Why You Should Go For a Walk More Often

For my personal training clients I often include walks in their training calendar for the days in between training sessions. I also encourage them to go for a walk on the training days. There are a few benefits to a walk that you might not even have thought of.

Walking Is Better Than Sitting

You most likely have heard the phrase lately: “Sitting is the new Smoking”. I do not like to put it that harsh, but I do share the opinion that many people sit too much and too long than is good for them. Sitting often and for long periods has a negative effect on your natural flexibility and range of movement. A good example to demonstrate this is to see how flexible a young child is in comparison to you. Our son, for example, is able to reach his face with his feet or squat extremely deep and sit comfortably with proper form. I have trouble squatting that deep with good form. At my lowest point it also is far from comfortable. I do not try to reach my face with my feet that often, I have to admit… I just know that I am not flexible enough to manage. Our years of sitting have their influence like that.

Walking Will Take You Outside

Since most people will live in modest houses/apartments, you will go outside to have a walk. A walk that will take you outside, will give some time out of buildings and artificial light. Even when you would go for a walk in a city, this is an improvement of your surroundings. On top of it you likely with catch some sunrays and work on your natural Vitamin D levels.

It would even be better to go for a walk in the nature: a park, a forest, the beach or anything like that. I know it is not always possible, but if you can you should try to go there.

Walking Will Make You Notice More

I do not know if you ever walked a route that you normally travel by car, but you are able to notice and take in more information when you are walking. The speed with which you pass everything makes quite the difference. This reduced speed is also likely to have a relaxing effect. On top of it, you can reach places on foot that you cannot reach otherwise.

A Walk is a Good Moment to Unwind and Think

A lot of circumstances or locations give and have many distractions. When you go for a walk in nature, you have less of those distractions and you can leave the stress from work or home behind you for a bit. It also will give you a chance to think about anything that has been bothering you. A walk is an unforced way to reduce your stress levels (also read: “Don’t Forget to Enjoy and Relax”).

Walking Helps You to Recover

Lastly, a walk will assist your recovery from training. A walk is a low impact and low intensity movement that will get your blood flowing. The increased blood flow without the impact and high intensity will help your body to recover from exercising. As a bonus, you will burn (a few) extra calories. This can come in handy if you are trying to keep a calorie deficit (read: you want to lose fat).

What to Do Now

So these were a few benefits of a simple walk. Most people can already benefit from going for a walk every day, but it will also benefit your recovery when you are following a training program already.

If this information raised your interest in what Continuous Improvement Fitness could mean for you, feel free to get in touch to learn what would be possible for you.

Start now, not tomorrow!