Will it be ok to cut back on my walking?

mrsgigandet
mrsgigandet Posts: 53 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everybody. I have a quick question. For a long time now my exercise regime has revolved around walking 10,000 steps every day, seven days a week. I also do some simple exercises with hand weights, an exercise ball, and squats every evening.

I recently started going to the gym before work Monday-Friday to do a 30-minute interval program on the elliptical machine. In addition to that, I am going to be starting the 30DS tomorrow after I get home from school/work.

I'm afraid that if I try to do all of these things every day, my body will not only be overwhelmed, but I simply won't have the time. Time is a precious commodity for me nowadays - I work and go to college, and my classes this semester are really killing me. Walking alone takes almost 2 hours every day, and I'm scrambling just to find the time to study for my tests.

Will I be ok if, for instance, I stick to the elliptical/30DS on weekdays and walk on the weekends? Or maybe walk 5,000 steps instead of 10,000? I would really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Replies

  • mrsgigandet
    mrsgigandet Posts: 53 Member
    Bump please :)
  • Michaelsdin
    Michaelsdin Posts: 146
    I don't see how it would hurt honestly you are replacing one exercise with another. If you believe you are whelmed then ofcourse ease back on something your body will let you know just dont ignore the signs i believe. not a professional by no means.
  • QuietLegs
    QuietLegs Posts: 42
    Having a walking goal is fantastic, but it's certainly not necessary to get or stay in shape :)

    Absolutely, enjoy some other exercises! As long as you're burning the amount of calories you want to, and you're eating right, you'll be just fine.
  • mrsgigandet
    mrsgigandet Posts: 53 Member
    Okay, thank you both so much! I know the elliptical/30DS combined don't equal as much time as my walking does, but it's certainly more intense :)
  • drgndancer
    drgndancer Posts: 426 Member
    So, there's a couple of different reasons for exercise, and your new routine will likely be good for most of them and no worse than break even on the rest. Let me break it down:

    1) Cardiovascular fitness is improved by stressing your heart and lungs. Your old routine probably wasn't doing much for you here. Walking is good for the heart certainly, but you were probably pretty used to the old routine and so there wasn't much stress going on. You can't really practically increase the intensity of walking, so once your heart got used to the effort, you probably just maintained. With the elliptical and 3DS you'll be forcing your heart rate up much higher than you did walking, and you can increase the intensity as you improve, so you can continue to see improved fitness over time.

    2) Muscular strength and endurance are improved by stressing the muscles. Again, walking wasn't helping a ton with this once you got the initial bump from starting. For most of the same reasons as above, your new program will help much more. Some resistance training (weights) will help even more with this, and there's definitely limits to how much any "cardio" can improve strength, but your new program will definitely help more than just walking

    3) Calories are burned by activity. This will probably be a wash. You are doing shorter, but more intense exercise and replacing longer, but less intense exercise. A lot depends on how hard you work out, and how much less time you spend than you used to, but mostly this will likely be a wash, at least in the beginning. As you get into better shape from 1 & 2 above, you'll find that you can push harder and do more intense exercise, which may actually improve your calorie burn in the same workout over time. As an example: yesterday I ran 10 miles in about an hour and twenty minutes, and burned nearly 2000 calories. So in that 1:20 I probably burned 2 or 3 times as many calories as you would in however long it takes you to walk 10,000 steps. When you get to the point where you can maintain a high level of intensity for hours at a time, you can get phenomenal calories burns.

Categories