Power walking, a gentle endurance activity, uses very many of your muscles, but especially your heart. By practising active, nordic or rapid walking regularly, you are doing yourself good and strengthening your heart. You will also be preventing cardiovascular diseases, the prime cause of death in France.
Power walking, a gentle endurance activity, uses very many of your muscles, but especially your heart. By practising active, nordic or rapid walking regularly, you are doing yourself good and strengthening your heart. You will also be preventing cardiovascular diseases, the prime cause of death in France.
Focus on your favourite activity!
Do you feel the need to take control of your health? If so, get walking! Power walking has so many benefits, starting from lowered tension and stress levels.
This aspect is far from being purely anecdotal, states Charles Aisenberg, sports consultant affiliated with the National Institute for Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP). "Practising a physical activity regularly (such as power walking, NDLR) lowers blood pressure by 10 mm."
By striding along footpaths, power walkers also contribute to preventing type II diabetes.
"Active walking prevents the disease in 60 % of cases of persons in pre-diabetic phase", observes Charles Aisenberg. It "even allows patients to decrease the number of medicines they are taking and it delays complications when diabetes is already present".
Another hidden benefit of your favourite sport: improvement of your blood fats profile. In other words, power walking reduces bad cholesterol and increases good!
When practised alongside a healthy diet, this " sports walking " helps you to control your weight. As the kilometres pass, your body will draw on its abdominal fat reserves and your figure will become more toned.
Your heart is the barometer of your overall health and it also governs your active walking session. If it is beating too fast (high heart rate), you will become out of breath and tired quickly.
The solution? Combine regular training with the correct dosage of physical effort.
As you increase the number and frequency of your sessions, your resting heart rate will decrease. You will also notice that it increases less quickly and less intensely during physical exertion. Your heart's performance will therefore improve and you will be able to increase your average walking speed as your exercise becomes more and more intense.
Moreover, Charles Aisenberg recommends practising active walking for at least 20 minutes per session, 3 days per week, at a cardiac frequency of between 50 and 75 % of your MCF (maximal cardiac frequency).
To find out your MCF, it can be measured during a physical exertion test performed by your consultant or yourself. Then perform the following calculation: "220 minus your age" if you are a man, "226 minus your age" if you are a woman.
Adding together all of the benefits of active walking significantly improves your heart's overall function as well as your blood vessels. It is proven and even measured: in patients suffering from a coronary disease, moderate physical activity reduces mortality by almost 35%!
So, ready to work on your heart muscle to improve your health?