When you want to add a little movement to your day, there’s nothing simpler than heading outside for a walk. You don’t need a gym or specific equipment—or even any special skills. All you’ve gotta be able to do is put one foot in front of the other. “Walking is just the easiest form of exercise that you can do,” Alexis Bhagat, MS, a clinical exercise physiologist with Kaiser Permanente in Colorado, tells SELF. It’s no wonder so many of us are now embracing our low-key strolls.
But if your goal is to get in a true cardio workout, is walking really enough? Or do you need to push yourself harder to get legit heart health benefits? Well, experts say that depends on both your current fitness and the exact approach you take once you lace up those walking shoes. Here’s what to keep in mind to make sure you’re getting everything you want out of the time you spend racking up your step count.
If you want a true cardio workout, you probably need to walk with some intention.
When it comes to cardio, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends healthy adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity workouts per week, or 75 minutes at a vigorous intensity to improve and maintain overall health and fitness. To drill down into the nitty-gritty of those recs: The organization considers a cardio workout “moderate” when you hit 64 to 76% of your maximum heart rate, while “vigorous” means you’re at 77 to 95% of your max. (FYI: The easiest way to get a basic idea of your max heart rate is to subtract your age from 220, though if you wear a fitness tracker, it can also estimate it for you based on your data.)
So a 35-year-old, for instance, would need to hit at least 118 beats per minute to reach that moderate threshold. This is typically the effort level where we can chat with a friend, but we’re breathing a little heavier and faster than usual, Jordan Boreman, MS, CPT, an exercise physiologist at Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF. If you were thinking of it on a scale of 0–10, with 0 representing no effort at all, and 10 your absolute max intensity—what fitness pros refer to as your rate of perceived exertion—this would be roughly a 4 or so. You might end up legging it a little faster than your mom would; the key is just to hit a pace that brings you to that moderate heart rate.
Can walking get you there? Absolutely—you just need to be intentional about it. Ambling along without much of a hurry (say, the pace you use while window shopping or walking a slow-moving senior dog) is unlikely to get your heart pumping to that level.
“If it’s lower [than a moderate heart rate zone], I personally do not count it as cardio,” Stephen Ranellone, CSCS, an exercise physiologist on the sports rehabilitation and performance team at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery, tells SELF.