Falling In Love With Walking For Cardio

Dec 8

Takeaway Points:

While running gets a lot of attention as the easy, no-equipment cardio method, I’ve found that walking is a lot more useful.
Walking requires less mental effort, enables you to multitask, and can be relaxing and calming. It’s become the best part of my daily routine.
Walking also pairs very well with heavier lifting due to its position as a lower-intensity cardio method. A good long walk can cover a lot of bases.

Back when I was able to go to the gym every day, I’d have a 20 minute morning walk to get there and back every morning. Living in London, there’s little point in the expense of a car, and the distance is at that weird point where it takes about as long by foot as it would by bus, with little point in paying the fare. So I bought a nice backpack for carrying my gym gear to make it easier, and got used to the trip.

I enjoyed it, in large part because it meant I didn’t have to worry too much about cardio. Getting 40 minutes of walking in, 4-5 times per week, with a bit of added weight on the back, I didn’t need much else. The walk also gave me time to study language flashcards, listen to podcasts, play games, and do other stuff on my phone. I even sometimes got into the habit of using voice dictation on my phone to answer emails or do some writing work, although that sometimes depended on how much ambient noise (cars) I encountered along the way.

Unfortunately, when lockdown started, I didn’t have that cardio anymore, and I immediately needed to find a way to replace it. I didn’t really want to get a piece of cardio equipment at home due to limited space, but luckily we had recently moved to a larger place with a dedicated back garden. Not large enough to fit much in, but enough to walk around in. So for a while, I paced around in the comfort of our back garden, where I would do tiny little laps around the garden table, ducking the plants along the way.

This naturally got to be a bit exhausting, mentally. Walking in circles like that does get a bit dizzying after a while. Another annoying fact about it is that your phone GPS doesn’t take it very well if you’re not traveling in relatively straight lines, so most of the steps would never register on my phone’s internal pedometer - a minor annoyance, but one that made it hard to standardize how much walking I was doing without setting careful timers.

Overcoming my anxiety about leaving the house under the pandemic (this is back when everything was very new and frightening and unclear), I decided that it would be better to walk in the neighborhood. We had also gotten some masks by that point, so I would go for 30-60 minute walks in the neighborhood every morning instead, being careful to wear a mask and avoid close contact with anybody else.

I was really shocked by how much I ended up enjoying it.

Our neighborhood is just next to a hill, so you can get your heart rate up a good bit without having to put too much effort in. The neighborhood is mostly away from main roads, so there’s minimal foot traffic and it’s easy to avoid people. There’s a park in the neighborhood, so I can see a bit of greenery. The neighborhood is also divided into nice, neat blocks, so it’s easy to walk on autopilot and know that you’re going to get exactly the same distance each time.

But walking became a lot more than just a bit of cardio - it became a way to feel connected to my neighborhood, to see more sun, to see some green in the summer and see some leaves in the fall. It gave me time to do some meditative breathing, do language flashcards, and a lot more. If I wanted a bit of variety, I could take a few different turns and see a few different sights.

It ended up becoming one of the best parts of my day, and I would look forward to it every morning.

Walking as a cardio method doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. We hear stuff like “10,000 steps a day”, but that’s not a good guideline that everyone can follow, depending on their schedule and what kind of work they do. Most people would rather go running, because it requires a lot less time out of the day, even if it’s a bit more exhausting.

Running requires a lot of preparation - you need to get the right clothes on, get the right shoes on, get your phone into an armband, get the right headphones, etc. - and when it’s over, you come back drenched in sweat and exhausted, and you’ll probably either need to take time to sit down and recover a bit before going about your day, or take a shower to get the sweat off. On top of all this, running means you don’t get to do anything else on your phone at the same time, so you can only focus on listening to something in the audio format.

I prefer walking. All in all, while running means less time spent doing cardio, these sunk time costs add up to the point that I find it to be roughly equivalent. Since I have a lot of work and practice which can be done on my phone each day, I also prefer to be able to do that and multitask while walking, which running prohibits entirely.

So, going for a walk a bit longer is fine with me, because it’s a lot more casual. I don’t have to change into running clothes, I don’t get super sweaty or out of breath afterward, and I can multitask a lot while getting it done.

Walking is a cardio method which also plays very well with heavy lifting. Since walking is lower intensity, it’s also easy to recover from, while still getting the benefits of cardiovascular training, and this means that it’s less likely to detract from your ability to build strength and muscle mass.

Overdoing it with cardio has been demonstrated to limit gains, though I think it’s often overblown the extent to which this effect occurs. In reality, smaller amounts of cardio pair well with lifting, and bring plenty of benefits that will add to your ability to lift more in the long run. The type of cardio will also make a huge difference - higher impact cardio like running and high rep plyometric activities are more likely to interfere, while lower impact cardio like walking, rowing, stairs, and cycling are less likely to interfere.

High amounts of lower impact cardio like this have been recommended by a lot of coaches in the past. For example, Pendlay is a fan of the stairs, and I’ve written before about how Bruce Lee was a fan of the cycle. In the long run, doing a lot of light cardio will likely increase your ability to recover from heavy lifting, which will enable you to lift more, to lift more frequently, and of course to simply be a bit healthier overall.

You can still make walking challenging. With a backpack or weight vest, weight can be added to increase the challenge, and a good incline over a decent distance can get anyone’s heart rate up.

More recently, we purchased a home rower - my wife prefers it - and so I have another backup low-impact option as well. The rower works in a pinch, on days when my normal schedule is interrupted and I’d prefer not to take a walk - for example, on winter London days where it’s rainy and the sun sets early enough that there’s no good time to get a walk in. However, even when I use it, I find that I’m missing the walk.

I never thought of myself as someone who’d really fall in love with having a daily walk - but more and more, I’ve really come to appreciate it.

About Adam Fisher

Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging for 5+ years, coaching for 6+ years, and lifting for 12+ years. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.

During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around powerlifting and bodybuilding.

Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cat or feeding his video game addiction.

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