As you know the benefits of walking are just endless. Walking is often overlooked in the world of fitness and exercise. In my opinion walking is the most natural form of human expression and exercise. We weren’t meant to run 26 miles, let’s face it. But exercise has many health benefits and some of these benefits you cannot get with every exercise.
Being bipedal means we propel ourselves using two legs and two feet. To keep healthy it is suggested to engage in moderate exercise for 30 minutes daily.
Walking briskly for 30 minutes will keep you healthy and give you all the benefits of walking.
It’s a good thing that walking is integrated so deeply in our daily lives. Walking can prevent the onset of breast cancer and osteoporosis, can improve your body functions overall, help with depression and build endurance.
When you walk at least 20 minutes a day the rate of bone loss from your legs slows. Walking is extremely good for your bones and studies have shown that to prolong the onset of osteoporosis you need to walk at least 20 minutes a day, but 30 is preferred. Some people like to take a pedometer and count 1 0,000 steps per day.
The risk of cancer, especially breast and colon cancer, is decreased by about 20% in those who walk at least 20 minutes a day. And studies have shown that people who already have cancer can reduce the risk of death by up to 20% if they walk daily, preferably 30 minutes but 20 minutes is sufficient.
Another benefit of walking is that your body strengthens and you build up endurance. Have you ever noticed that if you go running you may tire out after 20 minutes, but if you go walking you could walk for 6 or even 8 hours strait? Walking takes less energy and strength but slowly builds the strength in your leg muscles increasing your endurance, this is something that you cannot do with running.
Your body can maintain this less strenuous level of exercise for long periods of time keeping your heart slightly elevated. When keeping your heart working harder for longer periods of time while walking not only do you build endurance but you strengthen your heart.
When you walk you are constantly using your muscles and joints throughout your entire body improving your overall body function. You also strengthen your calfs, quadriceps, hamstrings and hips by walking. This keeps your body flexible and can even help prevent physical disabilities from developing as you age.
Walking is also great for your mental health by reducing depression. If you ever feel the blues take a short walk and you will notice that the world around you gets brighter.
Walking improves your mood and happiness levels by releases serotonin, a hormone in the brain that make you feel happy. Any exercise will release these endorphins that make you feel good and happy. Even after you stop exercising and walking the brain will continue to produce serotonin for a number of hours. The effects of serotonin can last for the entire day to up to a week after exercising.
One of the best goals that you can make for yourself is to walk for at least 20 to 30 minutes a day. You will be improving your flexibility and keeping your joints working well, prolong the onset of osteoporosis, lower the chance of death from cancer, increase your endurance and strengthen your heart. Walking can do more than just these benefits. Other benefits of walking include losing weight, reducing cholesterol and blood pressure.
As we can see the benefits of walking are immense. Along with a good cardiovascular and aerobic exercise like walking it’s just as important to include a muscle building exercise into your fitness and health program. To truly be fit, you should be doing some sort of yoga or stretching, something like walking, running, swimming or any sporting activity along with the right muscle building program.
One of the great programs is called Turbulence Training which you can do at home with no weights and it uses only your own body weight. It’s quite amazing. Along with the amazing benefits of walking you should consider adding some lean muscle mass to your physique.
