Reasons To Walk More - Female Personal Trainer in Northampton

Now the weather is changing and the days are becoming longer, you have more opportunity to improve your phyical and mental wellbeing by getting outdoors and walking more.

There are huge benefits to walking outside like, increasing your daily step count, burning off calories, maintaining a good level of fitness and improving your mood. No matter where you are or what your situation, you can always find a way of adding a walk to your schedule.

Cancer Research UK has launched a campaign for March to walk 10,000 steps per day whilst raising money at the same time. It’s a good incentive to get started and hit the recommened daily step count at the same time. For more information and to get signed up take a look at their website.

Below are 3 more ways you can incorporate walking into your family life. It doesn’t have to be far away or costly, start by exploring your local area and go from there.

Walking in the Countryside

Walking in the countryside at 2mph on the flat will give you a steady calorie burn of approx 150 calories. Increasing your speed to 4mph will double the calorie burn.

Another good way is to choose a route will some hills so you get a mixture of terrains. This works the muscles in your thighs and buttocks in various ways. For example, walking uphill works the front of your thighs and buttocks, but walking downhill works the back of your thigh and the muscles at the front in a negative phase (know as eccentrically).

Hill walking has huge benefits as it’s physically more demanding than walking on the flat. Research suggests that most walkers that do more than 30 minutes a day stay within a healthy weight range. It can be very useful to use poles when walking uphill as often this type of terrain is followed by a decent. Non-experienced hill walkers may find using poles helpful as it reduces any extra pressure going through the knee.

Good walking footwear is highly recommended as blisters and sore feet are very unpleasant when walking any distance.

Countryside terrain can be quite rocky and uneven so being aware of moving rubble under your feet and hidden dips in grassy areas. If you can follow a footpath that is clearer to see where you’re stepping, you’ll reduce the risk of Spains to the ankle and twists your knees. It’s worth checking your route ahead of time and the weather so you can be as prepared as possible.

Walking on the Beach

When walking by the sea, try taking off your shoes and going barefoot. The wet sand will act as a pavement so try the softer dry sand to burn 20-50 percent more calories. The ligaments and muscles around your ankle work harder to stabilise your foot, yet the natural cushioning from the sand lows the risk of injury or trauma.

You can make your beach walk more enjoyable by walking through the sea at calf deep. This will add more resistance to your natural walking pace working your thighs, bottom and core muscles more. The faster you wade through the sea the more your muscles work.

You could make it really fun by trying to create as many ripples as possible when you stride. Often being surrounded by the natural elements boosts your serotonin (happy hormone) giving you an instant mood boost.

Walking slowly through sand requires 2 times more energy. It’s worth taking long steady strides to let the muscles and ligaments do their job of stabilising and adjusting during the movement. Try to let the foot relax as your walk so the muscles under your foot aren’t to tense, they should naturally contract and soften as you stride along.

If you’re doing longer distances it may be worth wearing soft beach shoes. Remember, like any walking, the muscles in your legs are going to be working, and as sand walking burns more calories, protecting yourself from overuse injury is really important.

Walking With Children

The best way to power up the calories when walking with the kids is to create games and be adventurous. You could use trees as markers to increase and decrease the pace. Quite often kids are full of energy so you could get them to run to a tree and then balance on one leg until you catch up.

One of my favourites is the hero carry. Piggy back your child for 30 seconds then, walk brisk for 30 seconds then slow down for 30 seconds. Repeat as many times as you like taking it in turn with the children!

Making walking fun for children is as simple as turning it into an adventure. Children have such amazing creative minds and your journey can be part of the adventure. You could go on a bear hunt, pretend you are looking for treasure, or take it in turns to add onto the story.

Making the experience positive for everyone triggers a reward response from your brain that remembers the walk as being fun and enjoyable. You are far more likely to go out and repeat it over and over again.