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Health Benefits of Walking
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Walking is the cheapest form of transport as well as being the cheapest form of exercise! Have you considered walking to and from work, even just a couple of times a week.
Aerobic walking increases the efficiency of your heart and lungs, lowers blood pressure and resting heart rate, relieves stress, raises metabolism, improves muscle tone, and improves the health of the bones.
The health benefits of walking are perhaps greater than you might first think and include:
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Reducing the risk of coronary heart disease; |
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Reducing the risk of stroke; |
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Lowering blood pressure; |
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Improve blood lipid profile; |
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Reducing high cholesterol; and |
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Reducing body fat. |
The table below shows the number of calories that can be burnt by walking.
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Pace
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Calories Per Minute
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Calories Per Hour
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Strolling-1 mph
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2 – 2.5 calories
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120 – 150 calories
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Walking-3 mph
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4 – 5 calories
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240 – 300 calories
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More potential benefits of walking:
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Enhancing mental well being; |
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Increasing bone density, hence helping to prevent osteoporosis; |
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Reducing the risk of cancer of the colon; |
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Reducing the risk of non insulin dependant diabetes; |
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Helping to control body weight; |
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Improving self-esteem; |
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Relieving symptoms of depression and anxiety; |
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Improving mood; |
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Helping osteoarthritis; and |
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Helping flexibility and co-ordination, hence reducing the risk of falls; |
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Regular walking can have a dramatic effect on cardiorespiratory fitness or ‘aerobic power’. The intensity of walking for fitness benefits varies according to the age and fitness of the individual, but generally, ‘brisk is best’.
A simple way to work out how briskly you should walk is to aim to walk “fast without overexertion”. You should just about be able to hold a conversation while you are walking - the ‘talk test’. |
At a more technical level, you should aim for the ‘training zone. This is calculated by taking your age away from 220. Then try to walk so that your heart rate is at least 45% of this figure. So for example a 40 year old would be aiming to have a heart rate of at least 81 beats per minute (220 - 40 x 0.45).
It’s worth remembering that even 10-minute brisk walks can increase fitness, provided that they are brisk enough. One study at Loughbrough University found that women walking continuously for 30 minutes 5 days a week had almost identical increases in fitness as women who split their 30 minutes into three 10-minute walks (Murphy & Hardman 1998).
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Is the bus stop really too far for you to get the bus to work once a week?
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Information collated from
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