Vary your Walking

How you walk

Vary the Pace of your Walking.  Walk at a pace that is faster than your usual. A great way to introduce this into your walking is try and walk faster for a sustained length of time. And then work to progressively increase this time of faster walking.

An example. You are walking for 30 minutes. Within your 30 minutes you are going to increase your pace for a 10 minute period and then try to gradually lengthen this period of faster walking.

Alternatively you can do interval walking: Incorporate short bursts of faster walking. For example walk faster for a period of 1 munite and walk for at your normal pace for a period ot time then repeat the fast walking interval. Continue this throughout the walk. Make sure you have a warm up and warm down perios of your normal walking pace. 

Vary the length of the Walk: Occasionally go for longer walks, such as a leisurely hike or exploring a new area. Try and add in a  regular longer walk …can you do a longer walk every week, fortnight or month. Set a goal for a longer walk that will fit your schedule and capability

Vary where you walk.  Incorporating different terrains into your walking can offer different benefits. Have some walks that are flat and where speed is the essence. Also have walks with inclines and declines going up and down hills.

Vary your walking action.  You can vary your walking action to make it more intense. Increase the speed of your arm swing to what is refered to as power walking

Beware of your walking action: Mindful walking or Chi Walking. is simply about walking well. You may not give much thought to you walking but walking well is important to consider and it is not as easy as you think. We need good muscles stength, flexibility, balance and co-ordination to walk well.

How often you walk

We love walking as it is so easy to incorporate into our lives. Considering and discovering how you can incorporate more walking into your lifestyle will help you acheive more regular walking.

Here are some ideas to make walking a part of your lifestyle.

• Rather than catching up for a coffee how about a walking catch up. We often find that we are involved in a number of meeting,,,,could the meeting be successful as a walking meeting.
• Walk for transport. Could you walk to work or an activity. If the distance is to far could you park some distance from your destinaton and walk the rest of the way. Using public transport instead of your own vehicle will require some degree oof transportation.
• Joining others to walk in a walking group can help your motivationa and enjoyment. 

Last words…

You have discovered that there are lots of ways to vary and challenge your walking. Remember as with any change to our movement and activity we need to gradually make change so we can give our bodies time to adapt to the change. Don;t try everything at once. Intermittently try some ways to vary your walking…and add them into your walking schedule to keep it fun and interesting.

LIveLife Move designs Movement Clothing to support you to be comfortable and confident in your walking  see Movement Clothing for Walking