An obese person walking is a good starting point. A lot of obese people can barely walk ten feet to the bathroom, and this becomes a vicious cycle for them in terms of their intolerance of walking is a deterrent to any exercise at all, and they allow themselves to become even more immobile and even more obese.
And a lot of obese people end up with Congestive Heart Failure and Enlarged Hearts as well as other comorbidities such as Type 2 Diabetes, Joint issues, Pressure sores and the like. Taking steps to prevent this will really improve, dare I say SAVE, their lives.
So if they’re taking the initiative to walk as exercise, that’s a great step! And for someone who’s been sedentary, they will burn a lot of calories at first, which will be even more motivating.
Encourage them when you see them. Tell them “hi”, be proud of them! Send a smile their way to let them feel welcomed. Know that they’re taking a big step in the right direction by taking their own destinies into their hands.
If they come up to you and ask you about an exercise, take great pleasure that you are in your own tiny miniscule way helping to contribute to their knowledge base! Share what you know feely. Feed their enthusiasm, motivation and thirst for fitness.
You may see them in a year and they may have lost a lot of weight and have gained a lot more knowledge about diet and nutrition.
Walking alone can actually work wonders on setting your BP and pulse to a healthy level. Not to mention it can put you into a very pleasant trance where you can often think more clearly than at any other time.
I used to obese/inactive and all I could handle at the start was walking. No way in hell could I perform EDT deadlift workouts like now.
Plenty of people are at a lower level than you, but that doesn’t mean they’re pussing out. I bet you can’t squat 1000 pounds. If you can squat 400 and you’re pushing yourself hard, does that make you lazy because you’re not half as strong as some other people in the world?
To the OP: your post is even more idiotic than it is conceited, but I used to feel exactly the same way so your ignorance is understandable.
When you’re an athlete/bodybuilder with good orthopedic health and high functional capacity, you don’t appreciate something as unchallenging as walking.
I used to be a serious competitve runner and beat the shit out of myself on the track every day. I would also walk my dog three miles daily, and not even think of it as exercise or consider it a source of stress with respect to my training.
About a year ago, my orthopedic health went to shit due to generalized osteoarthritis, and walking became the only kind of exercise I could do. Of course I’m devastated that I can’t train in an athletic fashion anymore, but walking has become a great thing for me. It’s allowed me to stay trim and healthy when I thought I was doomed to become a fat f*ck and ride the furniture for the rest of my life. It’s also an awesome mood lifter for me; I’ve been very depressed due to my condition, and I always feel better after even a short walk.
Since becoming interested in OA research, I’ve learned that walking is probably the single best thing that you can do for joint health. Articular cartilage depends on mechanical forces for it’s health and maintenance. The moderate, cyclic impact loading provided by walking is perfect for keeping the cartilage strong and metabolically active. In fact, I believe that if everyone walked 30-60 minutes per day, the incidence of osteoarthritis in weightbearing joints would decrease drastically.
I believe the conflict regarding walking here is not necessarily about walking itself but the goals us on Testosterone Nation normally hold. The overweight person and indeed the normal non testosterone people normally have differing goals. Where my goals are to be strong and fit on an elite level most other people are more reserved. They have goals centered around weight loss or weight maintenance and assign little importance to performance.
So in this regard walking is probably the most fitting exercise, due to its low impact and expense. Furthermore if I had to advise an obese client I would not hesitate in recommending a routine of walking.
Without a solid base of fitness the chances of graduating to higher levels of exercise for the sedentary person normally leads to high drop out rates.
On a performance note try taking a walk in a park or bush track one day and you may find the stress relief and motivation you need to get to the next level.
I was just thinking today how my views on walking have changed over time. I used to think like the OP that walking for conditioning was a seriously lame waste of time.
Now I know different.
Now I know that walking is a tool, suitable for certain tasks, and inappropriate for others.
Do I think the 100 pound coeds I see at the campus recreation center need to be walking? No, I think more vigorous exercise of almost any type would be better.
Does my obese father need to be walking on a daily basis? You better believe it.
Does most of America need to be walking every day? They most certainly do. It’s too easy for those who don’t find walking to be particularly strenuous to look down on people who are unable to simply walk for a duration. I think you’d be amazed at how many people would huff and puff and weeze just walking across my campus. They definitely need to be walking somewhere everyday.
I also think walking is great for people who don’t give a rat’s ass about their aerobic capability, like me. For me, walking is a great way to increase my general physical preparedness without adding so much work that it interferes with my “real” workouts. My resting heart rate stays in the double digits and I don’t have to lean up against a house for 15 minutes in between bouts of farmer’s walk.
I noticed as I get stronger and do fewer and fewer repetitions on a daily/weekly basis, my conditioning has gotten poorer, and adding some walking has helped me make that up.
On a related note, I found that I was alot like the biggest hog at the county fair when it came to climbing stairs: I was breathing hard, sweaty and contemplating flopping onto the ground to wait for death. Walking up and down stairs at a moderate (read “slow”) pace has helped correct that.
Don’t condemn walking as a stop-gap to running. It’s entirely useful in it’s own right.
[quote]Physical_Culture wrote:
I believe the conflict regarding walking here is not necessarily about walking itself but the goals us on Testosterone Nation normally hold. The overweight person and indeed the normal non testosterone people normally have differing goals. Where my goals are to be strong and fit on an elite level most other people are more reserved. They have goals centered around weight loss or weight maintenance and assign little importance to performance.
So in this regard walking is probably the most fitting exercise, due to its low impact and expense. Furthermore if I had to advise an obese client I would not hesitate in recommending a routine of walking.
Without a solid base of fitness the chances of graduating to higher levels of exercise for the sedentary person normally leads to high drop out rates.
On a performance note try taking a walk in a park or bush track one day and you may find the stress relief and motivation you need to get to the next level.
Yours sincerely
Physical_Culture
Long Live the BodyScience
[/quote]
Not that I think every bloated fatbody that walks around is super strong, but I also think it’s important to note that if you’re a HW or SHW powerlifter or strongman, does anyone really think walking isn’t a useful exercise?
The more total body mass you carry the more strenuous walking becomes. And contrary to what alot of pencil necks say, or seem to imply, your aerobic capability is not your sole determinant of cardiovascular health and general fitness. Someone who can run a half marathon but can’t deadlift their bodyweight isn’t “fit” to do much of anything in the world I live in.
The problem is that many people go to the gym, walk on the treadmill at about 3 mph, then later act befuddled as to why the “best exercise” isn’t working. Just because “At least I’mnot sitting on the sofa!” doesn’t make it do wonders.
Go ahead and walk, but don’t count on it too much.
It’s about picking the right tool for the right purpose.
If i’m training for rugby season then i’m sprinting. I want to get fast, explosive and fit for a heavy cardiovascular workload.
If i’m getting ready for a bodybuilding comp then i’m monitoring my diet and walking. I want to consistently lose bodyfat and retain muscle mass.
There’s no point getting upset when people aren’t training how you think they should. Worry about your own training.
Too many ‘arm chair’ experts out there…