Adding Steps To Your Days Can Extend Your Life Span

I encourage clients at Prime Fitness in Totowa, NJ, to increase their daily activity besides working out regularly. That includes taking the stairs instead of the elevator and adding steps to your day. Increasing your steps helps prevent conditions like osteoporosis. It aids in weight loss and extends your life span. Walking is free. You can do it anywhere. When the weather is nice, walking outside in a natural setting can soothe the soul. If it’s nasty weather, take your walk at an indoor mall. Adding five or ten minutes of exercise several times daily makes a big difference in your fitness.

You need a complete workout, but walking is a start or a good supplement.

There are four types of fitness: strength, endurance, balance, and flexibility. Walking focuses on endurance. It is a weight-bearing exercise and helps build lower body strength and improve balance. To be your healthiest, you need to do other exercises like those for upper body strength and ones for flexibility and balance. If you’re out of shape, walking is a great way to start a fitness routine or an excellent supplement to an existing one.

Walking reduces the risk of osteoporosis, heart disease, and obesity.

Obesity is the leading killer of preventable disease. It also can increase the risk of other diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Walking more steps helps you burn extra calories to aid weight loss or prevent weight gain. It boosts circulation, improves your mood, and helps keep you energized. Walking is a weight-bearing exercise that builds muscle strength. Stronger muscles tug on the bones and cause them to uptake calcium to increase their strength. That reduces bone loss. It’s mild exercise, which can improve sleep and help relieve back pain and pain from arthritis.

Recover faster by walking.

If you walk after working out, it helps start the recovery process. It’s excellent when you’ve pushed too hard and feel painfully stiff the next day. Mild exercise like walking is known as recovery exercise. When you work your muscles hard, it causes micro tears in the muscles. As the tears heal, it builds the muscle. Instead of pushing hard the next day, do light exercises like swimming, walking, or light yoga to boost circulation and help muscles heal.

• You can improve walking and make it HIIT—high intensity interval training—workout that builds cardio fitness faster. Alternate your intensity between high intensity and recovery pace.
• Walking is far more social than calisthenics. If you walk in your neighborhood or the same route daily, you eventually get to know the people in the area. You can walk with family and friends or to lunch with colleagues.
• Be safe on walks by taking your cell phone and allowing a friend or family to track your phone. If you walk at dusk or dawn, wear reflective clothing. Dress appropriately for the walk and carry water along.
• You’ll get the best results from exercise when you have proper form, even when the exercise is walking. Maintain good posture with your head up, shoulders back, and arms swinging easily by your sides.

For more information, contact us today at Prime Fitness Studio