5 Essential Walking Exercise Tips
Walking exercise is one of the easiest ways to get in shape and burn fat. In fact, mile for mile, you can burn as many calories walking as you would jogging. It's also one of the best stress relieving exercises that anyone can do, regardless of fitness level.
Want to start a walking exercise program? Here are 5 tips to help you get the most walking bang for your buck:
1) Get your arms pumping.
Bring your upper body into your workout by pumping your arms. This is an easy way to burn more calories while walking. If you want to tone up and use more arm muscle during your workout, try carrying 2 - 5 pound handweights.
Bonus Benefit: pumping your arms propels you forward and helps you move faster - which means more distance covered and more calories burned!
2) Build in incline intervals.
Walking on an incline is one of the fastest ways to drastically skyrocket your calorie burn. But you don't have to spend your whole workout on an incline. Try building in 30 - 60 second intervals of incline walking on your treadmill every 5 to 10 minutes.
If you're walking outside and can't control your incline, try stopping every few minutes and doing 10 - 15 squats or lunges to tone your lower body.
Bonus Benefit: Building in intervals will also help your body continue to burn calories post-workout.
3) Increase your pace, not your stride
Got short legs? No problem! Instead of increasing your stride (and possibly pulling something), increase the number of steps you take. This also increases your speed which means more distance covered and more calories burned.
4) Invest in a pair of excellent walking shoes
Walking in poor shoes can cause damage to your feet, knees, hips, joints and back. Wear poor shoes and you may not be walking for a long time!
If you want to feel great after a walking workout (and be ready for the next one tomorrow), make sure you have the best possible walking shoes you can afford.
Bonus Benefit: A solid pair of walking shoes can actually help you lengthen the time that you walk, which again means more calories burned.
5) Take plenty of time to warm up and stretch to avoid injury.
Walking is one of the best exercises you can do for stress relief and long term fat loss. However there's this little thing called shinsplints that can threaten to put you out of walking commission for a while.
Many walkers and runners struggle with this problem. This constant repetitive flexing of the shin muscle can create soreness when a walker increases their speed or distance.
To help ward off shin splints or other muscle injury, take plenty of time to warm up before you really get into your workout.
Also, make sure you stretch. Pointing and flexing your foot helps stretch and build the shin muscle. Ankle rotations also help with this. Stretching properly will definitely keep you happy and walking for a long time to come!
So there you have it - 5 essential walking exercise tips. Keep these in mind and you're guaranteed to enjoy many stress-relieving, fat burning walks!
Kathryn O'Neill is a nutrition specialist and contributing writer for Buying A Treadmill
For more information on how to choose the best treadmill for you visit http://www.BuyingATreadmill.com
WNQA Articles:
Weight Loss Tips, Tricks, And Tactics - Part 2
I personal lost 60 pounds in 2003. Here are some tactics I used to lose the weight.
The Official Parenting Cheesecake Recipe
Whoever writes all those fancy cookbooks has never been a parent. To begin with, the pages are never spill-proof, almost guaranteeing that somewhere in the middle of mixing ingredients, a spill will cover the remaining two ingredients listed.
Green Tea For Weight Loss And Lower Cholesterol
High cholesterol is one of the leading precursors to heart disease. And, research has shown that our diet and lifestyle, combined with our genetics determines whether we have healthy or unhealthy cholesterol levels. To keep your cholesterol levels in check and prevent heart disease, there are several measures you can take.
Dangers of Online Dating - Keep Safe With These Simple Steps
The Internet is definitely one of the best available resources if you are looking to find someone special, but be warned there are also many dangers associated with online dating. While both men and women are at risk it is generally the woman who will be exposed to the more serious dangers and we would like to help you to protect yourself and to stay safe. Here are a few dangers of this form of dating that you should be mindful of in your pursuit of internet love and happiness.
How To Achieve Natural Weight Loss
Many diet plans can seem overwhelming to people who are just trying to lose some weight. Counting calories, attending meetings, cutting out entire food groups, or making drastic changes like vowing to live on soup alone ? all of these things are time-consuming, frustrating, and/or expensive. Isn?t there a natural weight loss solution?
Strategies for Alleviating the Boredom Associated with Exercise
Just about every expert in the ADD field will tell you that exercise is one of the best ADD management strategies there is. According to the book Delivered from Distraction:"When a person exercises, she sets in motion a cascade of events that her brain loves.
All natural weight loss, Guaranteed Results &
Many of the weight loss products today either dont work or there dangerous to your health. Just look at the ingredients list.
Francine Hemway Delivers The Secret To Weight Loss In Her Breakout Book, Beauty And The Yeast Beast: From Fat To Fairy Tale
After spending more than forty years overweight, obese, and morbidly obese, Francine Hemway discovers how to lose the weight and keep it off. The solution: Defeat the Yeast Beast.
Preserving Health And Beauty In Pregnancy
Most women think that it's okay to stop exerting effort in looking beautiful during pregnancy but it's not. Pregnancy is a time when your hormones are in a rage. It is easy to be overwhelmed by new feelings, sensations, and changes in your body that make you feel not in control. Taking care of your pregnant self lets you be in control and preserve your health and beauty. It's not easy to look in a mirror with disheveled hair and dry, blotchy skin. It's also frustrating to try and fit yourself in your pre-pregnant outfits. Get rid of the idea that this is normal. What's normal is a pregnant woman embracing and enjoying her pregnancy by taking care of her body, her health and beauty.
Parenting Tip - How Do You Learn To Be A Parent?
Parenting is the toughest, most important job most people will ever encounter and yet there is no license required, no training required, and no 24/7 hotline. This is rather short-sighted on the part of society as the cost of bad parenting is immense, but in truth the situation is not as dire as it seems. While no training is required for new parents, it is very easy for parents to learn the ways and means of good parents as well as the traps and pitfalls of bad parents. All it takes for parents to learn more about parenting is to watch, listen, and learn.
Green Tea's Interesting Affects On Weight Loss
Losing weight has been a worldwide concern today that many are in search for the most reliable and safest ways of shredding body fats and thereby achieving optimum health and great physical conditions. But since most of the faster commercial ways of losing weight has had known adverse side effects, many individuals are relying more and more on the more natural and safer methods of losing weight. Drinking green tea is among those tried and tested way, whereby individual dieters can opt to do to achieve their weight loss objective. Green tea extracts have been found to be an effective agent for reducing weight. Despite its caffeine content, the good polyphenol content of green tea balances the effect of too much caffeine intake due to frequen...
Weight Loss, Exercise, and Bodybuilding Tips – Keeping Your Body-Fat Low: Part 5 of 10
Have you ever seen an overweight rock climber or yoga instructor? Why? Single out some one in the gym who is lean and healthy and there's a good chance they have good circulation throughout their body. People who have good circulation tend to have good stretchablity.
Two Top Parenting Issues with Teenagers
Lesson 1 Two Top Parenting Issues with Teenagers