:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Health-GettyImages-2219473769-542e324975ad4616886627e450b2cc3c.jpg "Woman walking outdoors at a fast pace, wearing a blue workout tank and leggings, and a smart watch")
Credit: urbazon / Getty Images
- Muscle growth requires progressive overload, which means gradually adding more weight or resistance to make your muscles work harder.
- To make walking more muscle-building-focused, increase the challenge by adding hills, speed intervals, targeted strength exercises, or unique terrain.
- Start slow and build up over time to optimize for safety and progress.
Regular walking is excellent aerobic exercise and can help strengthen your muscles, especially if you’re new to exercise. However, a flat, steady walk mostly trains muscular endurance rather than muscle size or strength. Adding challenges to your walking workout can help you build muscle strength more efficiently.
1. Add Incline, Hills, or Stairs
One of the easiest ways to target your muscles while walking is to add an incline by walking uphill or up stairs. Both increase the demand on your glutes, hamstrings, calves, and quadriceps. This increased strain on your muscles activates muscle protein synthesis, the process by which your body builds muscle in response to mechanical stress.
You can add incline outdoors by choosing a hilly route or finding stairs to walk up. If you’re walking indoors on a treadmill, start with a modest incline, such as 2-4%, and increase gradually as you get stronger.
2. Practice Walking Intervals
Interval workouts alternate harder efforts with easier recovery periods. This can help you target more muscle fibers and provide greater stimulus to your muscles, so they adapt and get stronger over time. You can do walking intervals outside or inside, and make them as simple or as challenging as you like.
A beginner-friendly interval walk might look like this:
- Warm up for five minutes at an easy pace.
- Walk at a quick pace for 30 seconds.
- Walk at an easy pace for 30 seconds.
- Repeat 8 to 10 times.
- Cool down for five minutes.
The time scales and number of intervals are less relevant than the structure of the workout; alternate hard efforts with easy recovery, and repeat. As you get more comfortable and build strength, you can increase the number of intervals you do to stay true to the progressive overload principle: doing more over time so your muscles adapt and get stronger.
3. Mix in Bodyweight Exercises
While you’re walking, you can always throw in some simple bodyweight exercises to boost your strength. These moves add resistance your muscles need while keeping your workout simple and equipment-free. Choose a few exercises and perform them every five to 10 minutes during your walk.
Some examples of bodyweight exercises include:
- Squats
- Reverse lunges
- Walking lunges
- Lateral lunges
- Calf raises
- Step-ups
- Wall sits
- Incline push-ups on a bench
- Planks
You could structure a walking workout like this, for example. After the first 10 minutes of walking, stop and do:
- 10 squats
- 10 reverse lunges per side
- 15 calf raises
Walk another 10 minutes and then stop to perform:
- 10 push-ups on a park bench
- 30-second plank
- 10 lateral lunges
Repeat this sequence with whichever strength exercises you want and keep it going for the duration of your walk. Again, this is just an example, but the main idea is to add bodyweight exercises at various points in your walk. If you’re on a treadmill, just hop off for a second, then get back on after you do a few strength moves.
4. Walk on Different Terrain
If you’re walking outside, challenge yourself to walk on different types of terrain. As you navigate uneven ground, you're activating smaller muscles that help keep you stable and balanced.
While this type of workout is less targeted than one with specific muscle-strengthening exercises, it helps train your feet, calves, hips, and core in ways that walking on a flat, static surface doesn't.
Try walking on trails with sections of rocks, tree roots, or other uneven ground. If you live near water, try your walking workout on the beach, in the sand. If you’re walking on challenging terrain, be mindful of your pace and pay close attention to your steps to prevent rolling an ankle or falling.
5. Don’t Skip Recovery
Muscle grows and repairs between workouts, not during them. If you turn every walk into a hard workout, you may feel sore, fatigued, or more prone to injury.
Aim to alternate harder walking workouts with easier walks or rest days. For example, you might do two or three muscle-focused walks per week and keep the rest of your walks comfortable.
Also, support muscle growth with enough protein and sleep. Walking workouts can challenge your muscles, but recovery habits help your body adapt.
