Dr M K Mam
Movement- mobility is the essence of life. Very rightly it has been said that ‘movement is life and life is movement’. Einstein has nicely explained the importance of movement – “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep balance, you must keep moving”. As a matter of fact, we should ‘move more and sit less’ as this is the basic mantra to stay active and healthy. Any amount of movement is always better than no movement at all. Mr Martin Luther King Jr has very well said that “If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving”.
Walking is a great aerobic exercise. It is simple and can be enjoyed by everybody from young to older ones. It is a low impact and safe exercise. It can easily be incorporated into our daily routine. It involves both functional and recreational activity. Good thing about walking is that it is free and has practically no negative side effects.
Why to walk? Walking is a big way to increase fitness, maintain and improve overall health. Research has shown that walking has lot many health benefits; helps reduce prevalence of many chronic medical diseases.
* Reduces the chances of having heart disease. Walking for 30 minutes daily can reduce the risk of heart diseases by 30 %. Studies have shown that there is a positive corelation between walking and improved cardiovascular biomarkers. Walking improves cardiac risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental stress, high cholesterol etc.
* Reduces the risk of high blood pressure.
* Regulates blood sugar, reduces the risk of diabetes.
* Is good for bones, joints and muscles. Being a weight bearing exercise it makes lower limb bones stronger – increases bone density. It helps improve lubrications of joints. It tones and strengthens the muscles. It also improves balance and reduce the risk of injury from falls.
* Helps weight loss. It is an effective and inexpensive way to burn calories, lose / maintain your weight.
* Improves mental health and helps uplift the mood of a person. It helps protect us from dementia and depression. It also helps reduce stress and makes one feel energised.
* Increases lung capacity, we breathe in more of oxygen as compared to when we are stationary.
* Helps boost the immunity and reduces the risk of frequent infections.
* Reduces health care cost to a person and the society by improving overall health of a person by reduction of risks of various medical problems like heart, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity etc.
When to walk? Morning is ideally the right time to walk or do any exercises as air is fresh, its quality is better- pollution is less and there is more of oxygen in the air as compared to that of afternoon and evenings. Henry David Thoreau has very rightly said that “an early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day”. However, people who somehow spare time in the morning cannot can walk in the afternoon or evening. It is not good to walk immediately after lunch or dinner, you can just stroll. Walking can be incorporated in our daily tasks. We can walk to store, office as far as possible or we can drive and park the vehicle farther away, and then walk to the destination. Again, avoiding the elevator and walking up the stairs as far as possible is good.
Where to walk: Walking can be done anywhere outdoors or indoors. Walking outside in a park or any natural surroundings has its own charm, one can enjoy the beauty of nature- scenery. Nature is also known to be a natural de-stressor, so a walk outside especially in a park might help reduce one’s stress and elevate the mood. It is always better to walk on turf. Walking on hard surfaces should be avoided especially when joints of lower limbs- knees and hips are not in perfect health,.
How much to walk? This is the question usually asked by the people. People usually speak about going on long walks that is fine as walking is a low impact- less intensive than running. However, overdoing- overuse and abuse is not good for joints especially in middle age and elderly as it strains the joints and exhausts your energy. Brisk walk for 30 minutes a session per day for most of the days of the week (at least 150 minutes per week) is recommended depending on your overall capacity, medical status etc.
How often to do it? Walking or any exercise has to be done daily and regularly. It has to be a MUST TO DO activity of our daily routine. It just cannot be a weekend activity.
What should be the speed of walking? Walk has to be brisk. Brisk walk – a moderate intensity exercise is always good for health. What is a brisk walk? It is somewhat vague and means differently to different people. Brisk walk means that walking has to be faster than stroll (at least 2.5 km per hour). One measure to quantify brisk walk is that we should be walking at least 100 steps per minute. Brisk walk being a moderate intensity exercise increases heart rate as heart beats faster, breathing becomes little harder and we experience mild sweat. A simple way to assess whether we are on a brisk walk is to talk while we walk- so called talk test. If we can talk comfortably with some breathlessness, means we probably are walking at moderate but a brisk pace. If we cannot talk freely as we feel out of breath, means it is more than brisk walk i.e. exercise is vigorous. Again, if while walking we can speak but cannot sing, means we are on a brisk walk. It is necessary to start with a slow walk for some minutes just to warm up and then increase the speed. It is also essential to cool down – slowdown in final couple of minutes of walk. Initial warm up and later cool down is necessary to prevent injury to muscles and other tissues. The distance one can walk in 30 minutes depends on overall capacity, fitness and medical status of the person.
What all is required? We do not need any special equipment to walk. We just need shoes and clothes that are comfortable. Soft sole shoes- walking shoes are preferable as they act as impact absorbent, reduce the stress on the joints of lower limbs. Most important thing is the motivation to walk – determination to do it daily. There has to a be a commitment of time and effort. Walk and talk is something that is very common, however it is good not to talk or converse during walking as is a dual tasking that requires a lot of mental resources to be able to do it safely. Again, use of mobile phones while walking is not good. It is harmful as the amount of radiation increases as we keep moving.
Treadmill v/s conventional over ground walking: In modern era, there is an overall trend- fashion of going to gyms especially in our youth. People won’t walk, have lost the habit of walking. People drive to gyms to work out even if it is not very far. Over ground walking especially in a park is better as we can enjoy nature. It is an open area where as treadmill is closed area in your room or in gym. Again, commonly used treadmills may not allow changing the speed or direction of walking. Conventional walking is free, you do not have to pay. It is not electricity dependant as is the case with treadmill. It spares you from consuming electricity as such it saves energy which is high in demand and short in supply. Keeping all the health benefits in mind, we need to start walking as it is simple- easy, free and can be done anywhere.
(The author is former Vice Principal, Prof. and Head Orthopaedics, Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, Punjab)
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