Walking acts as a great way to go for those who are trying to easing daily consistent cardio exercise. Studies show that walking can improve heart health, mood, delay aging, and support weight loss goal. A survey done on 50 thousand plus individuals found that regular walking was linked to reduction of 20% in all-cause mortality and 24% reduced chance of getting into risk factors of dying from cardiovascular illness.
Knowing that, if you have been making a habit of regular walking, it would be better to challenge yourself with more forceful training to increase burning calories and have more excitement. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) walking and incline walking, both fits the race to fast calorie burn. Get to know both these two workout types to help you decide which one suit you best.
HIIT walking
High intensity interval training may sounds intimidating but it has been shown to lower body fat and improve heart fitness and athletic performance. Typically these workouts alternate between low and high intensity training, which helps enhance metabolism and calorie burn even after you finish the workout. People have been benefited from HIIT to build muscle, lose calories in lesser time, burn fat and increase metabolic rate – says Courtney Logan, a run coach certified by RRCA.
It’s easy to include and adjust HIIT into your regular walk by mixing up walk paces of short intervals. Joey Thurman, a personal trainer suggests that you should adjust these short interval efforts in a way that will suit you. May be you would like to pace up the speed for 30 or 60 seconds but that completely up to you depending on your fitness levels.
Incline walking
Incline walking simply refers to walking uphill, which makes your body work harder against gravity and burns more calories than a normal pace. According to Thurman, this specific workout type targets your hamstring, calves and glutes, and elevates the heart rate to burn more calories. Having strong glutes lowers the reliance of the hamstrings and lower back muscles, which lessens the risk of getting low back pain.
You can explore hilly trails outdoors in the wild to enjoy the soothing effect of nature or have it indoor adjusting your treadmill. To do it ideally, use back of your legs to pull yourself up the hill instead of leaning forward and push up the hill using the front of your legs. Or if you like to do it indoor, do not hold the sidebars when you are doing it on a treadmill, as Thurman suggests, it will lower your effort intensity leading to provide poor mechanics.
Which one is better?
To know which one is better, HIIT walking actually offers more calorie burn in considerably shorter period of time. However, as HIIT could lead you to overstrain, it’s better to avoid doing it on consecutive days. A good thumb rule is to schedule a low intensity workout day between two HIIT workout days to let your body adjust and recover properly.
