Exercise & Walking

Walking is one of the simplest and least expensive forms of exercise. Often overlooked as a genuine way to lose weight and get fit, there are techniques and strategies you can use to move walking from a pleasurable stroll to a fat-burning, muscle-toning exercise. As you develop your exercise program, use walking as your cardiovascular exercise and lifting weights as your strength-training exercise.

Benefits

Walking offers benefits over other forms of exercise. In contrast to high-impact exercises like running or cardio kickboxing, walking is easy on your joints and requires no special skills. As a cardiovascular exercise, walking helps you control type 2 diabetes, improve your cholesterol levels, help your blood pressure and helps keeps your bones strong, according to MayoClinic.com. If you need to lose weight, walking briskly burns 345 calories an hour, if you weigh 190 lbs.

Walking Technique

Walking for exercise requires a slightly different posture and stride then taking a walk in your neighborhood, says Jo Ann Taylor, co-founder of The Walking Connection. Begin your walking session by elongating your spine and standing up straight and tall. As you stride forward, keep your pelvis and abdominal muscles engaged, your eyes looking straight ahead and your shoulders relaxed. Avoid walking with straight arms to avoid hand swelling, but instead bend and swing your arms as you move forward. If you bend and pump your arms as you walk, you can burn more calories than if your arms stay stationary. Work on getting comfortable with placing your feet in an almost straight line as you walk, and roll your feet from heel to toe.

Vary Your Routine

If you generally walk on a flat road or a treadmill set to a zero incline, or tend to walk at the same pace throughout your workout, you are missing out on the opportunity to burn extra calories and work more muscles. Seek out hills in your city or set your treadmill on a 3 to 5 percent incline to further strengthen your heart and leg muscles. Walk in intervals of quick-paced walking alternated with regular-paced walking to strengthen your heart. Interval walking may help prevent blood pressure and decreasing thigh muscle problems associated with aging, as evidenced in a study published in 2007 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings and led by Ken-ichi Nemoto.

Expert Insight

I-Min Lee, lead researcher of a 2001 study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" studied the physical activity level of inactive vs. active women. Of the more than 39,000 women health professionals observed, those who walked the most minutes per week, regardless of pace, had a lower risk of coronary heart disease. If you find walking briskly difficult, walk at a comfortable pace for longer periods of time to gain the heart benefits found in the study.