Walk to Your Health!

Exercise is the essence of health, and walking is the essence of exercise.

 

If you are an average adult, the one factor that might be keeping you from maintaining an optimal state of health is your refusal, as habitual as it is quiet, to take a good walk. If there is one thing available with you that cuts through the plethora of practices touted by health experts as indispensable to good health, it has got to be that simple old, familiar, unglamorous walk. Are we promising a panacea? Well, if there is one thing in the field of health that comes close to be a panacea, the walk is it.

 

There are several requirements to good health of course, most importantly exercise, food and relaxation. Out of these we regard exercise as most important: if you exercise right, chances are high that you would be attracted towards healthy foods (have you ever felt like eating an oily food while panting after a vigorous workout?) and your stress levels would come down (exercise forces to be in the here and now thereby helping you to stay away from painful considerations of the past and the future). Out of all exercises we regard walking as the most effective and most suitable for the billions of people all around the world.

 

Why is walking so beautiful? There are several compelling reasons and we should be ecstatic that God has poured them all into a single activity thereby sparing us the trouble of trying too many and getting bogged down (which many do in any case, confused under the barrage of conflicting claims from avowed experts). For one, walking exercises most muscle groups in the body and to the extent they are required for optimal performance of our day-to-day functions. Second, it does not have any side effects and all homo sapiens are sufficiently familiar with the technique (if you have tried an alternative, say running, you would appreciate this point more).  Third, it requires minimal equipment and is easy on your pocket: all you need is a good pair of shoes (some barefoot enthusiasts would, with some justification, dispute even that) and a quiet enough road. Fourth, it can be done almost anywhere and anytime, including your office premises and for intervals lasting even a couple of minutes (yes, walking even for a couple of minutes is better than not walking at all).

 

Well you might say, why not run? Running is an excellent exercise, but it has a few demerits. One, running being a sequence of jumps on one leg, taxes the knees. Running is jerky while walking is soft and smooth. Therefore if you would like to preserve your knees for old age, you would prefer a walk to a run. Second, running is a bit too vigorous, and like most vigorous exercises, more difficult to sustain. Moreover you could also make your walks as vigorous as you like by gradually increasing your speed or indulging in what is called a ‘racewalk’.  A normal walk may be at a speed of 5-6 KMPH but a racewalk can be at a speed of 10 KMPH or more. The faster walks would be an equivalent of running, only easier on your knees.

 

Once you are convinced that walking is the exercise for you, how do you go about it? We would recommend that you start small and build rather than start big, all pumped up, cause yourself pains and think of taking a break for the moment while actually taking a break for good. Instead, try what has been called ‘underachieving’ Set yourself a target that you can surely achieve, say 2 KM per day for 4-5 days a week. Persist with it for a week or two before you add a KM to it. Then persist with 3 KM a day for 4-5 days a week for two weeks. Even if you stop at this level and keep doing 3 KM for 4-5 days a week, you would feel significantly better. You can also progress to 4 or 5 KM per day or more if you have the time and the will. Once you have stabilised your distance, try to increase your speed. Most starters walk @ 4-5 KMPH and progress to 6 KMPH. If you can do more than 3 KM in half an hour, your pace would be OK. You should always remember to warm up at a comfortable pace, then walk for half the time of your total walk at a slightly higher than comfortable pace and then cool down towards the end, gradually decelerating.

 

Walking and all aerobic exercises are intimately related to your cardio-vascular fitness (in English, strength of your heart and blood vessels). The more you undertake aerobic exercises like walking, the stronger your heart becomes and the less likely you are to suffer from heart ailments. How you should go about your walks in a way that strengthens your heart optimally is a very interesting and exciting subject. We would cover it in a different blog. Watch this space!