24 January 2007
Forget the gym - why a brisk walk is really the best workout This activity will melt away the pounds, tone your flabby bits and leave you on an emotional high. Yet the form of exercise destined to become the fitness trend of 2007 does not require gym membership or a personal trainer. All you need to do is walk. "Walking is a refreshing alternative to complicated aerobic routines and over-priced gym memberships," says personal trainer Lucy Knight, author of a new book on the exercise. "It is free, enjoyable and already a part of everyday life. All you need to do is correct your technique, walk faster and for longer, and you will lose weight." There is much evidence of the benefits of walking. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh recently revealed that overweight people who walked briskly for 30 to 60 minutes a day lost weight even if they didn't change any other lifestyle habits. Another American study found that people who walked for at least four hours a week gained less weight (an average 9lb less) than couch potatoes as they got older. Last year, researchers at the University of Colorado found that regular walking helped to prevent peripheral artery disease (which impairs blood flow in the legs and causes leg pain in one-fifth of elderly people). Walking can even prevent colds. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts medical school found that people who walked every day had 25 per cent fewer colds than those who were sedentary. Because walking is a weight-bearing exercise, it can also help prevent the bone disease osteoporosis. "Bones are like muscles in the way that they get stronger and denser the more demands you place on them," Knight says. "The pull of a muscle against a bone, together with the force of gravity