It’s a fitting time to talk about walking. While our favourite musical representative gears up to walk on Swedish waters and perhaps pull off an even greater miracle than the title of her artistic offering describes, the rest of us continue our walks towards destinations a little more discreet.
Whether it is to the bus stop, a venue televising the ever spectacular European song festival or even towards dreams of a slimmer body, alas we walk on.
It’s such a wonderfully simple activity that, beyond about one year of age, most of us can do it. Many a doctor has prescribed it to patients requiring a healthier and more active lifestyle and many of us have taken to the streets and promenades without any prompting at all, knowing instinctively that it is good for us. Scientifically though, how much do we actually know about this glorious activity we take so much for granted?
Well, the easiest place to start is to consider the anatomical and physiological aspects of walking. Walking employs the large muscles of the legs, including the gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps (thighs) and gastrocnemius (calves). It does not, however, exploit much of a large range of motion about the joints associated with these muscles, and the muscular contractions themselves are of relatively low intensity, recruiting a predominance of type 1 or ‘slow twitch’ muscle cells.
This basically means that the real benefit arises from the increased heart rate experienced during prolonged bouts of walking. This is why walking is considered a cardiovascular-based exercise, because its main focus is on stimulating short and longer-term physiological adaptations in the heart, lungs and the rest of the circulatory system.
In short, it helps improve endurance and can be used to expend energy as part of the maintenance of a healthy energy balance.
Maintaining energy balance means keeping calories out equal to or greater than calories in, and increasing energy expenditure can be achieved by simply being more active. Walking is one of the easiest ways to become more active on a regular basis because you can do it almost any time or place. So exactly how much energy do we expend when we walk? Here is where the developments have just become a little more interesting.
You’d be amazed what a difference simple measures that increase the amount of walking you do can make
Exercise scientists have developed a system for estimating the energy expenditure associated with walking that is four times more accurate than previous methods. Apparently, the amount of calories we are thought to burn while walking is another one of those throwbacks to a far-gone age of exercise science and was never updated or even questioned. The predictions we make are based on a relatively ancient formula, found to be inaccurate a majority of the time when actually put to the test.
The ability to accurately gauge calories burned while walking takes on increasing significance nowadays because even though we have some fancy technology and gadgets, a lot of their calculations are based on old formulas, which are certainly not very new or cutting-edge at all. In fact, just a few weeks ago, it was reported that fitness trackers tend to vary quite wildly and inconsistently when different devices are used to measure the exact same case.
The solution was published in this month’s edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, following research conducted at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, US. Older equations do not take into account body size, so they literally constitute a one-size-fits-all approach. The researchers therefore developed a new approach, taking into account additional variables. They discovered that height tends to have a significant effect on the amount of energy we use to walk. It turns out taller people are more efficient than shorter ones, as shorter people must take more steps to cover the same distance. The equation factors in: therefore, height, weight and distance.
There is a slight problem here, however, as the equation does not stop there. It also includes speed of the walk as well as various other variables concerning metabolic rates of the individual. It is therefore a little cumbersome and impractical for the purpose of quick calculations by anyone who does not spend most of their time inside a sports laboratory. Nevertheless, the research has yielded one crucial finding.
What they were most surprised to discover was that in just over 97 per cent of cases, the amount of calories burned were underestimated by the older equations. This basically means that walking is even more effective as a method of exercise than we thought. Now that is certainly a major discovery. If healthcare and fitness professionals used to encourage you to walk before, then they are certainly not about to let up now.
Walking still remains one of the most popular physical activity for people of all ages wishing to improve the state of their health or shape of their bodies.
If you work in a large organisation, consider yourself lucky, as walking can be easily integrated into your day if you refuse to use lazier forms of transportation like cars, lifts and escalators. You’d be amazed what a difference simple measures that increase the amount of walking you do can make. And, as we now know, the benefits are confirmed to be even greater than we previously imagined.
matthew.muscat.inglott@mcast.edu.mt