What Should Be Better: One Long Walk or Multiple Shorter Walks?

What Should Be Better: One Long Walk or Multiple Shorter Walks?

The pros and cons of each approach — and which one is better when you're just getting back into exercise.

Regular walking is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get a little more movement in our day. It's also one of the best things we can do for your body, with benefits for back pain, blood pressure, mental health and more. And while walking can be good exercise, it's most effective when we keep pushing to go a little farther or longer when the body feels all comfortable. But actually fitting a longer or more challenging walk into a regular routine is often easier said than done. Luckily, if one doesn't have time for a 45-minute walk during the day, you can still get benefits by breaking it up.

The truth is that we'll get health benefits from walking regardless of whether we do one long walk or break it up into multiple smaller walks over the course of the day, an expert opined. The goal should be to spend some time walking each day and push to gradually increase the distance or the amount of time one spends walking to get more steps in.

In fact, recent research found more benefits from a longer walk of over 15 minutes compared to multiple shorter walks of less than five minutes. For people who were largely sedentary, walking 15 or more minutes a day led to the greatest reduction in risk of early heart disease, according to the study.

Why It Matters?

Walking is a healthy habit for our body and mind. But if we're using walking as a form of exercise, it's important to keep challenging ourselves. Gradually increasing the length of our walks in terms of time or distance will help get more steps in. But it's also crucial in order to build endurance, burn more calories and boost the metabolism.

Walking for a longer period gives the body the time it needs to switch into exercise mode, which is important, Steven Riechman, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and sport management at Texas A&M University, told NBC News. "You need to get all the systems engaged and fully operational, and that’s where the health benefits come from,” he explained. There's still reason to vary the length of the walks though. It keeps the body guessing, which can improve stamina and cardiovascular health, and makes your workouts more interesting.

If your regular walk has become routine and easy, an expert trainer Mansour recommends "upping the ante" in whatever way works for you. If you’re used to going for a 20-minute daily walk, Mansour encourages you to push that to 30 or 45 minutes. But adding an extra 15 or 20 minutes to your walk might not be so easy to work into your daily schedule. So if you’d rather break up your longer walk into a few smaller ones — walk for 15 minutes before and after work instead of 30 minutes at once — that’s totally fine.

As Mansour said, the goal is to keep challenging yourself a little more over time rather than sticking with what’s familiar and easy. And by adding other modalities to your workout plan (especially strength-training), you'll see even more health benefits. One longer walk a day is better for your heart than lots of short strolls, especially if you don't exercise much, according to new research published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Walking for at least 15 minutes without stopping is ideal, it says. That's about 1,500 steps in a row, which gives your heart a good workout. The study looked at 33,560 adults aged 40–79 in the UK who walked fewer than 8,000 steps a day. They were grouped by how long their walks were (measured with a step-counter over a week):

less than 5 minutes (43%)

5 to 10 minutes (33.5%)

10 to 15 minutes (15.5%)

15 minutes or more (8%)

The researchers, from the University of Sydney and the Universidad Europea in Spain, tracked their health over eight years. People who walked in longer stretches had a lower risk of heart problems than those who walked in short bursts. Even among the least active - those walking under 5,000 steps a day - longer walks made a big difference. Their risk of heart disease dropped significantly.

The researchers say how you walk matters - not just how much. Walking for longer at a time, even if you don't walk much overall, appears to help your heart. The study recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, like brisk walking, ideally spread out evenly across the week. Older adults over 65 should try to move every day, even if it's just light activity around the house, the advice says.

"One may find it hard to be more active at first, but as time goes on it'll get easier as the body gets used to the activity. One may only notice small improvements at first, but it all adds up and counts towards keeping the heart healthy." Adults who had been less active in the past and went on longer walks; gradually starting and increasing from smaller walks; showed the greatest health gains.

Carmen Swain, director of the health and exercise science program at the Ohio State University said “Walking is so democratic. You can just do it wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want;” “It’s a good form of exercise.” So Dear Readers! What more motivation do you need to get up and move to walking?

NOTE: The above has been arranged with the help of various articles published in news outlets.