The Benefits of Fitness Walking for Health and Vitality
Walking for health: the benefits of fitness walking certainly repay some study!
"I have two doctors, my left leg and my right." - George Trevelyan, 1913
It's so easy not to walk in the modern world!
Studies of prehistory and primitive societies show that walking is what we are built for; throughout the millennia of human development people have walked and walked.
We walked to follow herds of wild and domestic animals, we walked to find new lands, we walked to find wives and husbands and to meet with kinsmen from afar.
Everywhere we walked!
Time for walking
Now we know just how beneficial it is to walk but we haven't the time. Not having the time, we lose the ability to walk properly, becoming unfit and flabby, so that walking even a short way becomes a struggle!
Young children prepare for a future in their automobiles when their parents strap them into their pushchairs. Bored older children stare out from their cocooned car seats, the sedan chairs of the modern world... Meanwhile, signs of developing heart disease can be detected in children as young as eight.
We all know the temptations of the car... Why walk when you can ride?
The urban environment in many places becomes less and less appealing as a space for walking. Why walk when the streets are heavy with diesel fumes? Why walk when the noise of cars and lorries is so deafening that you cannot hear what your companion is saying? Why walk when you might get mugged or assaulted on the street? Why walk when there is a dance to be done to avoid the discarded chip wrappers and dog excrement littering the pavements? Why walk when you have things to carry? Or when it's doing that horizontal rain thing or when the wind is blowing up grit into your eyes?
Yes, we can all summon up a dozen different reasons not to walk. But walking is what the human body is designed for and walking delivers up some seriously good health benefits.
Yet, we all know that walking can be marvellous. The sun on your face, natural sounds and sights, time to breathe, time to think; walking can help our inner state of peace and equilibrium and can help put some perspective back into out lives when pressures are crowding in on us.
Here's some more of the benefits that walking can give you.
The benefits of fitness walking:
Walking health benefits
Walking regularly will almost certainly help your body to maintain (or regain) normal blood pressure. Your risks of heart disease and strokes will be lowered, too.
Weight control and weight loss from walking
Walking can help with fat metabolism and make you less at risk from high blood cholesterol. If you walk regularly you are far less likely to be overweight. Regular walkers don't tend to have excess body fat. Walking, along with a proper diet, can help overweight people shed the excess and return to a trim fi...
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