Why Walking For Exercise is a Waste of Time and Energy When your time is limited as is generally the case with most working families today, you want to ensure that your time spent on exercising is going to give you the best reward for effort. Unfortunately, large numbers of people consider their walks as exercise but more research is showing why walking as a form of exercise is a waste of time.... A research team from the University of Virginia studied a group of 27 obese middle-aged women for 16 weeks. They divided the women into three groups 1) No-exercise group - who maintained their normal level of physical inactivity 2) Low intensity group - who did walking x5/week 3) High intensity group - who did walking x2/week and did high intensity exercise x3/week The time that they exercised was adjusted so that they all burnt the same amount of calories during each exercise session (440 kcal per session). Using CT scans they measured any changes in the amount of abdominal fat at the start and the end of the 16-week exercise period. The results were quite emphatic. The women who exercised at a higher intensity lost 47 cm2 of subcutaneous abdominal fat (fat under the skin) versus 11cm2 in those who walked. The high intensity exercise group also lost 24cm2 of abdominal visceral fat (fat around the abdominal organs) compared with a loss of 7 cm2 in the walking group. That means higher intensity exercise resulted in three to four fold greater fat loss when compared to walking... The interesting thing to note in the study was that because the amount of calories you burnt in exercise was the same for both exercising groups, during the three high intensity workouts each week they exercised approximately 6 minutes less each time in comparison to the walkers. Being more effective with exercise doesn’t necessarily mean exercising longer. I continually hear the bleating of many walkers, “But isn’t walking better than nothing? After all, they did happen to lose a bit of fat”. Well sorry to burst your bubble but in terms of burning fat low intensity exercise doesn’t to make the grade. The no exercise group also lost a similar amount of fat just from being in the study and the amount lost was not statistically significant. Walking is only good for two things. It is good for relaxation and enjoyment (which does help improve your health) and it is also good for getting you into the habit of doing some exercise. If you think that walking is going to significantly trim your waistline and boost your fitness you are just deluding yourself. For you to get the health benefits of exercise, you need to perform the activity at an intensity that causes you to puff. Most people simply don’t walk at a sufficient intensity to make themselves puff. If you aren’t puffing, you can’t call walking an exercise.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 04:35:51 +0000