your walking workouts

Trainer Sarah Kusch has designed these three walking workouts that incorporate high intensity intervals for maximum kJ burn.

Just taking yourself for a walk has many benefits: you get outside in the fresh air, you stretch your muscles and if you enroll a friend or family member in the exercise you’ll get the added social benefits of walking and talking. But our weekly program is going to take your daily walks up a notch with three routines that will boost your fitness and lower your weight. So before you start, hop on those scales and take note of what you see.

It will soon change, and for the better.

Aim to complete each of the following three workouts once a week on alternate days (to avoid injury we don’t recommend doing these high-intensity workouts on back-to-back days). Use the intensity guide (see box at left) to find the proper effort level for each interval. Each workout turns up your metabolism so you not only burn extra kilojoules during your sweat session, but you torch extra kilojoules for hours after you’re done.

For quicker results:

Do the 60-minute weight-loss workout three times a week, plus 30 to 60 minutes of moderate cardio, such as walking or biking on the in-between days.

1 30-minute energy-revving routine

Burns: 1046 kJ (250 cal) Regularly alternating 1-minute high intensity bouts with 1 minute of moderate walking ensures that you maximise your kilojoule burn even when you have limited time to work out.

2

45-minute fat-burning plan

Burns: 1545 kJ (450 cal) Each high-intensity interval in this workout is shorter than the last, making it easier for you to give it your all right up to the finish and incinerate more kilojoules.

3 60-minute weight-loss workout

Burns: 1880 kJ (450 cal) This routine gradually builds up the intensity, hitting your peak effort midway to keep your energy high so you can go longer and see results sooner.