WHY WALKING?

Walking is the most natural form of exercise; it’s a part of your everyday life.

Power walking is an easy to learn, simple yet very effective form of exercise with a wide range of well documented health, fitness, weight-loss and wellbeing benefits.

Walking is a low-impact, aerobic exercise (it has less than half the impact of running) which makes it particularly suitable for newcomers to exercise, those who are returning to exercise after illness or injury, pregnant women & new mothers and older people.

Walking is an ideal exercise, combined with healthy eating, for losing unwanted weight or inches. Walking at a steady but brisk pace not only burns calories, it helps your body’s metabolism to burn fat more efficiently too.   

And walking is one of the most adaptable forms of exercise. You can choose a level to suit you and your goals. You can do it wherever and whenever and in all weathers: you can make it a family activity, incorporate it into your working life, do it on holiday, and continue to do it throughout your life. You can do it at your own pace, in your own time, on your own or with friends.

Walking has in fact been described by health experts as “almost perfect exercise”.

Walking Levels

There are basically 4 different walking levels, all with different benefits and techniques,
from leisure walking to race walking; the key difference is pace.

+ Leisure Walking: If you are new to exercise, you may start at a comfortable leisurely
pace (about 3 miles per hour i.e. it would take you about 20 minutes to walk a mile).

+ Power Walking: As you master the basic walking techniques and your fitness improves - and to achieve the full benefits of walking, you can graduate to power walking (a brisk
walking pace of about 5mph or a 12-minute mile).

+ Speed Walking: When you are comfortable at a power walking pace, you can introduce bursts of speed or high-energy walking to challenge yourself and boost the calorie-burn
(about 7 mph).

+ Race Walking: This is in a league of its own with a very distinctive, specialised technique!