Most of us have our favourite method of exercise, whether it’s Pilates, HIIT workouts, strength or weight training, or simply our walk around the block. It can be hard to try a new workout style when your go-to is so effective, but there can be some huge benefits to combining different exercises, in this case, strength workouts and walking. In this article, we will be having a look at why combining weight training and walking might just be the best way to spice up your workout routine and see results!
The Benefits of Walking
Walking has forever been a great way to stay healthy, offering the additional benefits of lowering your probability of contracting heart disease, high blood pressure as well as diabetes. It is not necessarily the best workout that you can do in terms of burning calories, but making walking a part of your lifestyle can have huge benefits overall for your longevity and health.
The Benefits of Weight Training
Strength or weight training is an increasingly popular form of exercise that can be incredibly beneficial in assisting you with achieving your fitness goals. While cardio was always seen as the way to go if you want to lose weight, more and more studies suggest that weight lifting might be the better way to go. It can help boost your metabolic rate (meaning that you are burning calories more effectively) and extend the length of time you burn calories for (even post-workout your body is burning to repair your muscles).
Combining The Two
As you can see, both of these workouts can be extremely beneficial on their own, for different reasons, but when you combine the two, you will be able to truly take things up a notch. You can combine strength training and walking in two ways:
- Weights and Walking: If you walk often but enjoy other forms of exercise as well, you could begin to incorporate weight-based workouts into your routine two days a week. Start with bodyweight exercises if you are unfamiliar to weight training, and then move to free weights and weight machines.
Benefits: This combination has shown to be very effective in terms of maintaining weight and muscle mass, as well as helping to control other bodily functions such as blood sugar.
- Walking With Weights: If you are a regular walker who prefers it to other types of exercise, you can incorporate weights into your walks! You can start by simply walking while holding small weights in your hands, or strapping them to your wrists, but there are many other weighted options such as ankle weights and weighted vests.
Benefits: Walking with weights has shown to be very effective in losing bodyweight, particularly if you gradually increase the weight over time so as not to plateau in your efforts. Placing the extra resistance on your body can always be beneficial for your cardiovascular health, increase your oxygen and energy consumption (and thereby seeing more results), and has been shown to assist in improving muscle and bone strength.
If you are looking for a method of changing up your routine or putting a little more into your workouts, try combining weights and walking – it’s super easy to do and provides great results!
Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy
The job of a personal trainer is to advise their clients on how to exercise correctly. If this is something you want to do as a career, why not check out our Personal Training Diploma? Follow this link to learn more.
