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)
- Do 10 repetitions of each. Do 3 – 4 rounds on your walk perhaps 2 sets at one bench and 2 sets at another
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!