Walking is the best medicine (Part III) – First steps

Part of the magic of walking is that there are no rules! It’s true that the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity. You can also do a mix of moderate and vigorous activity. But this is what you should aim for, not necessarily what you should be doing on Day 1 of your exercise program. Any exercise is better than no exercise.

There are many ways to exercise. Playing golf is good exercise, but there are a lot of rules and you have to play 9 or 18 holes, nobody does 5 or 11 holes of golf. Tennis is good exercise but you have to have a tennis court. Walking is easy, just open the door and take the first step. No special equipment is needed and no special training is required. Just start slowly and gradually build up. The number of miles you walked and the time it took is not a matter of immediate concern; we will address it later. I once had a patient who had walked 40 feet, to his own mailbox and back. I had him do this 3 times a day for a week before he could do more without pain. Most people will be able to do much more than that, but remember that the goal is to burn off stress hormones. If you try to do more than you are physically capable of, in other words, if you get stressed, you will actually create stress hormones and defeat the whole purpose.

If you are a beginning walker, just go with how you feel. If you’re in pain or can’t catch your breath, you’re doing too much. It’s okay to feel mild muscle soreness or stiffness after doing an activity you’re not used to, but the no pain/no gain cliché we’ve all heard so often only applies to competitive athletes. Most people can tell the difference between normal muscle pain and real pain. For the beginner, decide what is a reasonable distance for you and only walk half that distance. Remember that you can always do more tomorrow, but yesterday cannot be undone. Keep in mind that no matter how far you intend to walk, you still have to go back.

target heart rate

As you gain some experience as a walker, there’s an easy way to tell if you’re getting close to the Department of Health and Human Services exercise guidelines: Calculate your target heart rate. An average resting heart rate is 60 to 80 beats per minute, but it can be lower for people with exceptional physical condition. Your target heart rate, which indicates true aerobic exercise, is approximately 220 minus your age times 50% to 85%. So, for example, if you were 60, 220 minus 60 equals 160. For the first few weeks of walking, aim for the bottom of your target zone (50 percent), or 50% of 160 equals 80 beats per minute. Then gradually build up to the top of the target zone (85 percent) or 85% of 160 equals 136 beats per minute. When you check, and if your heart rate is too high, you’re pushing yourself, so slow down. If you’re below the zone, push yourself to work a little harder if you can without causing pain in your back, hips, knees, or feet.

How to check your heart rate

• Take your pulse on the inside of your wrist, about 1 inch from the middle to the thumb side, and about 2 inches toward the elbow from where your wrist meets your arm.

• Use the tips of the first two fingers (not the thumb) of the other hand to lightly press into the groove between the wrist tendons. You are palpating the artery hidden between the tendons, not the veins on the surface that you can see.

• Count your pulse for 10 seconds and multiply by 6 to find your beats per minute.

After you have done this a few times, it will no longer be necessary. You will be able to know how you feel and how you breathe. This is called “conversational pacing” to monitor your efforts during moderate activities like walking. If you can talk and walk at the same time, you’re not working too hard. If you run out of breath quickly, you’re probably overworking yourself, especially if you have to stop and catch your breath.

Determine how fast you are walking

First, understand that no matter how fast you’re walking, the point is to burn stress hormones to improve your health. Stress hormones are burned by aerobic exercise, and aerobic exercise is achieved when your heart rate reaches the target zone, as described above. As you get fitter, you will naturally need to go faster and faster to reach the target zone. However, if you are curious, the calculations have already been done for you. The easiest way to measure your speed without using a pedometer, or getting in your car and measuring mileage, which can be quite difficult unless you’re walking down the street, is to count your steps per minute. Experts use this number to calculate pace, based on an average stride length of 2 1/2 feet. (Stride length is the distance from the heel of one foot to the heel of the other foot when you take a step.)

• 70 steps per minute equals 30 minutes per mile, or 2 miles per hour.

• 105 steps per minute equals 20 minutes per mile, or 3 miles per hour.

• 140 steps per minute equals 15 minutes per mile, or 4 miles per hour.

If you pay attention to your steps, after a while you’ll be able to estimate your pace fairly accurately without bothering to count. You’ll just know what a 20 minute mile or a 15 minute mile feels like.

See also

Walking is the best medicine (Part I)

Walking is the best medicine (Part II): a double dose of benefits

Walking is the best medicine (Part III) – First steps