It’s time to elevate your walking workouts with a 30-minute 'Japanese walking'- inspired routine. You can use weights to make it more challenging, or just lace up a pair of the best running shoes and hit the great outdoors or a treadmill.
I’m obsessed with walking at the moment. I’ve tried silent walking and color walking lately in an effort to clock up more steps while working from home and caring for my poorly rescue pup.
Recently, I read an article by my colleague Jane McGuire, detailing a walking method I’d never heard before — Japanese walking.
She was instantly hooked when she tried it, so, feeling inspired, I thought I’d draw from it and create a walking workout that strengthens your entire body, cardiovascular system and boosts your metabolism a little. Here it is.
What is Japanese walking?
You can learn more about Japanese walking (read: I tried the Japanese walking method for a week), but the basic idea is that you adopt a HIIT training technique using intervals during your walk.
The original method requires a 30-minute timer switching between 3 minutes at low intensity (around 4/10 RPE) and 3 minutes at high intensity (7/10 effort, roughly).
If you’re walking for weight loss or to build stronger bones and muscles, a walking workout is a great low-impact exercise to take up, helping you avoid sedentary time that can lead to poor posture or weakened muscles and joints.
Switching between intensities is a brilliant way to add variety to your walk, burn more calories, relieve stress and strengthen your endurance and the cardiovascular system.
The benefits of power walking include engaging more of your upper body and increasing overall intensity. If nothing else, just 7,000 steps a day can have benefits for your overall health, and a walking workout contributes toward this.
What is the walking workout?
You don’t have to use weights, but if you do, a set of dumbbells or kettlebells works well. For the second exercise, you’ll need some sort of incline — think stairs, a hill, or using the incline setting on your treadmill.
30-minute EMOM x 6 rounds
- Minute 1: Walking lunges x 14-20 reps
- Minute 2: Brisk uphill walk (7/10) for 45 seconds
- Minute 3: Slow downhill walk (4/10) for 45 seconds
- Minute 4: Brisk walk flat road (8-9/10) for 45 seconds
- Minute 5: Broad jumps 14-20 reps
If you only have a short uphill distance available, briskly walk down again, then repeat going uphill until you reach 45 seconds. Hold weights throughout to increase the difficulty of this routine.
The reps are just guidelines — you should aim to take between 10 to 15 seconds rest before starting the next minute and exercise, so count your reps and rest when you reach 45 or 50 seconds; on the next round, try to match those reps.
I recommend learning how to do walking lunges using our guide if you’re unsure how they should look. For an extra challenge — if you’re not using weights already — place your hands behind your head and draw your shoulder blades together; these are called prisoner lunges.
For your broad jumps, simply start with your feet shoulder-width apart, then jump forward and land into a deep squat with bent knees. Stand up, reset, then continue jumping forward.
Benefits of this walking workout
When I could just walk everywhere, whenever I felt like it, I took it for granted. Recently, I adopted a rescue dog, and naturally, we had to take things slow and build up her walks gradually.
This meant my daily long walks, which have always been a non-negotiable part of my routine, were quickly reduced. Of course, my dog’s wellbeing means much more to me than a walk, but I came to realize that I had heavily relied on them for not just my physical health, but my mental health, too.
Now that she can walk a little further, I'm really enjoying finding new ways of walking that don't involve counting my steps. Whether you walk for the physical benefits or not, there’s no denying that walking (especially in nature) can help build mental stamina, boost creativity and calm anxiety.
Getting extra steps throughout the day also helps increase your overall energy expenditure, burning more calories and helping to keep your metabolism ticking along.
From a physical perspective, you’ll work your whole body, including your arms and core, and load your glutes, quads and hamstrings using the incline for resistance; if you add weights, even better.
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