It sort of makes seems reasonable in some vague and non-scientific sense that we’d be optimized for walking across slightly rough terrain (with logs, little streams, and rocks to amble across), rather than perfectly flat roads.<p>Dirt paths look nicer than sidewalks anyway, so I guess we’re just going to have to tear up the streets and stroads all together, rather than trying to staple on walkability!
Walking is an excelent entry point for obese people.<p>Instead of killing yourself and getting immensly frustrated at the gym, it gives you incredible initial gains.
Being really out of shape is a downward spiral - the worse it gets the harder it is to perform "normal" excercises, like gym, jogging, or even bike riding. And it's really annoying, remembering how easy these were for you just few pounds earlier.
Since the road accident a few years back, paired with a coxarthrosis, I can't walk much as I used to, but found drumming practice to be very useful to keep in shape and have lots of fun without carrying high loads. I still carry on the stairs groceries, wood for the fireplace and sixpacks of 2lt water bottles, but that doesn't happen every day thankfully.
Walking for exercise, where there is not much/often stopping at intersections works amazingly well. Your heart rate builds up in a different way.<p>And all that continuous walking gets a little faster and faster after a few months and can turn into jogging/running on it's own, except you have learned how to maintain your heart rate a bit more.
TL;DR:
"We found no significant changes in any of the outcomes in the first four weeks when participants walked conventionally. From week four to 12, we found significant improvements in muscle strength (19%), chair-stand ability (24%), balance (45%) and a cognitive function test (21%)... The sample size of the study was small (N = 11), so we need larger and more comprehensive studies to verify our findings"
I experienced acute lower back pain after walking for 30+ minutes. I searched the whole internet to find a solution but only found advice saying, "if you have back pain, walk!" which was ironic since my pain occurred while walking. Then it dawned on me: I sit most of the day, cycle a lot, and drive my car, but I wasn't walking regularly. Now, I walk the dog for 40 minutes a few days a week, and the pain has disappeared!
1. The title sucks. This article is basically about adding lunges on top of walks. Conclusion: "Yes, adding lunges is good". Again, the title and the setup for this article completely misrepresent what it's saying.<p>2. My opinion, nothing to do with the article, though a lot to do with the misleading title: Overall, walking for 30 mins to an hour a day is huge and will increase fitness an incredible amount over nothing. Of course, it can replace neither intensive cardio, weight lifting, or mobility work. But throw a few hills in there, and it's probably sufficient to stay healthy.
Add elevation sand modify terrain to hike, as weight to ruck. Just walking is great and there's fun weight to keep it interesting as boredom can kill habits
Walking gets pushed aside in fitness conversations, but it is a very good, low-impact, medium-cardio, and completely maligned exercise that is very sustainable and can go a long way for many people.<p>(People like doing higher-impact activity to feel like they put in the work. Which they did! But many of those health benefits could be realized with daily long walks, daily stretching, and better dietary choices, and I say this as someone who literally wrote this while eating cheesecake LOL. It was a small size though! And I track calories!)<p>Here's why I think walking is completely maligned.<p>First reason: Suburbs.<p>The biggest issues that I have with American suburbs is that there is nothing interesting to walk to, most of the jobs can only be reached by car and walking infrastructure outside of housing enclaves is nonexistent. So you're either walking at work (good luck if you have an office job) or making time to walk at home.<p>Given that the cheapest housing in most of the US is in the suburbs, this problem will only accelerate.<p>Second reason: HOKAs.<p>Walking is further compromised by massively popular footwear that is terrible for the kinetic chain.<p>A lot of people wear running shoes for walking. These are plushier at the expense of unwanted shock compensation at the ankles, knees, and hips.<p>However, minimalist footwear that exploded in popularity after Born to Run and xero on Shark Tank wasn't good either, as runners got injured like crazy trying to heel strike with shoes that are designed to prevent exactly that.<p>Sneakers in the 70s and 80s were low-drop and low stack. I prefer zero drop with barefoot stack (soles less than 6mm thick) but I wish we could return to those, as those are so much safer.<p>Third reason: Fucking flip flops.<p>I also wish we could completely ditch flip flops for proper sandals with heel support. Flip flops are unsafe (no support if you slip) and are a huge contributor to plantar fasciitis (imagine your toes trying to grab onto something for support...on every step...for MONTHS at a time!). They're fine for extremely short distances, like walking from the beach to somewhere inside, but they are a huge problem for everyday footwear!
They found that introducing exercise increases fitness/health outcomes. That doesn't solve the problem that the vast majority of people don't exercise.
Their experiment seems to not be conclusive to my reading. They layered eccentric exercise after four weeks of walking exercise. They compare four weeks of walking exercise to eight weeks of walking exercise plus four weeks of eccentric exercise and don’t control for the fact eight weeks of walking is twice as much as four.<p>That said there’s a lot of evidence eccentric contraction is crucial for strength gain. But this experiment isn’t convincing alone.