the message will have been loud and clear; it’s crucially important as part of your fitness journey.

In that chapter, we spoke about several cardio options that you can insert into your workout – mainly focusing on the ones that aren’t going to prompt the boredom-factor (i.e., running on a treadmill). We also mentioned how this next chapter would be focused on walking.

Dedicating an entire chapter on walking might seem overkill, but give us time. This is an activity that’s really not appreciated, even though the benefits are endless. As such, let’s get into the meat of walking, and highlight why this should be a core element of your cardio training.

The reality of walking

We’re going to keep this section of the chapter very short, and basically spell out a few home truths.

Experts say that we should each work around five miles per day. To put this into laymen’s terms, this is around 10,000 steps. You’ve probably guessed our next message; most of us don’t come anywhere near that figure.

In fact, if we turn the clock back several years to a study conducted in 2003, it was found that the typical American will barely average half of that figure. Many have suggested that this figure is inflated by those people who work in physically challenging jobs as well.

In other words, most of the population is significantly below this amount.

It means that most of the population has a big problem, and now we’ll look at how to tackle it.

What are the benefits of walking?

Before we get into the “how” of this chapter, let’s try and sell the benefits of walking a little more. Some of you might immediately think that this could have been included in the previous chapter about cardio, but there are different benefits to walking as well as what we spoke about.

The lack of exhaustion

As we’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, there are some forms of exercise which are plain exhausting and a little boring.

Well, walking certainly doesn’t fall into this category. Sure, if you’re planning to hike miles and miles you might get a little tired, but in terms of walking the recommended average (five miles) it’s not going to push you too much.

It’s completely low impact

This is one of the primary benefits for those of you who suffer from a lot of injuries. A lot of cardio training is really hard on your joints, and this obviously poses problems related to injuries. Basic walking doesn’t entail this, whilst it’s also possible to combine it with regular training due to the lower intensity.

It can burn fat

Here’s the big one, and perhaps the surprising one as well. For every mile that you walk, you’ll burn around 100 calories. Suffice to say, if you stick to the daily average, the math works itself out. The low intensity nature of it means that your body won’t turn to glycogen and glucose, and will instead pull its energy from your fat stores.

How can you quickly buy into walking?

Despite the above, some people might still struggle to “buy” into the concept of walking.

Asking you to walk five miles per day isn’t an easy feat and we know that most people would struggle to achieve it. Or, they might achieve it in the short-term, but it certainly wouldn’t last.

As such, it’s worth tackling walking from a small steps perspective. Look to build habits, and this can start with something as minor as a five minute walk.

A five minute walk is absolutely nothing, particularly if you do it immediately after breakfast, and once you have gotten over this a few times it will be ingrained in your routine to continue with. Everyone has five minutes – it’s certainly not asking much.

As well as the routine-factor, let’s talk about a few other things this short walk can do for you. Some people believe that a walk in the fresh air in the morning is more of a wake-up than a cup of coffee. Remember we spoke about the release of hormones in the chapter about cardio training? This follows a similar thought process.

Many people also believe that a brisk walk on a morning can really set you up for the day. It’s something that allows you to clear any thoughts and get your day in order – all without any distractions.

Again, some of you might still struggle to implement a small walk, but at least give it a try. Five minutes is a tiny fraction of your day – yet it can make the world of difference in the long run.