As a species, walking is what we do best. In fact, it’s probably how your ancestors got from Africa to where they eventually settled.¹ The standardized movement guidelines of thirty minutes per day are based on the dramatic benefits that walking can have on your health, yet nobody seems to do it.¹⁸ For the average time-poor person, the fundamental movement pattern of walking is frequently shunned in favor of more intense forms of exercise. However, the beneficial effects of walking on health are multiple and far-reaching.

This is the second of my articles detailing why The Great Upside-Down Movement Pyramid can be your one-stop framework for lifelong health. In this piece, I’ll cover why now that you’re sitting less, you should start walking more.

Calming the Fires

Modern-day living doesn’t seem to be geared towards providing optimal health. The combination of the daily grind, the food we eat, and our need to stay in one place to work all day have all been linked to increased inflammation, and through that, the rising rates of cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.^5–8 Sadly, we can’t all change our jobs and live off the land. Instead of resorting to pills and antioxidant concoctions that may undo some of your good work, starting to move more by increasing walking is the best step towards reversing some of those issues.^9,10

“Aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, also increases your ability to handle oxidative damage.This makes movement both an anti-inflammatory, and an antioxidant.”

When we move our muscles, signaling molecules (often referred to as myokines) are released. Though many of these myokines can also be associated with an inflammatory response, when stimulated by exercise, they actually decrease inflammation.¹¹ This is one of the main reasons why regular walking can dramatically reduce the risk of metabolic diseases, as well as certain cancers, and even erectile dysfunction.^13–17 Aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, also increases your ability to handle oxidative damage.¹² This makes movement both an anti-inflammatory, and an antioxidant. And all without a single pill in sight.

Losers Walk

Though many people still rely on counting calories as their guide to fat loss, there isn’t as much evidence to support this idea as we’re led to believe. Not all calories are created equal, and simply inducing a calorie deficit by increasing exercise alone does not induce long-term weight loss.^2,3 Fear not, though. The upside of this complex equation is that some activities that don’t “burn” many calories can still help with weight management (if you’re into that kind of thing). Instead of worrying about starving yourself thin, you can produce significant fat loss by spending less time sitting and more time walking.⁴ No gym membership or Weight Watchers* required.

*Other starvation programs with minimal scientific backing are also available.

Every Little Helps

As I’ve previously mentioned, killing yourself on the treadmill isn’t enough to compensate for the negative effects that a sedentary lifestyle can have on your life expectancy. This means that movement needs to be built into your day, and the best way to do this is to walk more. For most of us, this can begin with walking to work.¹⁹ Use public transport? Get off a stop or two earlier. Drive to work? Use a park and ride, and walk the last ten to twenty minutes. Worried about being late for work? Perfect – a brisk pace is associated with even greater benefits.²⁰

To build on this, there are a number of other ways to add walking into your day:

• Break it up: Walk while you take a phone call at work, or pop out for few minutes between meetings. Accumulating walking time in segments of just two or three minutes is enough to improve metabolism.^21,22
• Lunch with friends: Even the shortest lunch break is enough time to get some walking done. And why not drag your co-workers with you, for a more relaxed and more productive workplace?^24,25
• Move around meals: Evening meal times are another great opportunity to walk. Do a quick lap while dinner finishes in the oven. Even better, take a stroll after you’ve finished eating.^22,26 Your online dating profile says you like long romantic walks in the sunset, but when was the last time you actually took one?

Most importantly, all this walking adds up. Multiple ten-minute walks may even be better than one long one.^23,29 This means that ten minutes to/from work, ten minutes at lunch, and ten minutes after dinner is a fantastic start.

Pro Tips

If you’re the kind of person whoneeds a firm plan before going walking, you might have two questions left – where should I walk, and how fast should I walk?

• Take it outside: Most of the studies examining the effects of walking on health use a treadmill in a sports science laboratory, or give people pedometers to track their steps without specifically examining where they’re doing the walking. This suggests that you can walk pretty much anywhere to see most of the health improvements. However, studies have found greater psychological benefits of walking outdoors in green areas compared to walking indoors or in the city.³⁰ Most importantly, finding the environment that you enjoy the most, be it the beach, a river, forest, or park, is likely to give you the greatest benefit of all.³¹
• Outpace death: I know what you’ve been wondering all along. How fast do you have to move to beat the grim reaper? Luckily, science has the answer, and it appears to be three miles per hour.²⁷ Other studies suggest that eighty percent of your maximal walking speed is the most efficient and sustainable pace.²⁸ If you want to estimate these speeds, try one of the following:

• Use a map or online pedometer to measure a nearby half-mile loop. Aim to complete it in ten minutes (three miles per hour).
• Find a short stretch where you can walk as quickly as possible for twenty seconds. For a speed that is eighty percent of maximum, cover the same distance in 25 seconds.

Bear in mind that the key is to get moving and build habits rather than hit a specific speed. Take the time to walk, and enjoy it. As we all know, faster isn’t always better.

Summary

Skipped to the end? Here’s what you need to know:

• After sitting less, start walking more
• Accumulate at least thirty minutes per day
• Aim for eighty percent of your maximum walking speed, or at least three miles per hour. Alternatively, just walk as if you’re late for work.
• For maximal benefits, find your favorite local outdoor spot, and take some friends with you.

More Like This:

• A Simple System for Staying Healthy and Active to the Very End
• Move Slowly if You Must, but Move
• Walking: The Most Underrated Movement of the 21st Century
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Klein. “Out of Africa and the evolution of human behavior.” Evol. Anthropol. 2008 17: 267–281.

2. Feinman and Fine. “Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and energy efficiency in weight loss diets.” Theor Biol Med Model. 2007 Jul 30;4:27.

3. Franz et al. “Weight-loss outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of weight-loss clinical trials with a minimum 1-year follow-up. J Am Diet Assoc. 2007 Oct;107(10):1755-67.

4.Healy et al. “Replacing sitting time with standing or stepping: associations with cardio-metabolic risk biomarkers.” Eur Heart J. 2015 Jul 30. [Epub ahead of print]

5.Emeny et al. “Job strain-associated inflammatory burden and long-term risk of coronary events: findings from the MONICA/KORA Augsburg case-cohort study.” Psychosom Med. 2013 Apr;75(3):317-25.

6. Bosma-den Boer et al.. “Chronic inflammatory diseases are stimulated by current lifestyle: how diet, stress levels and medication prevent our body from recovering.” Nutr Metab (Lond). 2012 Apr 17;9(1):32.

7. Mathews et al.. “How do high glycemic load diets influence coronary heart disease?” Nutr Metab (Lond). 2015 Mar 8;12:6.

8. Tommy Wood, Move It Or Lose It: How to Sit Less, Move More, and Feel Better, Breaking Muscle UK, 2015.

9. Ristow et al.. “Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 May 26;106(21):8665-70.

10. Craig Marker, Do Antioxidants Impede the Benefits of Exercise? Breaking Muscle, 2015.

11. Pedersen. “The anti-inflammatory effect of exercise: its role in diabetes and cardiovascular disease control.” Essays Biochem. 2006;42:105-17.

12. Gomez-Cabrera et al.. “Moderate exercise is an antioxidant: upregulation of antioxidant genes by training.” Free Radic Biol Med. 2008 Jan 15;44(2):126-31.

13.Roussel et al.. Influence of a walking program on the metabolic risk profile of obese postmenopausal women. Menopause. 2009 May-Jun;16(3):566-75.

14. Buman et al.. Reallocating time to sleep, sedentary behaviors, or active behaviors: associations with cardiovascular disease risk biomarkers, NHANES 2005-2006. Am J Epidemiol. 2014 Feb 1;179(3):323-34.

15. Wolin et al.. Physical activity and colon cancer prevention: a meta-analysis. Br J Cancer. 2009 Feb 24;100(4):611-6.

16. Hildebrand et al.. “Recreational physical activity and leisure-time sitting in relation to postmenopausal breast cancer risk.” Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2013 Oct;22(10):1906-12.

17. Bacon et al.. “Sexual function in men older than 50 years of age: results from the health professionals follow-up study.” Ann Intern Med. 2003 Aug 5;139(3):161-8.

18. Boone-Heinonen et al.. “Walking for prevention of cardiovascular disease in men and women: a systematic review of observational studies.” Obes Rev. 2009 Mar;10(2):204-17.

19. Laverty et al.. “Active travel to work and cardiovascular risk factors in the United Kingdom.” Am J Prev Med. 2013 Sep;45(3):282-8.

20. Hu et al.. “Walking compared with vigorous physical activity and risk of type 2 diabetes in women: a prospective study.” JAMA. 1999 Oct 20;282(15):1433-9.

21. Latouche et al.. “Effects of breaking up prolonged sitting on skeletal muscle gene expression.” J Appl Physiol (1985). 2013 Feb 15;114(4):453-60.

22. Miyashita et al.. “Accumulating short bouts of brisk walking reduces postprandial plasma triacylglycerol concentrations and resting blood pressure in healthy young men.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Nov;88(5):1225-31.

23. Park et al.. “Accumulation of physical activity leads to a greater blood pressure reduction than a single continuous session, in prehypertension.” J Hypertens. 2006 Sep;24(9):1761-70.

24. Puig-Ribera et al.. “Self-reported sitting time and physical activity: interactive associations with mental well-being and productivity in office employees.” BMC Public Health. 2015 Jan 31;15:72.

25. Thøgersen-Ntoumani et al.. “Changes in work affect in response to lunchtime walking in previously physically inactive employees: A randomized trial.” Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2015 Jan 6. [Epub ahead of print]

26. Manohar et al.. The effect of walking on postprandial glycemic excursion in patients with type 1 diabetes and healthy people. Diabetes Care. 2012 Dec;35(12):2493-9.

27. Stanaway et al.. “How fast does the Grim Reaper walk? Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis in healthy men aged 70 and over.” BMJ. 2011 Dec 15;343:d7679.

28. Schwarz et al.. “Cardiocirculatory and metabolic responses at different walking intensities.” Br J Sports Med. 2006 Jan;40(1):64-7.

29. Holmstrup et al.. “Multiple short bouts of exercise over 12-h period reduce glucose excursions more than an energy-matched single bout of exercise.” Metabolism. 2014 Apr;63(4):510-9.

30. Marselle et al.. “Walking for well-being: are group walks in certain types of natural environments better for well-being than group walks in urban environments?” Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2013 Oct 29;10(11):5603-28.

31. Marselle et al.. “Moving beyond green: exploring the relationship of environment type and indicators of perceived environmental quality on emotional well-being following group walks.” Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014 Dec 23;12(1):106-30.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Penn’s style is how I approach my study of many of the fundamental skills of MovNat, including walking. The following four ways are how I make walking more interesting.

Each step is an opportunity to refine your walking skill. [Photo Credit: Pixabay]

Take the Most Difficult Path

I live in a major metropolitan area with a lot of flat sidewalks, level ground, and symmetrical surfaces. It’s not the most nutritionally varied environment for my joints. You can walk for miles and miles in a straight line punctuated only by traffic lights.

To add complexity, I look for the most asymmetrical path. I walk down streets with busted up sidewalks, along sidewalk cracks (for all the moms who will suffer broken backs from this article, I’m deeply sorry), on cobblestones, or in a path that forces me to navigate targets like dodging stop signs, bus stops, outdoor store signs, or trash cans. My goal is to create variety in how I use my joints and give my brain problems to solve.

You can apply this technique anywhere – walking through the city, a parking lot at the grocery store, or in a public park. When you seek obstacles and challenges and stray off the beaten path, you can also integrate other MovNat skills into your walk like vaulting, carrying, and climbing.

Walk Fast Through a Crowd

The good thing about living in the city is there are a lot of people. The bad thing about living in the city is there are a lot of people.

I eat lunch at an indoor market a couple times a week and it’s almost always packed with people moving (or not moving) at various speeds in various directions. I used to get frustrated navigating through the throngs of oblivious gawkers, unexpectedly standing still and blocking whole avenues for what seemed like an eternity. Then I figured out how to use them for practice.

I walk as fast as I can through the crowd. My two rules are to maintain as much speed as possible without crashing into people, and to move continuously. You will learn how to read the body cues of those around you to quickly change direction or dodge limbs as people abruptly move about. You have to be mentally aware to anticipate and react quickly. Your eyes scan, focus, and absorb information centrally as well as peripherally.

The challenge grows if you are carrying something because you not only have to navigate people, but you also have to make sure you don’t lose what you are carrying. This is a big reason why I almost always have coffee stains on my pants.

On a technical level, you quickly notice the need for a variety of unusual footwork patterns including pivots, shuffles, skips, and side steps. The trick is to move efficiently and quickly through the crowd without looking like a weirdo river dancer.

Play With Body Mechanic Variables

Walking is a great time to explore different body mechanics by exaggerating and hyper-focusing on different parts of the movement: the pendulum-like qualities of the arms and legs, the subtle shifts of head position, the light twisting of the torso, stride length, the rebound as you quickly change direction, the stretch and release of the muscles as you make larger movements, or the compression and extension of the joints as your weight shifts. The opportunities to explore each element are endless.

Besides the actual mechanics of walking, you can explore the sequence of movements like rhythm, breaking, pace, and timing. Which parts move first and power the other parts in what order? What is the rhythm of that movement? What happens if you do things in a different sequence?

Mimicry

Tied in with feeling and studying your own mechanics and rhythm is mimicking how other people walk. Without being too much of a creep, you can mimic the arm swing, stride length, or degree of foot turnout of people walking around you to compare and contrast what their movement flavor is like versus yours. Mimicry can offer great insight into your own body, but you can also weird people out, so be subtle and respectful if you play with this one.

Step By Step

Walking is so basic that it’s often overlooked as something to be practiced and developed, but it doesn’t have to be. You can walk for distance and time but don’t forget complexity. For many people, taking long walks can get boring, so take the mundane and do something interesting with it.

By challenging your walking patterns, you not only develop a more versatile skill, but you also develop the sub and auxiliary skills which are related to walking practice. The examples above are only a small sample of what is possible. I use walking to practice all kinds of odd stuff. Some practical and some purely exploratory. Some just plain weird. All interesting and fun.

With all of this walking, are you taking care of your feet?

Unlock Power and Performance With a Golf Ball

The post The Skill of Walking appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

That’s the biggest question I get when counseling younger coaches. I always have to explain to them that making mistakes is part of the learning process. Repeating them is the problem. The mistakes I have made have helped me become the coach I am today. Through that evolution and experience, my thoughts on strength training have changed quite drastically.

What I now see as strength was inspired by the old idea of physical culture. The original idea of exercise was never solely a venture of the physical, but the whole person. The real purpose of strength training was to help people become better humans.

What Is Functional Training, Really?

At every program I teach, I ask our class, “Do you believe in functional training?” Almost everyone nods or raises their hands. But when I ask them to define functional training, I mostly get puzzled looks. After some prodding, I’ll get answers like, “It makes people better in their lives.”

Who could argue with such an answer? But it’s actually pretty vague. That philosophical manner of approaching a training methodology leaves us with no clear vision of functional training. That’s because we often forget what makes us human. Yes, people will tell us we squat, we hinge, we push, we pull, but such a list of general movements is almost as vague as the term “functional training” itself.

The Most Functional Movement of All

Next, I ask our classes to think about the most common movement they all perform. I get answers like squats and deadlifts. But really, how much do you do that during the course of a day?

The answer I am looking for is walking.

Did you have that hit-the-forehead moment? Me too. If we look at walking, we have elements of many different movement patterns that most would mention as part of a training program. I bring up walking because most of our real human activities are not a singular motion that we would find in the gym, but a combination of many movement patterns. 

I know, walking is simple, but a swing or snatch is complex, right? Everyone can walk, not everyone can do a Turkish get up. But not everyone walks well. To put things in perspective, the snatch is considered one of the most complex lifting exercises, and has five phases. Yet most experts will tell you there are 6-8 phases that constitute the act of walking.

What we consider the simple act of walking requires stabilization in all three planes of motions at once, as well as single leg transition and reciprocal arm swing (each arm swings with the opposite leg). Walking requires us not only to push down into the ground, but also to project our bodies forward.

Drills for Better Human Movement

The movement progressions in the video below do not just make you stronger in the gym, but help you toward the goal of becoming better moving humans. For this video, we are going to look at the hip hinge and lunge, two powerful movements that have strong correlations to the complex and fundamental concepts of walking, sprinting, and jumping.

The Next Evolution of Your Training

How does this apply to your strength training? We live in a value system where heavier weight is always considered better, and forget what more complex movements can do for our bodies.

But lifting more for the sake of lifting more doesn’t do us any good unless it increases our capability. Dr. David Frost, a researcher at the University of Toronto, came up with a great philosophy at the NSCA TSAC conference: “Keep the standard, change the condition.” He proposes that the goal of training is to learn how to perform the standard of a movement pattern. Once the movement pattern is established, the goal becomes to challenge our ability to maintain the movement pattern under a variety of conditions.

You may recognize many concepts here, like load, speed, and range of motion. Other concepts may be less familiar, like load position, body position, and plane of motion. These variables allow us to create drills that challenge normal training conditions, and improve the qualities that make up our fundamental human movements.

More Ways to Move Better:

• Your Movement Needs an Upgrade: How to Reboot Your System
• Loaded Carries: The Ultimate Functional Exercise
• Build Bulletproof Strength: Rotational Exercises for Athletes
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Teaser photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Complex Drills for Better Human Movement appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Because this is a topic I could talk about for days, I’m going to break it down into two parts so I don’t get going on an epic journey and lose you halfway through. So, for now, grab a coffee and enjoy part one of Impact Forces, Shoes, and Lower Leg Injuries. And don’t worry – part two will go into specific injuries and what you can do about them.

Let’s Talk Impact Forces

Put simply, impact forces refers to the force that is absorbed from striking the ground. To put it in context, when you walk and strike the ground, you are creating an impact force of one to 1.5 times your body weight. Running increases this to three to four times body weight, doing anything ballistic up to ten times, and tumbling in gymnastics can create impact forces up to eighteen times your body weight, all of which are happening very quickly.

You can see from these numbers that to perform these activities we must be able to withstand a huge amount of force going through our body over a short period of time and on a continuous basis. When we are completely dissociated from the ground and/or when we are not in control of how these impact forces are absorbed by our body, impact injuries of the lower leg occur.

“You need impact. It gives you energy to move. In fact, without impact you would have to work a whole lot harder.”

Did you know some people get stress fractures simply from walking to work? They are so deconditioned and so dissociated from the ground that they can’t even handle the impact forces of walking. And this is not abnormal. This is becoming common. In fact, as a physical therapist I see this as well as a number of similar injuries that are entirely preventable, like shin splints, Achilles tendonitis, and plantar fasciitis.

When it comes to the lower leg, what is imperative for injury prevention is that you can anticipate the ground and therefore anticipate the impact forces so you can store and use them as elastic energy with minimal loss. The problem is that most people simply react to these forces. You’ll see later why this is a problem.

Impact Is Not a Bad Thing

A lot of people believe they need to minimize impact in order to prevent injury. Add some cushion to your shoes, and that will take away the impact and prevent injury, right? This is actually flawed thinking. You need impact. It gives you energy to move. In fact, without impact you would have to work a whole lot harder. When your body perceives impact, it damps (receives) the impact in such a way that it stores it as potential energy to be used later. This means your body has to work less due to all this energy, which essentially cost you nothing.

So, know that impact isn’t a bad thing. It is an inevitable and useful thing. You just need to be ready for it.

What Happens When Your Heel Strikes the Ground

A couple of things happen very quickly when it comes to your foot absorbing impact:

1. You perceive the forces through vibration (impact forces are vibration). You detect this through the many small proprioceptive nerves on the skin on the sole of your foot (something to think about for later: shoes get in the way of this).
2. You damp (receive) the vibrations. Many people believe this is done through eccentric muscle contraction, but the truth is that from the knee down (where most impact injuries occur) this happens through isometric contractions. Now, in order to make clear how this happens, I need to back up a bit and explain some anatomy and physiology.

In our lower limbs, our muscles are housed in a compartment that is created by the thick fascia that surrounds them. When muscles isometrically contract, this creates pressure that causes the pressure of the entire compartment to increase. We want this. This creates stiffness in the muscles, and turns the compartment into a sort of splint.

“To successfully deal with impact forces, you must anticipate them – not simply react to them.”

This “splint” accomplishes two things. It makes it so the vibrations cannot go through and provides support to the bone. Both of these things are crucial, because without the body’s ability to do this the vibrations would be transferred from the soft tissue that are meant to anticipate them into our bone, and we most definitely do not want that. If this happens and if the bone is inadequately splinted, it will bend slightly and this is what leads to injuries such as shin splints.

To successfully deal with impact forces, you must anticipate them – not simply react to them. To efficiently dampen vibration, you utilize your fast twitch muscle fibers. The challenge is that impact forces peak at under 50ms after first contact, while fast twitch muscle fibres don’t peak until 70ms. This is why you must anticipate, not react, so you have enough time to efficiently and effectively damp the vibrations.

Store and Use Energy

Once damped, the impact forces are then stored as potential energy in your connective tissue, in the contractile units of your fascia. The potential energy is used as elastic energy. For this to be efficient, you need to be stiff before heel strike (remember what we talked about regarding compartment pressure). If muscle contraction is not happening in time, stiffness will be low and energy will be leaked.

Going back to shin splints, consider that they often happen when a runner is fatigued. That is because when fatigued the muscles aren’t contracting fast enough or high enough causing low stiffness and compartment pressure that isn’t peaking in time to deal with the impact forces of running.

To understand how this potential energy is then used to your advantage, think about walking. Once you hit your mid-stance, your Achilles and plantar fascia are stretched like rubber bands, and then they recoil. This recoil is when we convert potential energy to energy we can use. The recoil releases stored energy that adds force to your muscles that doesn’t require much work from you.

How Does Footwear Fit In?

Remember how I talked about the importance of creating pressure within the compartment to keep vibrations from moving on or from going in to the bones? Well, you actually have four compartments in your lower leg and nine in your foot.

If you wear shoes or orthotics what happens is this – the muscles in your feet get weak, lazy, and atrophy. This means your shoe damn well better be taking in and damping the vibrations for you because your body no longer has any idea how to do it. And if your shoes aren’t doing this, then look out because you’re an injury waiting to happen.

“If you wear shoes or orthotics what happens is this – the muscles in your feet get weak, lazy, and atrophy.”

Now, it would be inconceivable to expect people to never wear shoes, but you absolutely need to do some barefoot training. This will help to not only strengthen your feet, but to also train them to build compartment pressure.

Coming Up

I mentioned that I could talk for days on this, so I will leave you with this: letting the muscles of your feet get weak, atrophied, and lazy will lead to a lower limb injury. I can guarantee it. Weak, lazy feet mean you cannot properly perceive, damp, or store vibration, nor can you then use that potential energy. This can lead to lower limb injuries including shin splints, Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and stress fractures.

In part two, I will break down each of the injuries mentioned above and help you develop a plan to prevent them from happening.

More like this:

• The Simple Path to Minimalist Running
• Minimalist Training 2.0: The How and Why
• A 12-Step Plan for Transitioning to Minimalist Running Shoes
• New On Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Dr. Emily Splichal. The Art of Movement Efficiency. Perform Better Functional Training Summit. Perform Better. Providence, Rhode Island, US. July 19, 2015.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Impact Forces, Shoes, and Lower Leg Injuries: Part 1 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

-William Henry Davies

Originally I titled this article “Walking: The Most Underrated Exercise of the 21st Century,” but I changed my mind. True, doctors may prescribe walking as ‘exercise’ and there are many walking programs out there. But as Thoreau wrote in his essay “Walking” – his most-read lecture, in fact – walking is different:

…the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours – as the Swinging of dumbbells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man’s swinging dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!

That’s what I’m talking about. It strikes me that we don’t really do it anymore.

In a paper entitled “Achieving Hunter-gatherer Fitness in the 21st Century: Back to the Future,” Loren Cordain and associates examine the daily activities of hunter-gatherer tribes. Here are a few of the findings that illustrate the stark contrast between our modern walking habits and those of our ancestors:

• “A large amount of background daily light-to-moderate activity such as walking was required. Although the distances covered would have varied widely, most estimates indicate average daily distances covered were in the range of 6 to 16 km (approximately 3.7 – 9 miles).”

• “Women, usually in groups, spent hours walking to and from sources of food, water, and wood. Additionally, these forager women were often carrying their children for extended distances as well. Anthropologists have estimated that the typical hunter-gatherer mother carried her child until about age 4 years, covering upwards of 4,800 km with the child in her arms over this period of time.”

Let’s contrast this with the typical American. In 2003 a study of over a thousand Americans measured how much the average adult walks over a 24-hour period. The study found that the average number of daily steps was 5,340 for men and 4,793 for women. The technical definition of ‘sedentary’ is less than 5,000 steps per day. Compare that to the Australians, who walk a near-ideal average of 9,695 steps per day, or to the Amish farming communities, where the average number of steps is 18,000 for men and 14,000 for women.

The fact that walking has gone from a basic human movement we perform to get to point A to point B to a form of exercise suggests that it is, in fact, being “engineered out of existence,” as described in Tom Vanderbilt’s fascinating article, “The Crisis in American Walking.” In the meantime, there’s no doubt that some of the more pressing health concerns of modern times are related to the sedentary lifestyle. Here are just a few of the studies I found supporting the health benefits of frequent walking:

• In a 2003 metanalysis of 24 randomised controlled trials of walking tests, “Random effects modelling showed that walking interventions increased VO2 max and decreased body weight, BMI, percent body fat and resting diastolic blood pressure in previously sedentary adults (p < 0.05 for all).”

• A 2006 analysis of subjective symptoms related to mood and nervous function found that “daily walking can improve mood states and shift autonomic balance to parasympathetic predominance, and may consequently contribute to the reduction of subjective symptoms.”

• A 2007 study found that regular brisk walks lowered the risk of type 2 diabetes. For patients who already have type 2 diabetes, a 2005 study found that regular walks has significant long-term benefits.

These studies have led doctors to prescribe walking for individuals with certain health issues. As a personal trainer working with pregnant women, I always advise daily walking, just as much as I recommend strength training, swimming, or any other exercise commonly promoted during pregnancy. But I have to say, every time I make that recommendation, and every time I talk myself into taking a walk, I realize how absurd the whole thing is. Vanderbilt expresses this perfectly:

…the idea that that we, this species that first hoisted itself into the world of bipedalism nearly 4 million years ago – for reasons that are still debated – should now need “walking tips,” have to make “walking plans” or use a “mobile app” to “discover” walking trails near us or build our “walking histories,” strikes me as a world-historical tragedy.

Just go outside and walk every day. It’s that simple. Don’t time yourself, don’t count your steps, don’t monitor your heart rate – just meander, or ‘saunter,’ as Thoreau liked to call it. But be warned: you may find “there comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.”

References

1. D. Bassett, et al. Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults. Medicine & Science in Sports Exercise, 42.10

2. M. Murphy, et. al. The effect of walking on fitness, fatness and resting blood pressure: A meta-analysis of randomised, controlled trials. Preventive Medicine, 44.5

3. S. Sakuragi and Y. Sugiyama. Effects of Daily Walking on Subjective Symptoms, Mood and Autonomic Nervous Function. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 25.4

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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