SoWell Editor: Emma Rice To amp up the calorie burn, fitness expert at Curves, Joanna Dase, has shared her 7 smart strategies to maximise your walks. To benefit from a walking routine, you need to maintain it frequently and continually find new ways to challenge yourself. During the pandemic you might’ve adopted a new love for walking. Daily strolls have been the escape for many over the past year and a half, but could you be burning more calories when you walk? The number of calories you burn depends on speed, distance, weight, and the area you’re walking on such as hills or flat surfaces. Walking is a great low impact way to keep your body moving and can aid weight loss for those who can’t tolerate vigorous workouts. You can turn a casual wander into a fitness challenge by factors such as having the correct posture and bracing your core. 1. Brace your core When you’re walking, engage your muscles by bracing your abdominals and keeping your arms swinging. Mirror the actions you would do on a cross trainer to create an energetic rhythm. By bracing your core, you will burn more calories as the action increases your heart rate by around five beats per minute. 2. Choose a hilly route To make a change from ground level, walk uphill. Find a route which includes a higher elevation, this will increase the resistance and challenges your cardiovascular system. Whilst downhill might feel like an easy task, it does provide your body with benefits. Downhill walking trains your body in deceleration and makes use of different muscles and joints. As people age, downhill walking is important to maintain as it can prevent falls. 3. Use your arms Adding arm movements to your walks can increase calorie burn and intensity. Swing your arms in an exaggerated manner to power walk, the impact will benefit the whole body. For an added push, bend your elbows 90 degrees and pump them as you stride. This helps to speed your pace and burn up to 15% more calories. 4. Use stairs Walking up and down steps provides a challenge compared to walking on flat surfaces. This is because it requires different muscle groups, and ones which you don’t use often. Using the stairs can almost double your calorie burn. If your walk doesn’t include steps, incorporate the use of stairs in your home before you set off, a perfect warm up technique. 5. Correct posture Ensure your body is walking tall and not slouched. The correct posture will help you to avoid post walk aches and injuries. A simple trick is to stand with your heels and head against a wall before you set off and try to maintain that position on your walk. This will engage your core and help boost your metabolism. When you arrive at a crossing, take a deep breath, and stretch your spine to help maintain the correct posture for the duration of the walk. 6. Pick up the pace If you find yourself strolling at the same pace, adding energetic music or walking with a faster paced friend could be the ideal motivator. Matching your steps to a beat of a song will turn your steps short but powerful. Walking faster boosts calorie burn by increasing your heart rate and producing sweat. 7. Integrate intervals Adding intervals will help to power up your workout. Change the intensity by adding a few bursts of faster walking in between a normal pace. After a warmup, complete 40 seconds of fast power walking followed by 2 minutes of normal pace walking. Continue this routine for the duration, adding in arm movements to the power walking when needed.
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