Make Your Walk Work!

Is your 1 hour a day of outdoor exercise working for you?

With only 1 hour a day to exercise outdoors, and most of us having walked the same routes over and over, it’s time to step it up and mix it up for a more efficient workout.

Here are 5 great tips to make your walk work.

1. Quicken your Pace

Just take faster steps, not lengthen your stride as this may cause injury
If you walk at an RPE* of 2 – 3 normally then you need to step up to 4 – 5 so that you are lightly puffing (not gasping for breath)

*RPE = rate of perceived exertion. This assesses how hard you feel you are working, on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 – feeling completely comfortable 10 – extreme exertion

2. Add a light jog/ Interval Training

Start by incorporating even 30 seconds of light jogging to 5-10 minutes of walking, working up to 1 minute of light jogging
Or if you are fitter, reduce the interval e.g. 1 minute jog : 3 minutes walk etc.

3. Hit the Hills, Inclines or Stairs

Make these your friends! Use them as these will increase your heart rate, metabolism and leg strength i.e more bang for your buck!
Climb 2 steps at a time
Alternate walking hills/inclines with walking on the flat

4. Loaded walking

Wear a backpack filled with items to add some difficulty to your walk so that the muscles are having to work harder
- Be careful of your posture if it is too heavy, to ensure your back is protected
Walk carrying light dumbbells eg 0.5 or 1 kg

And my favourite…

5. Add some Resistance Exercises

Break up your walk…find a park bench
- Do 10 repetitions of each. Do 3 – 4 rounds on your walk perhaps 2 sets at one bench and 2 sets at another
  - Squats – lower buttocks to just touch seat then get up, pushing up through heels
  - Step ups with each leg if seat is not too high
  - Push ups against back of bench (or front bench seat )
  - Lunges (if you can)

I like to add Compound strength exercises to my walk as they use more muscle groups, are more time effective, keep my heart rate elevated and burn more calories!