How to Upgrade Your Daily Walk
My absolute favourite way to get around is by walking. I could hike and explore on foot for hours every day. Walking is one of the easiest forms of exercise to do, requires little to no financial investment and has so many health benefits. Yet, sometimes we just want to upgrade on our walk to make it even more impactful.
10,000 Steps a Day
Have you ever wondered where the advice of taking 10,000 steps a day came from? Turns out it was a marketing campaign long before it was studied as a specific health marker. When Japan was planning to host the 1964 Olympics, there was a general desire to improve the health of Japanese citizens. Walking was an easy (and free) way to encourage people to get active.
The Japanese word for 10,000 looks like this: 万 . A Japanese pedometer company thought looked like a “walking man”. So, hence, they started using 10,000 as a bench marker for the citizens there to meet each day.
While it turns out that there was no scientific basis to begin with, since then there have been many studies showing the health benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day, which equals about 5 miles depending on your stride.
Health Benefits of Walking
A study in the JAMA Neurology shows that walking 10,000 steps a day reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, and many different types of cancer. What’s interesting is that the study shows that the actual number (as it relates to dementia) is directly related to how much you walk.
9800 steps reduces dementia risk by 50%
3800 steps reduces dementia risk by 25%
A similar study by JAMA Internal Medicine showed that for every 2000 steps you take, it reduces your risk of premature death by between 8-11%.
A quick look at the overall benefits of walking looks like this:
improves circulation
improves mood
improves muscle tone
increases longevity
supports your joints
improves your sleep
improves cognitive function
sustains energy, longer
lowers risk of auto immune diseases
Bottom line is that walking is incredibly good for you and aiming to get around 10,000 steps a day is a great way to help maintain your health.
Tips to Make Walking a Daily Ritual
If you’re not a big walker to begin with, I have some tips to help you make walking part of your daily routine.
Get outdoors for a walk when you first wake up in the morning, before you drink caffeine or eat anything.
Walk outdoors as much as possible during the day to get exposed to sunlight (helps with circadian rhythms).
Walk for 10-15 minutes after each time you eat (helps lower your blood glucose spikes)
Listen to your favourite podcast or playlist while you walk. (I find this prolongs my walks while on roads)
Take your walk into nature (and ditch the headphones so that you can enjoy the sounds around you!)
Get a step tracker to see how many steps you’re taking a day OR use the fitness app on your phone.
Walk with a friend or loved one. Having a partner makes the time go by more quickly!
How to Upgrade Your Walk
If you’re like me and walking is part of your normal routine, you may be looking to amp up that time you’re hitting the pavement. I love mixing up my walks not just in direction but also in intensity. Here are a few ways to make your walk a little more challenging.
Incorporate hills into your walk. Changing the incline and decline uses different muscles and increases your respiration and cardiovascular health.
Find a set of stairs and use those a few times. Each time you hit the stairs, increase the number of times you go up and down them.
Wind sprints. Use light posts as a guide and sprint from one light post to another. Then walk for 2 light posts. Then sprint again. Repeat 8 more times so that you have 10 sprints total. Sprinting helps you burn fat, improve cardiovascular health, build muscle, and improve your metabolic health. If you can’t sprint, run. If you can’t run, jog. If you can’t jog, speed walk. The point is simply to increase your speed so that you are feeling the increase in heart rate and your breathing gets deeper.
Do 10 squats at every stop sign you come to. Squatting is an incredible daily functional movement (you squat every time you sit down in a chair or on a toilet!) and so by adding squats to your daily walk improves your muscle strength. This is crucial as we get older and need to be able to squat without assistance.
Walk for 5 minutes/Walking Lunges for 1 minute. Walking lunges can feel beastly as your legs will burn! But lunges build up strength in our glutes, quadriceps, and core. It also builds your balance and hip mobility as well as improving your running ability (see tip number 3)
Just adding in these different challenges on your walk can significantly improve your health AND keep your mind alert and active. There’s nothing worse than a workout or exercise routine that becomes….routine.
Let me know what you add in to your daily walk!