(Customize your own walking plan with Walk Your Way to Better Health and lose up to 5x more belly fat!) Walking Workout #1Quarter Mile-High Hill Repeats First, find your personal “power walk” pace. A power walk is the fastest pace that you can safely walk without transitioning to a jog. The difference between a walk and a jog is that with a walk, one foot is grounded at all times. With a jog, there is a moment where both feet are airborne, therefore qualifying it as “high impact” exercise. A power walk is low impact, but it’s just on the verge of crossing that line. For most people, their power walk is somewhere between 3.5 and 4.2 miles per hour. Next, set yourself at a base of a 0.25-mile hill that increases in grade (steepness). Since your walk pace will stay the same but the grade of the hill will get increasingly steeper, your cardiac output (heart rate and stroke volume) should spike as you trek up the hill. Gauge your performance by rate of perceived exertion (RPE). Envision a scale from 1-10, where 1 is taking a nap and 10 is running while being chased by an infuriated mother bear. Your RPE should travel from about 4 (start) to 8 (near finish) during your journey to conquer the hill! Give this 15-minute at-home walking workout at home: Here’s what to do: Power walk your way up the hill. For the first ⅓ of your hill trek, aim for a RPE of 4–5 (challenged but comfortable). For the middle portion of your hill trek, aim for a RPE of 6–7 (challenged and uncomfortable). For the final ⅓ portion of your hill trek, aim for a RPE of 8–8.5 (nearly breathless). Take a moment at the top to drink water, high five your friend, and catch your breath. Slowly and carefully let momentum carry you down the hill as you walk back to start. Repeat the hill 4–8 times. Be cognizant to stay steady on your power walk pace all the way to the top of the hill. A song with a great beat helps! Prefer to do this on a treadmill? Toggle your grade from 3.0 to 6.0 to 9.0, maintaining your subjective “power walk” speed. Spend about 2-minutes on each incline. Recover as the treadmill returns down to 3.0 from 9.0. Repeat 4–8 times. MORE:This Is Your Body On Walking Walking Workout #2Funny Walk Workout This walk is designed to not only burn fat and calories, but also to increase mobility and stability. The funny-looking walking series travels the body through all three planes of motion (sagittal, frontal, and transverse planes). Here’s what to do: Perform 1 minute of each walking variation (Groucho, Superman, Frankenstein). Repeat the series a total of 10 times for a 30-minute workout. Groucho Walking6 moves to strengthen them According to Len Kravitz, PhD, program coordinator of exercise science at the University of New Mexico, Groucho walking burns 50% more calories than regular walking. It recruits greater quadriceps and glute strength, and is great for hip and knee mobility. (Have trouble with your knees? Try these .) Standing erect, with feet together, step forward, right-to-left, into “horse riding stance” (knees and hips flexed, knees tracking the same direction as the toes), step forward from there to bring the legs back to extension- to return to standing erect. Repeat, leading left-to-right. Continue to follow this sequence as you travel forward, alternating right-to-left then left-to-right. Traveling Superman Traveling Superman extends through the hips and knees and strengthens the lower back, as well. The lower back is a prime area for osteoporosis to set in, and exercises like Superman are beneficial for maintaining strength and bone density in the back. Step forward with your right leg and extend at your left hip, reaching the left leg off the ground towards the back left diagonal. Reach both arms overhead towards the front right diagonal. Repeat on the other side, traveling forward with each step. Frankenstein With arms out in front of you, kick legs straight up and travel forward in this “Mummy-like” (hence the name) posture. This stretches the hamstrings and strengthens the core. Keep your torso erect. MORE: 10 Walking Mistakes You’re Making Walking Workout #3Shuffle, Shuffle, Skip Most people spend way too much time training exclusively in the sagittal plane (flexion/extension). This workout spends twice as much time in the frontal plane (abduction/adduction) as it does in sagittal (we’re in the sagittal plane when we sit down or pick things up). What does work in the frontal plane mean for you? Work for the inner thighs, outer thighs, and the sides of your buttocks. Here’s what to do: Perform each walking variation (Shuffle Right, Shuffle Left, Skip) for 1 minute. Repeat the series a total of 10 times for a 30-minute workout. If that’s too much, alternate a few minutes of regular walking with a few Shuffle, Shuffle, Skips. Step 1: Shuffle Right Turn your body to face the right side of the street. Quickly step, together, step, together in a lateral shuffle. Be careful never to cross at the ankles. Your hips should never turn to face forward during this exercise; the hips should face the right side of the street the entire time. To perform this exercise with lower intensity and lower impact, replace the lateral shuffle with a lateral step-together-step. Step 2: Shuffle Left Turn your body to face the left side of the street. Repeat movement explained in Step 1. MORE: Find The Best Walking Workout For Your Personality Step 3: Skip Face forward and skip forward. Adjust your intensity by increasing the height of your leap, tempo of your skip, or width of your skip stance. Here are the movements put together:
