Weekend Plus Desk :
If walking has been a part of your daily regimen so far, it is time you added that extra zest to your gait and turned it into a more wholesome workout. Make 2018 the year of fitness beyond lip-service. ‘Walk’ that extra bit to get leaner, smarter.
While, regular walking helps you lose weight and stimulates various body functions, how you walk and at what speed you walk could make all the difference. Here are four ways you could walk your way to health.
Power Walk
An intensive and evolved form of walking, power walking is catching everyone’s attention once again. It involves walking with a speed at the upper end of the natural range for the walking gait, usually between 4.5-7 kmph. It has a unique technique where one foot must always be touching the ground during the entire walking duration. The added arm movement alone increases energy expenditure over traditional walking by as much as 55 per cent.
Aerobic Walking
A high-intensity, low-impact workout, it means walking a mile in 13 minutes or less. It is a good way to increase your walking pace without dramatically increasing your physical exertion. The key to aerobic walking is not in your legs but in your arm swings. Your arms and legs act as natural pendulums while you walk, so it is possible to increase your walking pace by increasing the frequency of your arm swings. You could change the intensity of your walk by walking uphill.
Interval Walking
Walking is a great daily exercise but getting the most out of walking means raising your heart rate, working more muscle groups, and avoiding the dreaded fitness plateau. Interval walking means using your regular walking routine as the baseline of your more intense workout. Alternate between sets of warm up, fast, superfast and slow down walks. Alternating intense activity with slower activity is a great way to burn more calories and get a good cardio workout in a shorter period of time.
Nordic Walking
First developed by Finnish cross-country skiers so they could train all year round, Nordic walking became very popular in Europe in the late 1990s. It could be the ideal full body workout. In Nordic walking, you use special poles to apply force with each stride. This enhanced exercise builds strength and stamina throughout your upper body as well as your core muscle groups. You work up to 90% of your skeletal muscles and burn up to 50% more calories than with normal walking. n
If walking has been a part of your daily regimen so far, it is time you added that extra zest to your gait and turned it into a more wholesome workout. Make 2018 the year of fitness beyond lip-service. ‘Walk’ that extra bit to get leaner, smarter.
While, regular walking helps you lose weight and stimulates various body functions, how you walk and at what speed you walk could make all the difference. Here are four ways you could walk your way to health.
Power Walk
An intensive and evolved form of walking, power walking is catching everyone’s attention once again. It involves walking with a speed at the upper end of the natural range for the walking gait, usually between 4.5-7 kmph. It has a unique technique where one foot must always be touching the ground during the entire walking duration. The added arm movement alone increases energy expenditure over traditional walking by as much as 55 per cent.
Aerobic Walking
A high-intensity, low-impact workout, it means walking a mile in 13 minutes or less. It is a good way to increase your walking pace without dramatically increasing your physical exertion. The key to aerobic walking is not in your legs but in your arm swings. Your arms and legs act as natural pendulums while you walk, so it is possible to increase your walking pace by increasing the frequency of your arm swings. You could change the intensity of your walk by walking uphill.
Interval Walking
Walking is a great daily exercise but getting the most out of walking means raising your heart rate, working more muscle groups, and avoiding the dreaded fitness plateau. Interval walking means using your regular walking routine as the baseline of your more intense workout. Alternate between sets of warm up, fast, superfast and slow down walks. Alternating intense activity with slower activity is a great way to burn more calories and get a good cardio workout in a shorter period of time.
Nordic Walking
First developed by Finnish cross-country skiers so they could train all year round, Nordic walking became very popular in Europe in the late 1990s. It could be the ideal full body workout. In Nordic walking, you use special poles to apply force with each stride. This enhanced exercise builds strength and stamina throughout your upper body as well as your core muscle groups. You work up to 90% of your skeletal muscles and burn up to 50% more calories than with normal walking. n
