This is going to sound a little bit odd, coming from a Men’s Health staffer, but if you stripped away every physical health benefit of walking, I’d still be out there pounding the pavement every day.
I can evangelise for hours about the power of a simple walk without once mentioning calories or cardiovascular fitness. Getting out of your own head, working through a problem, or just putting a bit of distance between yourself and whatever’s been winding you up. In my humble opinion, walking is about as close to a panacea as we’re going to get.
The fact that it’s also very good for your body? Well, that just seals the deal.
Now, research suggesting that an hour of walking could add around six hours to your life gives us a fairly quantifiable reason to keep getting those steps in, and a pretty hefty dose of motivation if you’re currently doing very little.
Researchers used activity-tracker data from adults aged 40 and over, alongside mortality data, to estimate the changes in physical activity could have on life expectancy.
Their study found that the greatest estimated return per hour of walking was among the least active quarter of adults. For this group, the researchers concluded that ‘an additional hour’s walk could add 376.3 min of life expectancy’.
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That’s over six hours added on to the sharp end of your life for every 60-minute stroll; a pretty solid return on investment for something you can do without even changing into your gym kit.
How Much Walking Do You Need?
Of course, there’s some fine print here. These were estimates, based on sustained differences in activity. We wouldn’t take a single Sunday lap around the park and confidently pencil another six hours onto the end of our retirement. And if you’re already getting plenty of exercise in, you shouldn’t expect the same return.
But these findings are still massively positive for anyone starting from the couch. If you’re currently doing very little, you potentially have a lot to gain from a habit that requires virtually no kit, planning or expense.
Top metabolic expert Professor Jimmy Bell makes a similarly straightforward case for getting moving, speaking on the Man Alive podcast.
‘If you’re sitting all day, any walk will do,’ Bell commented.
From there, Bell suggests walking briskly enough to leave you slightly out of breath, and spreading the effort throughout the day.
‘Walk slightly faster and divide your walk into three walks a day instead of doing a long one-hour walk,’ he says. ‘Do 20 minutes in the morning, 20 after lunch, and 20 after dinner.’
An hour might feel like a fairly ambitious addition to an already busy day. Twenty minutes before work, a lap at lunch and another after dinner might be more manageable. If it isn’t, start with the one you can consistently get done, and do it. Treat any additional steps as a bonus.
How to Get More Steps Into Your Day
When asked for the single most effective thing a man could do today to improve his health, Bell – a leading expert in body fat and metabolic health – replied: ‘Get up early in the morning at dawn when the sun’s coming up. Go for a walk from between 20 and 30 minutes.’
But even if you’re not game for a dawn raid on your metabolic health, simply create yourself a regular route, try to walk the short journeys you’d usually drive, get away from your desk at every practical opportunity, and simply try to build on what you’re already doing.
I’d still be heading out for the headspace alone. But if time spent walking is going to give us back considerably more time to enjoy being alive, well, I’d call that time well spent.
With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
