Weekend Walking Challenge

There are so many benefits that walking offers, especially at the moment with the risk of COVID so we thought we would add a little competitiveness to encourage you along..... 😀

Walking is simple, free and one of the easiest ways to get more active, lose weight and become healthier.

Sometimes overlooked as a form of exercise, walking briskly can help you build stamina, burn excess calories and make your heart healthier. You don’t have to walk for hours either, a brisk 10-minute daily walk has lots of health benefits and counts towards your recommended 150 minutes of weekly exercise.

To gain the most from your walk, you should be aiming to maintain a pace which allows you to hold a conversation but a bit too quick to allow you to sing. Next time you’re out walking somewhere, give it a try - belt out a couple of verses of your favourite song and see if you are gasping for air between each line. You may think you look a bit crazy, but don’t worry - it’s all in the name of fitness so it’s fine 👍

Benefits of walking

Walking improves fitness, cardiac health, alleviates depression and fatigue, improves mood, creates less stress on joints and reduces pain, can prevent weight gain, reduce risk for cancer and chronic disease, improve endurance, circulation, and posture, and the list goes on…

When comparing the results of the most recent National Runners’ Health Study with the National Walkers’ Health Study, researchers found that the energy used for moderate-intensity walking and vigorous-intensity running resulted in similar reductions in risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease over the study’s six year period.

The Challenge.... 😀

So, have we convinced you yet? Walking is a great pastime, whether you’re walking to work, walking your dog or walking for the exercise and fresh air. It’s simple, requires no specialist equipment and can be done virtually anywhere.

What we want you to do for this weekends Challenge is this:-

1. Find a route close to your home which measures a mile. Use this link to plot your route online to make it easier, it’s a great little free App.

2. Walk the route at a casual pace you would normally walk at and time yourself

3. Walk the route again (maybe in the opposite direction to keep it all new and exciting) and try to reduce your time by 20%

As an example, this route around the small side of Abington Park starting and finishing at our meeting point for Get Fit Today is 1 mile. If you were to walk this at a comfortable pace, it might take you 18 minutes (Average walking speed is 3-4 miles an hour).

Your challenge is to then walk it again but finish it in 14 minutes instead (approx 20% quicker)

Can you do it? Part 2 of the challenge is to see exactly how quick you can walk it? If you would like some guidance on how to improve your walking speed, have a look here 😀

To give you an idea of how you’re doing, here is a chart to compare yourself against. Let us know your 1-mile time and where you walked, we’d love to know. Don’t forget, we can still exercise with one other person so get together with another Get Fit Today member and go for a walk this weekend! 👍

Enjoy 😀🚶🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️