I'm living two minutes away from a green belt in my town. It's a round course with partly paved paths, pretty much exactly 5km long, used by runners and walkers.
Since I've been working from home I've made it a point to head out mid-workday and go for a walk. One hour. Surrounded by trees. It's fantastic.
Whenever I'm getting annoyed or cranky, it's time to go. Most of our development tools are shit. I get lots of opportunities…
When I started doing that I could reliably measure my blood pressure going down by 10 to 15 mmHg. Lasting the rest of the day.
Now I've lost quite a bit of weight (mostly by eating less, not much by walking, I think), and I cannot see such a reliable drop in blood pressure anymore (it's now regularly lower). I still feel better whenever I've been out.
Don't discount that walk in losing weight. I hear a lot about weight loss being mostly diet, and you can't outrun a cheeseburger, etc. But in reality, if you are around borderline eating 2000 calories per day, and if that walk burns an additional 300 calories, well 12 walks will cause a pound of weight loss. Plus, if you have free time to take a walk, that means you aren't using that time to snack either.
Exercise has two additional weight loss benefits over just burning extra calories. Sustained activity cranks up your metabolism for a period afterwards, and additional muscle mass means you’re less likely to have extra calories go immediately to fat.
I've not been enjoying the back to the office aspect of things... but it always feels better after a wonderful ride through Midtown rush hour traffic. Just being out there moving the body is always wonderful.
I started walking briskly recently. I just love it. I will find any excuse to get outside and walk. I walk to work, I walk to shop. This way, I am walking between 15-20k steps on any day. It sounds crazy, but it’s actually easily achievable if you start thinking about ways to tie it in your daily activities.
15-20k steps/day sounds a lot if your day job doesn't involve walking around. Before the pandemic, my typical day was 10-15k steps. But now that I'm working from home, it takes some effort to reach 10k, because I have fewer reasons to leave home.
I agree! It sounds crazy but you can build it up slowly. Now in my "low days", when I work too much and finish late, I have just some 12000 steps. In "good days" periods, it has become normal for me to get 20000 steps.
I set just one rule: go for fast pace walk every day no matter the weather and no matter the time of the day.
Some of the hardest additions I've made to my gym workouts include crawling and jumping. Jumping / bounding, especially if you haven't done much of it before, is quite taxing.
I prefer bodybuilding lifts over crossfit style movements, but I realized that dynamic movements would be a worthy addition, at least to my warmups or finishers.
It came to light in a particularly undignified way: I took my kid to a mega-trampoline place and realized: 1) I can't jump for long, 2) jumps down from height are especially unsettling now that I'm no longer in my youth.
Due to the way your body extracts energy from fat and glycogen, your brisk walk should (for most people) keep your heart rate around 120bpm for a sustained period of around an hour.
This way you'll condition better mitochondria development, oxidise fat for energy and avoid producing damaging metabolic by-products.
I walk a lot, and I walk briskly, but my diet is ... not great. When they take my bp at the doctors they are always like 'wow your BP is so good'. and I'm like really? are you sure? I guess the walking and doing so briskly helps a lot.
Some people smoke, drink, eat junk food and never exercise and have excellent blood pressure and never get fat. Others can't keep in shape without tremendous efforts. Equality is for human rights, but nature doesn't care.
I am very fit, 20k steps/day, lift daily, eat the DASH diet, but have high BP if I eat salt, low if I don’t. My girlfriend isn’t quite as healthy, loves salt ,but has super low BP no matter what she eats.
Genetics are far more powerful than I realized. Sometimes nothing else seems to matter.
My target (aka zone 2) is around 140 bpm which I can achieve by walking fairly briskly -- I can still hold a telephone conversation and breath through my nose.
I have tried running in the past but I kept injuring this or the other (not at all athletic). Doing "slow" 10k+ steps per day total did not help with my weight either. But just doing these 1-hr zone-2 sessions (3-4x per week) made all the difference. Ofc ymmv!
Walking is good. Walking faster is better. Walking even slightly faster? Slightly better. Running? Running is right out. However, walking EVEN faster than slightly faster? Guess what: even better.
Only if you can keep on doing it until you are old. A lot of people wear out their hips and knees before they can reap the benefits. Light exercise in the form of walking rather than running is a bit more sustainable and something you can keep on doing as long as you stay healthy. Cycling is similarly beneficial.
This is wrong. Running actually builds up the knees. Only walking is a good way to break down your knees as you get older. My father was trained from a young age to fear running. He had shot knees by his mid forties. I've been running since I was a teenager. No issues (I'm in my 40s).
Brisk walking is it. I can see how that works out the body and could be put into practice in the day to day life. Running is great if you can do it correctly and have the time to put into it. The way I see walking is the minimum needed for us to function and can be applied daily even for the busy. I guess this is saying that brisk walking may be even more favorable for the body...
Yes but it's a balance because running is high impact so if you overdo it you risk injury. Ideally you should be getting some exercise every day but you can't run every day without injuring yourself, it just doesn't work. The recovery days aren't optional if you want to not permanently damage your knees.
That's interesting. I've read that one of the reasons that bipeds are more efficient runners than quadrupeds is because our breathing is decoupled from our stride. Quadrupeds' lungs are anchored within their chest cavity at the top and bottom, so as they stretch and contract their bodies, they are forced to inhale and exhale correspondingly with each stride. It sounds like you don't enjoy the same benefit as the rest of us bipeds.
That being said, when I do try to maintain a regular breathing pattern when running, I usually also do two-in, two-out. Feels pretty good to me.
Hm, I wonder if there is a term for this. I too like to try and keep in a pattern, and it never works out and often feels very unnatural when speeding up or slowing down a run.
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Since I've been working from home I've made it a point to head out mid-workday and go for a walk. One hour. Surrounded by trees. It's fantastic.
Whenever I'm getting annoyed or cranky, it's time to go. Most of our development tools are shit. I get lots of opportunities…
When I started doing that I could reliably measure my blood pressure going down by 10 to 15 mmHg. Lasting the rest of the day.
Now I've lost quite a bit of weight (mostly by eating less, not much by walking, I think), and I cannot see such a reliable drop in blood pressure anymore (it's now regularly lower). I still feel better whenever I've been out.
Have you had endorphin kick yet ?
It's relaxing for me, not exciting.
Dead Comment
Sidewalks might as well be illegal in most parts of my home city, given how many areas are completely devoid of them.
I set just one rule: go for fast pace walk every day no matter the weather and no matter the time of the day.
Dead Comment
https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20866689/why-crawling...
I prefer bodybuilding lifts over crossfit style movements, but I realized that dynamic movements would be a worthy addition, at least to my warmups or finishers.
It came to light in a particularly undignified way: I took my kid to a mega-trampoline place and realized: 1) I can't jump for long, 2) jumps down from height are especially unsettling now that I'm no longer in my youth.
Do both and you've covered your bases. Makes sense.
This way you'll condition better mitochondria development, oxidise fat for energy and avoid producing damaging metabolic by-products.
Dead Comment
Some people smoke, drink, eat junk food and never exercise and have excellent blood pressure and never get fat. Others can't keep in shape without tremendous efforts. Equality is for human rights, but nature doesn't care.
My target (aka zone 2) is around 140 bpm which I can achieve by walking fairly briskly -- I can still hold a telephone conversation and breath through my nose.
I have tried running in the past but I kept injuring this or the other (not at all athletic). Doing "slow" 10k+ steps per day total did not help with my weight either. But just doing these 1-hr zone-2 sessions (3-4x per week) made all the difference. Ofc ymmv!
[1] https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/zone-2...
Things I learned on my walks:
* Railroad tracks are policed by railroad cops, some equipped with large revolvers. That Colt is cemented in my mind...
* Railroad tracks are frequented by migrant workers and those who might prey upon them. Some of those people are dangerous.
* Ben's has great Chinese food. (near Jack London Square)
Mind sharing? Curiosity burns!
https://www.oxfordortho.sg/articles/why-running-is-actually-...
I always fall into a two-steps–breathe-in/two-steps-breathe-out rhythm. It comes out to be a very unnatural and uncomfortable breathing sequence.
(Also I cannot decouple music beats from my steps, so listening to music is out, as well)
That being said, when I do try to maintain a regular breathing pattern when running, I usually also do two-in, two-out. Feels pretty good to me.