The best thing for your fitness that you’re probably not doing enough of
Spoiler alert. It’s walking. For many endurance-minded athletes, the long stuff is easy to fit in. For sprinters/strength trainers the hard stuff is easy to fit in. We’re busy and we prioritize the sessions that feel valuable. The long session on the weekend. The hard runs during the week. Maybe we begrudgingly get that one strength session in per week.
Walking is not the first thing we think of when it comes to building fitness. And with a recent reemergence of the value of Zone 2 training, walking seems even less important. But it is important. It is one of the things that everyone can do that will benefit them. For those looking to lose a little weight, walking is a great starting point. For those who are already training, walking is a great option for a recovery day or to increase the overall activity in a day with very low-impact on our body. For athletes, walking often hits that Zone 1 heart rate zone. A zone which is great for building our aerobic infrastructure.
3 Key Benefits of Walking:
Increase our activity levels throughout the week. Even with busy schedules, build a little more time into walking to get groceries, walking to lunch, walking to get coffee, walking while you are on a phone call, walking with a friend… all these are great options. It helps increase our overall activity levels which is good for our heart, lungs, and overall aerobic structure. It builds capillaries, helps develop mitochondrial density, and increase blood oxygenation.
Calmness and Mindfulness. There is plenty of research that indicates that walking helps us think. It helps us process stress at work or in our life. It’s enough activity to stimulate our brain but not so much to distract us. Walking can be a great opportunity to work on our nasal breathing and improve our breathing for when we go hard. It can be a key way to relax and destress when things are busy. Similar to taking a day off from training when we start to feel run down to prevent getting sick or injured. Taking 10 minutes to destress and refocus your day can help prevent emotional and psychological burnout later.
Everyone can do it. Often it’s hard to get our friends to workout with us, especially as our athletic goals grow and our fitness improves. But going for a walk, even slowly, is something that everyone can enjoy. It’s a way to be active with our non-training friends and family.
Overall, walking is something you should add more of into your week. If you have a dog, you don’t have much choice. You’re forced to get out a few times a day. If you don’t have a dog or other pet, then start by trying to get at least 10 minutes of walking per day in. That’s 70 additional minutes of Zone 1 activity per week. A few more on-foot miles per week. That will add up pretty quick and allow you to benefit even more from your training.
