IS WALKING ENOUGH?
Whilst walking is a good form of exercise and we don’t want to downplay the importance of it, this modality will only get you halfway in terms of your health and fitness. Our friends from Longevity Personal Training and Exercise Physiology, an allied health clinic based in Edgecliff, Lindfield, Randwick, Marrickville and Drummoyne dive into why you should be doing more than just walking.
The benefits of walking
Walking is a good aerobic activity to maintain a healthy body and heart. However, it is not a substitute for providing resistance to your muscles. Walking is an easy modality which can be done anywhere, anytime and it has benefits beyond just physical health to research showing a host of mental health benefits that come from regular walking. Other additional benefits to walking include increasing vitamin D levels, more energy expenditure helping with maintaining a healthy weight, controlling blood sugar levels and reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.
However, along with the Australian Physical Activity Guidelines, an individual should be partaking in a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week, such as brisk walking, or more than 75 minutes of high intensity aerobic activity such as running, AND 2 resistance training sessions per week targeting all muscle groups.
What is strength training?
Strength training, also known as resistance training, is designed to improve muscular fitness by exercising a muscle or muscle groups against resistance which can be using your own body weight, free weights or machine weights. As we apply the resistance or load to the muscles, the muscle will adapt, allowing the muscle to grow bigger and stronger.
Strength training is beneficial for
Increasing muscle mass. Muscles are very important to support your skeleton. Increased muscle mass will enable you to lift heavier items, including making everyday activities easier, and reducing injury. An increase in muscle mass will also support and decrease the load on your joints, prolonging the need for joint replacements. As a bonus, having a higher muscle mass increases our basal metabolic rate (or metabolism) helping to maintain a healthy weight.
Increasing bone density. Although walking is beneficial for bone density in the lower limbs, it will not provide enough stimulus to the spine or upper body.
Strength training in circuits can increase your heart rate and achieve a cardiovascular effect, helping to decrease monotony of walking and/or push you into a higher intensity training zone. After all, our heart is a muscle, so we can be helping it to grow and build to be strong and fit.
How can you incorporate strength training?
You don’t need to be making crazy changes to your weekly routine. There are some easy ways to incorporate some strength training to meet the Australian Physical Activity Guidelines. Gyms are an obvious modality, however, you can also do strength training in your home, out in the park or along your walks.
Some bodyweight exercises that you can do without any equipment include squats, push-ups, step-ups, calf raises and seated dips. If you have a resistance band then you can incorporate exercises like rows, bicep curls and resistance during squats. Or you can grab some cans from your pantry and do the exercises listed above.
Check out a demonstration on a few bodyweight strength exercises you can do at home!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4aKOcdKucU
As you can see, there are a number of ways that you can include strength training even if you don’t have any equipment. The team at Longevity Personal Training and Exercise Physiology are experts in delivering and providing you with a program that you can be done anywhere, with little or all equipment.
The Longevity team are currently available online or in-person via home visits and outdoor sessions.
