Walking vs. Running
As the weather begins to warm up, many people have begun lacing up their sneakers to walk or run. Many people, however, are unsure whether running or walking offers a better workout for their specific health and fitness goals. In this article, we will provide a bit of information on both activities so you can decide whether walking or running will fit your needs. If you have ever wondered about the comparison of walking vs. running, read on.
Benefits of Walking
Walking is a low impact, moderate form of cardiovascular exercise with a low barrier to entry. This form of exercise puts little stress on muscles and joints. The low impact nature of walking makes it a perfect exercise option for people with arthritis, joint replacements or prior injuries.
Walking provides you with many health benefits. It can help you burn calories, boost aerobic fitness, lower the risk for heart disease, lower your blood pressure, strengthen bones, reduce joint pain and reduce the risk for early mortality. Walking can also help you boost your energy, mood and memory.
Additionally, walking can help strengthen your heart and lungs, build endurance and build and maintain strong bones. Walking is also a great way to loosen up and recover from more strenuous forms of exercise, like resistance training, circuit training or running.
Walking for Beginners
Additionally, walking is a perfect exercise for beginners. You don’t need to have a high fitness level to start walking a couple laps around the block. It’s also easy to build on an exercise habit of walking because it’s not that challenging or uncomfortable.
You can start with five to ten minutes of walking each day and add time as your fitness improves. Once you have worked up to 30-40 minutes each day, you can begin to challenge yourself with harder walking workouts.
How to Challenge Yourself with Walking Workouts
To get the heart health benefits of walking, try to maintain a pace of around 15 minutes per mile for roughly 30-40 minutes at a time. Once you have been walking for a while, you will need to continue to challenge yourself to continue building aerobic fitness.
Adding hills or speed walking intervals to your walking routine, or coupling running with circuit training and circuit resistance training, can also help you build more endurance and stamina.
Benefits of Running
Running is another great cardiovascular exercise.
It’s usually a bit more challenging than walking. Running two to five miles at a time requires a good cardiovascular baseline fitness level. Running builds exceptional cardiovascular fitness. While walking and running can both help you improve your cardiovascular health, running can help you build a higher level of cardiovascular fitness. Running also burns more calories per hour than walking, especially if you are able to maintain faster running speeds. For example, a 130 pound woman can burn over 500 calories running for one hour at a ten minute per mile pace.
Running also helps you reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease, lower your heart rate at rest, lower your blood pressure, burn calories, boost mood, memory and energy and even possibly increase your lifespan.
Running, unlike walking, provides many opportunities for competition across all age groups. No matter your age, you can find robust competitive opportunities for shorter distance races, half and full marathons for all age groups. If you want camaraderie and competition, running can fit the bill.
Is Running Bad for your Joints?
Contrary to popular belief, running is not inherently dangerous or damaging to your joints. However, some people with arthritis, joint replacements or prior injuries might experience pain with running, or might need to modify their running routine in order to run with less pain and discomfort. Cross training or including strength training can also reduce the risk of running related injuries.
Balancing Running with High Intensity Workouts
Finally, excessive running might not be the best cardio option for bodybuilders and strength athletes, especially during dieting phases. Running puts a lot of eccentric stress on your muscles, which might make exercise recovery more difficult. If you are trying to build or preserve muscle mass, you may want to limit running to one or two sessions per week and use other lower impact forms of cardio like walking or low intensity cycling to preserve your leg strength for other workouts.
Is it better to run 30 minutes or walk an hour?
It depends. If you have the available time and want a more pleasant, leisurely workout, that’s easy on your joints, a one hour walk is a great option. On the other hand, if you are pressed for time and want a slightly more challenging workout, you can try running for thirty minutes.
Is it better to walk or run to lose weight?
Walking does not burn as many calories as running. Running can help you create a bigger energy deficit as you can burn more calories in less time by running. However, running long distances can also increase your hunger level and subsequent energy intake, making weight loss more of a challenge.
Whether you choose to walk or run, make sure you create an energy deficit with your diet and/or exercise routine. You can easily create an equal calorie deficit with walking or running, provided you monitor your calorie intake and monitor your calorie burning efforts accurately.
Really, the choice to walk or run while trying to lose weight depends on your goals. If muscle preservation is your goal, you may want to limit running and focus on lower impact forms of cardio. However, if you are an avid runner who just wants to shed a few pounds for race season, you can easily use running and a calorie deficit to help you achieve your goals.
Is it better to walk fast or jog slow?
Again, the answer to this question depends on your goals. In general, running is a much more energy intensive activity than walking with different kinematic demands. Running requires you to balance on one leg while propelling yourself forward using elastic energy. Running slowly will, in general, burn more calories, build more aerobic fitness and create more muscle damage than brisk walking. On the other hand, walking briskly burns slightly fewer calories and generates less muscle soreness than running. If you want to build the stamina to run faster distances or have aspirations to run a race one day, you should definitely start with slow jogging. However, if you just want to get some general cardiovascular exercise without straining your muscles too much, brisk walking can suffice.
Final Thoughts
Walking and running are two popular, accessible forms of cardiovascular exercise. While these modes of exercise provide slightly different benefits, each will help you build fitness and good health. Whether you choose walking or running, the important thing is to get started and stay consistent so you can reap the benefits of improved fitness and health.
