:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Health-GettyImages-Walking-HIIT-8693beb387ab404ca278e939fa8da039.jpg "Three athletic young women are jogging together in a modern city environment, enjoying their workout and promoting a healthy lifestyle")
- Daily walking workouts reduce mortality rates, improve body composition, and alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- While walking has numerous health benefits, most people can benefit from added strength training.
- Incorporating intervals into daily walks is an easy way to add intensity, which is important for people with performance and weight-loss goals.
Do you love your daily walks but find yourself wondering, “Is just walking enough? Should I be doing something else to stay healthy?” The answer isn’t cut and dry; it depends on your goals, your current health status, and what the rest of your life looks like outside of your walks. Here’s how to figure out if you need to step up your game, or if you should stay the course and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
What Walking Does Really Well
Walking is an accessible, affordable, low-impact form of exercise that almost everyone can do.
The benefits of walking are seemingly endless. A cohort study that followed more than 2,000 participants for more than 10 years found that adults who walked at least 7,000 steps per day had lower mortality rates than those who walked fewer than 7,000 steps per day.
Besides living longer, avid walkers tend to have healthier body compositions and avoid regaining weight they’ve lost. A recent research review found that individuals who walked 8,5000 steps per day as part of a healthy lifestyle program were better able to maintain their weight loss in the long term.
Walking has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, and walking outside in nature can alleviate stress and bolster feelings of optimism and mental well-being.
Where Walking May Fall Short
While walking is an excellent form of exercise, it doesn’t offer a comprehensive approach to fitness.
Even though walking requires some muscle strength, it doesn’t provide the best stimulus for muscle growth and maintenance. Strength training, a.k.a. resistance training or weightlifting, stresses the body in ways that lead to muscle growth and improved strength. Strength training is especially critical for people in their 30s and older, as the fourth decade of life is when sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss, begins to take effect.
Additionally, if your only exercise is walking, you’re likely never working at a high intensity. That means you’re missing out on some of the potential benefits of high-intensity exercise, like more efficient fat loss, better strength and power, and improved VO2 max, the measurement of how effectively your body utilizes oxygen.
Also, keep in mind that walking every day is part of your routine. And while establishing a routine can help you stay consistent, doing the same thing every day will eventually lead to a fitness plateau. As your body adapts to the stimulus of walking (especially if you always travel the same route at the same pace), you’ll stop seeing changes to your strength, endurance, speed, and body composition.
Do You Actually Need To Do More than Walk?
The short answer is yes, but probably not a lot more.
For general health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all adults do full-body strength training at least twice a week. If you have performance or body composition goals, you may need to do more, but just two weekly lifting sessions offer health benefits that walking alone will not.
High-intensity exercise may not be necessary if general health is your goal. The same CDC guidelines note that adults can opt for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity (like walking) or 75 minutes of high-intensity activity per week.
But as noted above, adding intensity can boost your cardio fitness and support fat loss. It’s also more time-efficient, as high-intensity workouts are shorter. And some research shows that intensity can help increase exercise enjoyment.
How To Amplify a Daily Walking Habit
You don’t have to completely overhaul your daily walks to get more health benefits. Just a few small changes and additions can help round out your fitness routine.
Add Intensity With Intervals
You can add short bursts of intensity to your walks with speed intervals. The idea is to temporarily pick up the pace and elevate your heart rate throughout your walk. Here are a few ideas for introducing intervals:
- Use a time-based approach, such as speeding up for 30 seconds for every 2 minutes of moderately paced walking.
- Locate landmarks along your walking route, such as trees or lampposts, and speed up between them.
- You can also add intensity with incline. Pick a route with hills, or if you’re walking on a track, climb the bleachers after every lap. Or, if you’re walking on a treadmill, add 30 seconds of incline walking every few minutes.
Lift Twice a Week
Strength training doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming to be effective. All you need is a set of moderately heavy dumbbells and 20-30 minutes to get a good workout.
Stick to classic moves, like deadlifts, squats, and overhead presses. They’re the most functional (you squat every time you sit down and get up), and they engage all the major muscle groups. If you’re nervous about handling weights, try using resistance bands. You can also start with bodyweight workouts that include movements like push-ups, air squats, lunges, and planks.
