Why walking is the perfect activity for health? Regular walking has many positive benefits.

It can improve your:
Confidence, Stamina, Energy, Weight Control, Life expectancy

It can reduce the risk of:
Coronary heart disease, Strokes, Diabetes, High blood pressure Bowel Cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Anxiety, Stress

Getting Started

If you can only walk for a couple of minutes and then you need to rest that's OK. Where you start from isn't important - it's where you're going that counts!

Try to walk on most days of the week - you could start with a 10-minute walk and gradually increase the time you spend walking. Don't overdo it on your first walk. If you are very unfit you may want to start by walking every other day. Build it up bit by bit and know what you are aiming for:

To get health benefits from walking, you only need to walk for 30 minutes, 5 days a week.
If it suits you to break this down and do, say, 3 sessions of 10 minutes walking in a day, that's just as good.

Building a habit of regular walking

To make a habit of regular walking, try this 10-week plan:

Starting off:
Week 1 - two walks of 10 minutes each on three days of the week Weeks 2 and 3 - two walks of 15 minutes each on four days of the week Week 4 - two walks of 15 minutes each on five days of the week

Getting going:
Week 5 to 9 - two walks of 15 minutes each, or one walk of 30 minutes, on five days of the week. Try to increase your pace slightly or include a route which has some inclines or uphill slopes.

Staying with it:
Week 10 onwards - aim for a brisk pace and challenge yourself with steeper inclines or hills.

Developing your own walking route. What to wear?

If you are walking on your own, stick to areas that you are familiar with. You might want to design a circular route that links your local shop with other local features - choose busy, more populated areas.

In poor weather conditions you may want to include an indoor shopping centre on your route (no excuses).

Investigate local parks, pathways and open spaces.

A local walking scheme may be able to give you ideas for routes which you could then do by yourself.

Start by walking on flat ground and by going a short distance. Increase the distance you walk before you increase the speed or gradient.

Why "brisk" walking is the best?

Any walking is better than none. Brisk walking is the best but, if you are unfit or have taken very little exercise recently, then gentle strolling is a good start. It is much better to start slowly and build up to walking faster rather than overdoing things at the begining.

Brisk walking is the goal because the heart reaches its natural "training zone" when it has to work a little harder than normal.

You are walking briskly when:
your heart beats faster than normal but is not racing
your breathing is deeper than usual but conversation is still possible
you experience a warm glowing feeling

The right walking speed for you depends on your gender, age and fitness. The table below shows target speeds for people who want to be fit. For example, if you are a woman aged 57 who is managing to walk briskly at a speed of 3 miles per hour, then you are fit.

These speeds are based on flat ground if there are gradients on your walk then increase the time by between 10 and 20%.