Turn Your Daily Walk Into an Intense Workout

Why are you walking, or why do you want to start? Is it to begin taking inches off of your waistline, or improve the amount of activity in your daily life? Feeling sedentary, but not quite at the point where you’re ready to take a high insurance spin class or boot camp session? Consider walking ‘the way’—to giving your metabolism a boost, to act as a cancer preventer, or even become a great way to heighten your memory! Here’s how to incorporate the perfect exercise into your action packed day, and make it as moderate or intense as you need it to be!

Committing to the Daily Big ‘W’

If you’re a beginner to daily exercise, don’t focus on anything but getting off the couch, and lacing up those shoes. What’s the hardest thing to change? A habit. But, when you take small steps to change the habits in your life, you can replace the sedentary with the active, the unhealthy with the healthy, and the bad, with the oh-so-good-for-you. Commit to the daily ‘W’ and you’ll give yourself the best possible start to your day.

If you’ve been walking for a while, and ready to shake things up so your metabolism will rev at an all-time high, your body will get ‘lean and mean’ and your mood will perk right up—begin an interval pattern of walking, power walking and sprinting. Spent a few minutes with your warm-up (walking at a moderate pace). Time yourself for five minutes. For the next five minutes, ‘power walk’.

Power walking is walking at such a fast pace, you’re on the brink of jogging and breaking a sweat. When those five minutes are up, spend the next three minutes sprinting. Run as fast as you can. Starting out, you may only be able to sprint for one minute and that’s ok. Go as far as you can and as fast as you can. Then, repeat the 5-5-3 pattern: five minutes of moderate ‘warm-up’ style walking, followed by five minutes of power walking, followed by five minutes of sprinting.

Respect the Goal

No matter whether your goal is walking, running, or taking fitness classes at your local gym, the work is the same. The discipline is the same. And, the payoff is the same—which means, it’s totally worth the effort. The trick towards taking that first step, that first class, or that first boot camp session? Respect the goal. When you respect what you’re setting a goal for, and what it takes to really accomplish it, then you can and will succeed.