Is Walking Exercise? Does It Matter?

The debate about walking as exercise is the internet kerfuffle du jour.

The Difference Between Physical Activity and Exercise

All exercise is physical activity, but not all physical activity is exercise.

Physical activity is any movement made with the muscles in your arms and legs that burns calories. Bringing groceries in from the car, folding laundry and putting it away, and strolling the aisles at Target are physical activities, but they’re not considered exercise by the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PAG).

Experts define exercise as a type of physical activity intended to improve health or fitness -  although you could argue that physical activity of any kind also enhances health and fitness. But I digress. The main difference between physical activity and exercise is that exercise is planned, structured, and repetitive.

Walking nay-sayers seem to think that walking isn’t worth your time because it’s not taxing enough. That’s not always the case.   

When Walking Is Exercise, and When It Isn’t

Aerobic physical activity, such as running, biking, and walking, enhances overall wellbeing. Stressing the body with sustained aerobic activity increases the efficiency of the heart, lungs, and muscles, making them stronger and improving overall fitness.

Most exercise research has studied the effects of moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity aerobic activities. For the majority of health outcomes, including a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic conditions including overweight and obesity, you gain additional benefits with more intensity, greater frequency, and/or longer duration of exercise.

For that, and other reasons, the PAG suggest at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise weekly, preferably spread out over the seven days. The guidelines also recommend muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity that work all the major muscle groups on two or more days a week.

The PAG defines the desirable frequency and duration of aerobic activity, as well as the intensity. When it comes to walking and other activities, like playing tennis, intensity determines whether the activity qualifies as exercise. For example, the PAG designate doubles tennis as a moderate-intensity activity and singles tennis as a kind of vigorous-intensity activity.  A 30-minute walk on five days a week is physical activity, but it’s not necessarily exercise unless you walk at about a four-mile-per-hour pace, which is 15 minutes per mile.  

The idea that intensity matters in determining when an activity is exercise is further underscored by PAG suggestion that you can do half as much vigorous-intensity activity to achieve the same health benefits.  For example, if you jog, run, or participate in strenuous fitness classes, you require just 75 to 150 minutes of physical activity weekly.

To make walking into exercise you must walk at an intensity that challenges your cardiovascular system. As a rule of thumb, a healthy person doing moderate-intensity aerobic activity can talk, but not sing, during the activity. A healthy person doing vigorous-intensity activity cannot say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.

That said, if you haven’t exercised for a while, brisk walking may be vigorous for you.  Start by taking one or more 10-minute strolls a day and gradually progress to 30-minute walks at least five times a week. When you’ve reached a new fitness level, you can go even further with small, progressive changes that challenge your body to make it even stronger.  Carrying light weights or a backpack with some light weight in it, walking up more hills, interval training, and increasing your walking speed are all ways to improve fitness, and are especially useful if you only have 30 minutes a day to work out.

Photo by Joonas Sild on Unsplash

Walking Builds Muscle

Most physical activities, including walking, don’t work the entire body and that’s OK. It’s one of the reasons why the PAG suggest resistance training twice a week. But back to walking, which mainly involves the quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and glutes as well as muscles in the back and core.  

For muscle to grow, it must be stressed and break down a bit. Walking tones and builds muscle by repairing the area around small tears that occur with physical activity.

A 2018 study published in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity found that older adults who walked for 10 weeks only or who walked for 10 weeks and did home-based resistance training increased the size and the quality of their thigh muscles. Those who did both types of exercise saw even greater improvements. In another study, this one published in 2022 in The Journal of Nutrition, walking for longer increased muscle-making capacity in older women.

Though walking builds muscle and creates more tone in the lower extremities, the effects may be less pronounced in people who are already active. 

Walking for Weight Loss and Weight Management

Midlife weight management is tricky. A combination of a modest daily calorie reduction on a balanced eating plan and regular physical activity, such as walking, is the best way to handle mid-life weight challenges.

Physical activity of all types helps maintain a stable weight and can reduce the risk of excessive weight gain with time. However, if you’ve been walking with the same intensity, frequency, and duration for the past few years, you may find that you’re gaining weight even though you’re not eating more. A loss of muscle tissue is one of the reasons.

We lose muscle with age, but menopause contributes, too.  Lower levels of estrogen result in muscle tissue decline and decreased muscle quality. Estrogen loss is also related to greater accumulation of fat around your midsection, which, ironically, is linked to declines in muscle mass. Muscle burns slightly more calories than fat and contributes to weight control. When you lose muscle, your calorie needs may be lower than before perimenopause even though you’re still walking the same amount.  

Less physical activity during the day is another reason for weight gain. I hate to say it but going for the same 30-minute walk and then sitting for most of the rest of the day isn’t enough to combat the decline in muscle mass and metabolic rate that happens at midlife. See my post about muscle for more information.

Walking Builds Bone Mass

Walking preserves bone mass and helps build bone, too. That’s especially important for midlife women who lose the most bone tissue in the few years after menopause occurs.

Walking is a weight-bearing activity. Weight-bearing activities work your muscles and bones against gravity and apply tension to the bones, triggering them to produce more bone tissue.  Any weight-bearing movement is good for bones, including walking. However, only the bones that bear the load when walking, such as your hips, benefit.

Being physically active in any way, including walking, supports bone health. A 2023 Nature Scientific Reports study of people ages 20 to 59 found that the more physically active they were – measured in hours per day -the greater the bone mineral density (BMD) in their lumbar spine and the less excess body fat they had. Conversely, the more sedentary people in the study had lower lumbar spine BMD and more body fat.  Bone density in the lumbar region of the spine is important because that’s where you’re likely to break a bone because of osteoporosis, a condition characterized by weak and porous bones that are prone to fracture.

I’m a Runner, But I Walk Every Day

I run for exercise, but I also walk every day, and here’s the reason why:

My dog Lucy loves her walks.  There are many times when I don’t feel like walking because I’m tired or busy, or the weather is bad (she loves the snow, though!) but I’m always better for it afterwards. We do a 1.25-mile route and stop often along the way, so it’s not a work out for me. However, our walks provide a much-needed break to clear my head and get me out of the office. Our relatively short, slow walks are like hitting the reset button in my brain, and they contribute to my daily step count.

Though not necessarily exercise, taking more steps throughout the day supports health. A 2023 European Journal of Preventive Cardiology meta-analysis demonstrated that a higher daily step count (at least 2,337) reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. A 2022 JAMA Neurology study found an association between getting nearly 10,000 steps daily with a reduced risk for dementia. Though 9,800 steps daily was the sweet spot, fewer steps provided some protection, too.  And, in a 2020 JAMA study of 4,840 men and women, researchers found that taking more steps reduced dying early of any reason. Taking 8,000 steps a day offered twice the protection of taking 4,000 daily steps and 12,000 steps offered an even greater advantage.

Keep on Walking

Whether it’s technically exercise or not, it’s a shame to discourage any type of physical activity.  That’s why I cringe when influencers downplay walking.

Adults of all shapes and sizes gain health and fitness benefits by being physically active, particularly on a regular basis. Walking is easy and accessible for most people and for price of comfortable walking shoes, it’s possible to reap myriad health benefits.

What do you think about walking? Let me know in the comments!