Walking has a host of benefits for your mental and physical health

5 Expert-Approved Ways to Level Up Your Daily Walk for Better Heart Health, Weight Loss, and More But how can you get the most out of each stroll? Here's what experts recommend

• Picking up your pace, adding incline, or wearing a weighted vest can boost the cardio and strength benefits of your daily walk.
• Walking in short bursts throughout the day can improve blood sugar, energy, mood, and focus—even at a slow pace.
• Experts recommend tailoring each walk to your needs, whether you’re craving nature, silence, or social time.

When it comes to health benefits, your daily stroll delivers. Research consistently shows that walking slashes your risk of chronic illness, improves physical fitness, supports sleep, and helps you feel better mentally.

So if you’re already walking (or thinking about getting started), why not make the most of those steps? We asked six fitness experts for their top tips to take your walks to the next level. Here’s what they recommend.

Ramp Up Your Pace

If your goal is to amplify the cardiovascular and calorie-burning benefits of your walk, consider upping your speed—even if you’re not increasing your distance, Jeff Cherubini, PhD, a professor of kinesiology specializing in exercise and sport psychology at Manhattan University, told Health in an email.

“When you pick up your pace, you get the benefits of walking in a shorter amount of time,” said walking coach Michele Stanten, ACE-certified fitness instructor and author of Walk Your Way to Better Health. Experts recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, but with vigorous intensity, that minimum drops to 75 minutes.

To help you get there, Stanten recommends interval walking—alternating between brisk and normal paces. There are many different methods, but here’s her beginner-friendly routine, suggested three times per week:

• Warm up: Start at a leisurely pace for five to 10 minutes. 
• Normal pace: By the end of your warm-up, you should have worked up to your typical pace. Maintain that pace for two to three minutes. You should be able to carry on a conversation at this intensity, Stanten said.
• Faster pace: Speed up for 30 seconds with shorter, quicker steps. You should still be able to talk, but your breathing will be heavier and heart rate elevated, Stanten said.
• Repeat: Return to your normal pace for one to two minutes (or longer if needed), then alternate again with a faster pace for 30 seconds. Continue the pattern for 10 to 15 minutes. Try to work up to more intervals as you build endurance and walk longer distances, Stanten said.
• Cool down: Finish at a leisurely pace for five minutes.

Add In Some Hills or Incline

Amanda Katz, a NASM-certified personal trainer and running coach in New York City, recommends exploring hillier terrain outdoors or increasing your treadmill’s incline.

“Because you need to stay upright and balanced, walking uphill requires more core activation and makes your heart and lungs work harder,” Katz told Health in an email. “While it’s not strength training, it gives your posterior chain—including your glutes, hamstrings, and calves—more of a challenge than flat terrain.”

Walking downhill has its perks, too. “Your quads are working to control movement in descent, or ‘braking,’” Katz said. 

To start, choose a walking route that incorporates hills twice a week. Katz recommends beginning with slight declines. Over time, walking on uneven surfaces can improve your balance, which helps build confidence on steeper ground.

If you’re staying indoors, bump your treadmill’s incline by just 0.5 to 1% and gradually increase it as you build endurance. Avoid holding the handlebars—and take shorter strides. “Even if you only have 15 minutes, it’s worth doing,” Katz said.

Try a Weighted Vest

“Wearing a weighted vest is a great way to turn a basic walk into something that feels athletic and exciting,” Or Artzi, CPT, Equinox group fitness instructor and founder of the Orriors App, told Health in an email. “When movement feels exciting, we stick with it.”

Artzi said the added weight offers a bunch of potential benefits: It may work your heart harder, support weight loss, and engage muscles in ways a typical stroll wouldn’t.

“The extra load forces your body to stabilize throughout your walk—especially on inclines or uneven terrain—which means more work for your core, glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves,” Artzi said. The muscles along your spine and upper back also stay engaged, which can keep your posture in check.

She recommends choosing a vest that’s about 5 to 10% of your body weight. (So if you’re 150 pounds, aim for a 8- to 10-pound vest.) Ideally, the weight should be evenly distributed between the front and back and fit snugly, sitting high on your torso. 

Start with 10- to 15-minute walks while wearing the vest. At the same time, make other aspects of your walk more challenging, like the duration, incline, or pace. But “only increase one factor at a time,” Artzi said. “If you can do that without pain or joint discomfort, you’re probably ready to gradually add more weight.”

Keep in mind the vest is a training tool, so you shouldn’t wear it for every walk, Artzi said. Rotate in vest-free walks to give your body time to recover.

Focus on Frequency

Instead of focusing on how long you walk, try taking more frequent walks throughout the day. “Your body needs regular movement,” Keith Diaz, PhD, exercise physiologist and director of the Exercise Testing Laboratory at the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University, told Health. “Even a light, casual stroll has health benefits.”

In a 2023 study led by Diaz, researchers assigned different walking schedules to 11 adults: one minute of walking after every 30 minutes of sitting, one minute after 60 minutes, five minutes every 30, five minutes every 60, or no walking.

Participants sat in an ergonomic chair for eight hours in a lab, where they worked on a laptop, read, used their phones, and ate standardized meals. Throughout the day, researchers measured their blood sugar, blood pressure, mood, and fatigue.

The optimal burst of movement? “Interrupt your sitting every half-hour or so with a five-minute walk,” Diaz said. Even a slower stroll—just 2 mph—can improve all of the health markers above, the study found.

However, when the researchers asked people what they liked most about the walking breaks, “the biggest thing they kept telling us was, ‘I’m not in a brain fog. I have energy at the end of the day,’” Diaz said. “We have long underestimated the mental health benefits of walking. It is such a mood booster, particularly when we’re glued to our screens.”

Check In With Yourself

It’s easy to get caught up in the technical details of a walk and forget to ask yourself what would actually make you feel good. “Make your walk fit your needs,” Nicole Haas, PT, DPT, founder of Boulder Physiolab in Boulder, Colorado, told Health. “That might be different each day of the week. It doesn’t need to be set in stone.”

Ask yourself: What’s my intention for this walk? Maybe you’ve been consistently walking around a track but are itching to get out in nature. Or perhaps you’re looking for some social time after working from home alone all day. If you always listen to a podcast but feel mentally drained, a “silent walk” might be more restorative.

Not only does this practice help make movement something to look forward to (and, therefore, something you’re more likely to do), but it also encourages you to switch things up in a way that honors what you need mentally as much as physically, Haas said. 

Cherubini echoes this sentiment. He suggests focusing on how good you feel during and after your walk, and why—whether it’s because you’re chatting with a friend, enjoying a new green space, or riding a wave of endorphins. “It may take days to weeks to see the slightest change on the scale,” he said. “But it may take only one walk, at any intensity or distance, to feel physically and emotionally better.”

Edited by Health with a background in health, science, and investigative reporting. Previously, she wrote full time about parenting issues for the app Parent Lab. Before that, she worked as a reporter for National Geographic covering wildlife crime and exploitation." tabindex="0" data-inline-tooltip="true"> Jani Hall Jani Hall Jani Hall is a news editor for Health with a background in health, science, and investigative reporting. Previously, she wrote full time about parenting issues for the app Parent Lab. Before that, she worked as a reporter for National Geographic covering wildlife crime and exploitation. learn more Read more:

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This story originally appeared on: Health News - Author:Alisa Hrustic