Walking as exercise

Hi Bootcampers

Many of you have enjoyed walking for fitness in the past. Dedicated to your daily routine, you have spent 40 minutes, maybe an hour or walked a steady 5 or 8 kms each day. Day in day out you have been doing the miles. What results did you see?

Has the fat melted off your body? Has your strength and endurance improved? Hmmmm.....

Many of you have asked if walking is part of the Greatest Loser or FitterFaster program. Yes and no. As a tool to improve your fitness levels and increase your metabolism-no not really. Walking may be a great way to fill in time or to catch up with a friend, keep you pet happy or to get from A to B. But as a part of your fitness routine, you could find much better ways to spend your time.

I am not going to tell you to stop walking altogether. If you enjoy it and if it helps you to destress, by all means keep it up. If you enjoy catching up with a friend or friends, please continue to do so. We all need down time. I am going to give you some ideas of ways to improve your walking time though. Why not turn your walks into productive metabolism boosting time?

And remember, if you are a FitterFaster Greatest Loser, walks (even modified as below) do not count towards you 5 weekly sessions for bonus points. Only FitterFaster Home Workouts and FitterFaster Bootcamps count.

ZOOPED UP WALK ONE

Walk for 5-10 minutes to warm up
Sprint-yes sprint for about 30 seconds (or 60-80 steps)
Walk again for 3-5 minutes
Sprint again as above.
Walk again for 3-5 minutes
REPEAT for the duration of your walk or for about 10 sprints.
Make sure that the final 5 minutes or so is walking only.

You may like to time the 30 seconds or just count steps, or run from one corner to the next. Whichever you choose, you should be huffing and puffing at the end of each sprint segment for this to work. Start off with walks of 5 minutes and reduce them to 3 minutes in steps as your fitness improves.

Try this. Don't worry about who is watching. Most people are wishing they could do it too. Believe me! Think about what you thought when you saw someone working out hard before you joined FitterFaster. Did you think they looked silly, or did you wish you could do it?