Are you ready to get back in shape? Or maybe you want to workout and improve your health for the first time. In either scenario, walking workouts are a great choice. They are easy to do. All you need to do is lace up your sneakers and head outside.
Start Small And Step It Up in 15 Minute Intervals
Any exercise is better than no exercise. Start small and do what you can for the first week or two. Put on your shoes, grab your sweater and go for a walk. If you can walk for 15 minutes, great. If you don’t that’s ok too. Take it slow and work your way up to 15 minutes of brisk walking.
If you can start out with a 30 minute walk at a nice steady walk, great. Start where you’re at and keep it up for a week. After that time you’ll notice that your daily walk is starting to get a little easier. That’s when you want to go a little further. Start increasing your walking time by 15 minutes until you get to 45 to 60 minute walks per day.
Pick Up The Pace
Eventually you’ll get comfortable with your hour long walking workouts and it’s time to push a little. Start picking up the pace. Try doing your regular walking route in less time. Keep pushing until you can comfortably do your 60 minute walk in 45. You’ll start walking faster and get your heart rate up a bit.
Of course walking further in the same amount of time is another option. Aim for a 60 minute walk, but go further than you used to. Either way, the goal is to push your body a little harder to get it into better and better shape.
Work On Your Posture and Add Some Weights
Walking is a great low impact way of getting your cardio in for the week. This is particularly true once you start to pick up the pace and push yourself. But it can also be a great way to tone your body.
Start by paying attention to your posture. Keep your shoulders back and stay upright. Suck in your stomach while you walk. Not only is it a good core workout, it will also help prevent back pain from prolonged walking. As an added benefit, it will shrink your belly even faster than walking by itself.
To tone your arms and upper body, consider carrying some light weights during your walks. Two small water bottles work great. Use them to do simple arm raises or curls, or just carry them around to tone your arms and shoulders.
Take Your Walking Workouts To The Max With Interval Training
Let’s wrap this up by talking about interval training. It’s a great way to burn a lot of calories and push yourself to the next level. Interval training means you alternate between working out at a moderate level for a few minutes followed by 30 seconds or so of high intensity workouts.
Start by walking at a moderate pace for 5 minutes to warm up. Then alternate 2 to 5 minutes of walking at that pace with 30 seconds to a minute of walking as fast as you can. Keep cycling through, changing the speed of your walk until you are almost back home. Slow it down a bit more to give your body a chance to cool down.
After a while, you may want to start running during the high intensity intervals. In addition to giving you a more intense walking workout, this is also a great way to transition from walking to running.
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