Walking is essential to our daily lives, it is one of the easiest and most underrated forms of exercise that improves your physical and mental health. In this article we will give you some pointers to get a better workout out of it and how to deal with sore muscles, lethargy, and other problems you can quickly fix.
Without any further ado, here are six simple tips to maximize your walking routine.
1. Warming up
Stretching your arms, legs, and neck will prepare your body for your walking session. Although it's tempting to skip this part, stretching will lessen eventual muscle pain, especially on your legs. Stretching gives your body time to raise and increase its temperature as well, so you won't feel as much of a shock after the walk.
2. Pre-workout snack
Feeling lazy to go out for a walk? Treat yourself with a tasty and healthy snack, like a banana or even a peanut butter sandwich before you go out. This will also take care of your glycogen levels, so you'll keep your energy throughout the walk.
3. Drinking water before and after
Water is essential to our overall health, especially when we are active. It's necessary to replace the water we lose when sweating. When we get dehydrated, we experience weakness in the muscles, headaches, and dizziness. We don't want those distractions when we are exercising.
4. Get enough sleep
Quality sleep gets you going throughout the day. A balanced sleep schedule will also boost the time you take to recharge your energy and for your muscles to develop and get stronger.
5. Log your progress
We have some good days, and then we have some bad days. Logging your daily process lets you track your overall progress and improve your goals over time. Our suggestion is to increase your step goal monthly; this can be 500 steps more or maybe 1000 if you can.
6. Mix it up
Avoid doing the same walking routine every time, this can quickly become stale and you will lose motivation to walk. Try choosing different locations, vary the intensity of your walks or even consider carrying weights while you walk to add an element of strength training to your exercise.
Cooling down is an essential part of every workout so don't forgot to cool down properly to avoid muscle soreness or injury.
Building good habits around your walking routine will get you motivated and keep you going. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself during these troubling times. May you have a pleasant walk!