‘Walking is the best exercise you can do’ – here are four science-backed ways to make it even better for your health

“Walking is the best exercise you can do.” This is a statement likely to spark some healthy debate.

Cardio fans might claim running offers more bang for your buck, while gym-goers will doubtless say lifting weights is key for strength and longevity. But according to an expert in the subject, walking reigns supreme.

“It’s accessible, and for most people there are low barriers to entry in terms of cost, equipment or skill requirements – that’s why we say it’s the best,” says Dr Elroy Aguiar, an assistant professor in exercise science at The University of Alabama, who specialises in step-based physical activity.

But despite walking’s accessibility credentials, there are still many people chained to their desks or run (quite literally) off their feet, who consequently can’t find time to squeeze in much health-boosting movement. For these people, Dr Aguiar says there are ways to make the steps they are doing go even further.

Focus on cadence

The World Health Organisation’s physical activity guidelines state that adults “should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity or an equivalent combination of both throughout the week”.

This suggests that, while more movement is better, those with limited time will enjoy greater ROI from higher-intensity activities. And one of the easiest ways to increase the intensity of walking is to increase your step speed – aka cadence.

“Our studies [published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine] show that if you walk at a cadence of about 100 steps per minute, that’s equivalent to what’s called ‘moderate-intensity’,” says Dr Aguiar. “All of the research in this area suggests that most of the benefits [of walking] accumulate at a moderate or higher intensity.”

This is easier than it sounds, he says, with most people self-selecting a cadence of roughly 110-115 steps per minute when striding purposefully down the street.

“If you wanted to bump it up to a vigorous-intensity, you could walk at around 130 steps per minute,” Dr Aguiar adds. “If you move within that range or slightly above, you can shift gears so to speak and move from moderate to vigorous, getting more benefit from the activity you’re doing.”

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One minute of higher-intensity activity can be beneficial

This advice stems from another of Dr Aguiar’s research papers, this time published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports in 2024.

The top line is that increasing both exercise quantity and quality (ie. intensity) are linked to improved health outcomes, and as little as one minute of higher-intensity activity has been associated with lower levels of metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of five cardiovascular risk factors comprising elevated waist circumference, high triglycerides, low HDL (the “good” cholesterol), high blood pressure and high blood sugar. So in layman’s terms: if you want to lose fat, lower your blood sugar and blood pressure, and improve your cholesterol levels, very short bouts of higher-intensity exercise can help.

“Accumulating a high volume of walking throughout the day, then focussing on doing at least 30 minutes of faster walking or jogging, would be a good way to lower your metrics for each of the progressive risk factors,” says Dr Aguiar.

“But one of the really interesting findings from our paper was that, if you look at people’s highest one minute of activity across each day, that was a very strong signal for whether they had one or more of the metabolic syndrome risk factors present. Even something as little as one minute of high-intensity activity could be beneficial.”

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Move after meals

“We know that even a short amount of exercise has an immediate effect,” says Dr Aguiar. “Straight away, you get lower blood pressure and lower blood glucose. This ties in with another study on postprandial walking [walking after a meal].”

The research found that, in “older persons at risk for glucose intolerance”, those who went for a 15-minute walk after meals had much shallower highs and lows in their blood sugar levels throughout the day. Why? Because glucose is pulled into the cells of working muscles during exercise to be used as energy, so if you go for a walk after eating then blood sugar levels are stopped from spiking. This can prevent the development of insulin resistance.

“The way insulin resistance works is that, over years and decades, the body can become resistant to the effect of insulin [a hormone which regulates blood sugar levels] because you’re consuming too much carbohydrate,” Dr Aguiar explains.

“The muscle, because it’s not active, becomes resistant, and then insulin doesn’t work anymore. That’s when you have to take medications like synthetic insulin or other drugs that control blood glucose levels like metformin.”

But these medications should be seen as a “last line of defence”, he adds. Your body is likely to have been struggling with handling glucose for some time before insulin resistance develops, and exercise (vis-à-vis, walking) is a “primary strategy and behavioural recommendation” for combatting this.

“[Moving after meals] reduces the amount of work your pancreas has to do, and improves the way your muscle can take in or accept glucose to use it as a fuel,” Dr Aguiar says. “That effect over years and decades is what prevents you from getting metabolic syndrome, diabetes and hypertension. Just 15 minutes of walking after each main meal is going to be beneficial for your health.”

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Try rucking

Rucking refers to the act of walking with weights, usually in the form of a loaded backpack. This can be done with specialist kit, such as a custom-built rucksack and weight plates, or you can just chuck a few heavier household items into a sturdy but standard bag then go for a walk.

Now for the obvious question: why would you want to do that?

“Extra weight costs you energy to move,” says Dr Aguiar. “If you’re adding weight, it’s going to increase your oxygen consumption, and it’s going to increase your heart rate if you’re trying to maintain the same speed of walking.”

As referenced in the points above, this will increase the intensity of your walk, leading to elevated calorie burn and potentially increased cardio perks in the same timeframe. And the benefits don’t end there.

“All of the muscles in your lower body – the quadriceps, hamstrings and gastrocnemius (calf muscles) – are going to have to accommodate that heavier load, so you could get small improvements in strength and bone density, especially if you do it over a prolonged period of time,” Dr Aguiar adds.

“This probably won’t be equivalent to what you would achieve from resistance training, but you may get some improvement in muscle mass from rucking.”

A good starting point for rucking is to carry a couple of extra kilograms in your bag while walking, then you can build the weight from there as your fitness level increases. Start light and progress gradually to give your body time to adapt to this new demand and minimise injury risk.

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What are the benefits of walking?

Even without any of these techniques, walking boasts plenty of benefits, and there is an ever-growing pool of research to support this.

“Over the last two or three years there have been a lot of large studies coming out looking at prospective associations between walking and health outcomes like all-cause mortality, which is a fancy way of saying any reason why someone would die,” Dr Aguiar explains. “These studies are showing that walking, not necessarily in huge volumes, is associated with large reductions in risk of all-cause mortality.”

A 2023 meta-analysis published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found there is a “significant inverse association between daily step count and all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality, with the more [steps] the better over the cut-off point of 3867 steps per day for all-cause mortality and only 2,337 steps per day for cardiovascular mortality.”

In other words, the more you walk, the lower your risk of dying, and a little extra activity can go a long way – “We showed that a 1,000-step increment correlated with a significant reduction of all-cause mortality of 15 per cent, and similarly, a 500-step increment correlated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality of seven per cent,” the research goes on to add.

A 2023 University of Granada study then sought to find the optimal number of steps per day. It concluded that, while more movement is inevitably better for your health, “if we focus on the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, most of the benefits are seen at around 7,000 steps [per day]”. It adds that the coveted 10,000-step goal has “no scientific basis”, but can be a handy way to encourage more movement.

Beyond all-cause mortality, further benefits of walking can depend on your fitness level. For example, an Olympic runner who regularly subjects themself to an intense training regime is unlikely to build cardiovascular fitness from a brisk stroll – they’re already operating at a higher level. The same applies to gym-goers, who probably won’t build leg strength from 10,000 steps.

However, if you currently do little-to-no activity, the stimulus provided by walking will be sufficient to trigger greater changes. These include boosting heart health and cardiovascular fitness, strengthening the bones, joints and muscles in your lower body so you’re less susceptible to injury, and contributing to daily calorie burn to aid weight management.

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