1. Walking prevents type 2 diabetes. The Diabetes Prevention Program showed that walking 150 minutes per week and losing just 7% of your body weight (12-15 pounds) can reduce your risk of diabetes by 58%.
2. Walking strengthens your heart if you’re male. In one study, mortality rates among retired men who walked less than one mile per day were nearly twice that among those who walked more than two miles per day.
3. Walking strengthens your heart if you’re female.Women in the Nurse’s Health Study (72,488 female nurses) who walked three hours or more per week reduced their risk of a heart attack or other coronary event by 35% compared with women who did not walk.
4. Walking is good for your brain. In a study on walking and cognitive function, researchers found that women who walked the equivalent of an easy pace at least 1.5 hours per week had significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline than women who walked less than 40 minutes per week. Think about that!
5. Walking is good for your bones. Research shows that postmenopausal women who walk approximately one mile each day have higher whole-body bone density than women who walk shorter distances, and walking is also effective in slowing the rate of bone loss from the legs.
6. Walking helps alleviate symptoms of depression. Walking for 30 minutes, three to five times per week for 12 weeks reduced symptoms of depression as measured with a standard depression questionnaire by 47%.
7. Walking reduces the risk of breast and colon cancer. Women who performed the equivalent of one hour and 15 minutes to two and a half hours per week of brisk walking had an 18% decreased risk of breast cancer compared with inactive women. Many studies have shown that exercise can prevent colon cancer, and even if an individual person develops colon cancer, the benefits of exercise appear to continue both by increasing quality of life and reducing mortality.
8. Walking improves fitness. Walking just three times a week for 30 minutes can significantly increase cardiorespiratory fitness.
9. Walking in short bouts improves fitness, too! A study of sedentary women showed that short bouts of brisk walking (three 10-minute walks per day) resulted in similar improvements in fitness and were at least as effective in decreasing body fatness as long bouts (one 30-minute walk per day).
10. Walking improves physical function. Research shows that walking improves fitness and physical function and prevents physical disability in older persons.
The technique for brisk walking, whether it’s power- or racewalking, is the same. Below are some tips on technique.
You may be surprised to learn that brisk walking can be almost as challenging as jogging. Here’s why. When you walk at speeds faster than 3.1 mph, your stride length naturally increases (you don’t necessarily want it to for efficiency but inevitably it happens). Lengthening your stride is inefficient because it requires additional energy to move your legs forward, which in turn requires more arm and torso movement, which leads to increased torso and hip rotation, which amounts to higher aerobic demands and more calorie-burning. This has been confirmed in the laboratory. The research shows that at maximal levels of exertion, oxygen consumption (the bottom line to cardiorespiratory fitness) is only slightly lower for racewalkers than it is for runners, and at submaximal or moderate-intense levels of exercise, oxygen consumption levels between race walkers and runners are almost equal. Racewalkers can reach speeds as high as 9 mph!
There are two types of formal walking: power-walking (also known as speed-walking) and racewalking. Both types require technique; the difference between them is that racewalking is an Olympic sport with rules and power-walking is done more recreationally. For example, there’s a racewalking rule that the athlete’s back toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched. Both are excellent forms of exercise that yield fitness and health benefits.
Walking is an important form of sustainable transport which costs nothing and offers a wide range of benefits to the individual as well as the community.