Hills, slopes, stairs and steps

Me:                        Do you want more bang for your buck when you go out for a walk?

Simon:                  Bang, buck, walk. How?

Me:                        Walk uphill.

I’m a keen supporter of walking for health. We should all be getting out to walk, doing it more often and walking further. Walking is great exercise.

But if we want to gain even more benefits from it, and pack those benefits into the limited time we sometimes have, then a great way of multiplying those positive impacts is to walk up a slope.

As tempting as it might be to choose a flat route, we should sometimes seek out a few inclines to make our bodies work that bit harder. I’m not suggesting you climb a 3,000-foot mountain every day, but I am saying that walking up a slight incline or a flight of steps will provide you with a bit more exercise than walking on the flat.

Think of it like this. Walking a kilometre will give you a certain amount of exercise, but in order to gain a bit more exercise from walking that same distance there are two things you can do. One is to walk a bit faster, and the other is to walk a kilometre with an uphill slope in it. You can even combine the two by walking uphill and challenging yourself to walk a bit faster than normal.

Let’s put the speed aspect aside though, because I want to focus on walking uphill in this article.

Now, your attitude to walking uphill is going to be affected by where you live. If you live in a very hilly place, then every time you go out of your front door you are going to be faced with a hill to climb. If that is you, then you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about and this article might not be for you.

If, on the other hand, you live in a very flat area, then you might have to use your imagination to find a bit of a slope to walk up and down. I remember a conversation I once had with a runner from Hull who told me his club had to use the embankment of a main road into the city to create a hill running training session. The club that I’m a member of doesn’t have that problem. We have hills in most directions. Our issue is more one of struggling to find flat routes when we want to run fast.

Anyway, back to walking. My point is that seeking out opportunities to add a bit more uphill walking into your days could have positive health benefits because walking uphill requires our bodies to work that bit harder and our hearts to beat that bit faster. So, my suggestion is to look around the area where you live, identify the slopes you could walk up, and build them into your walks as often as possible.

If there is only one short slope in your neighbourhood, then you might have to walk up and down it three or four times to get some good exercise, but most of us should be able to find a slope that is long enough and steep enough to get the required result of a raised heartbeat and faster breathing.

Of course, there is another slope that most people can use, and that is the stairs. If the weather outside puts you off leaving the front door, or the nearest slope is too far away, then an alternative option is to walk up and down the stairs a few times. As well as your own stairs at home, don’t forget the stairs at your place of work or study. A great habit to get into is always using the stairs and never using the lift.

Another use of the stairs is to repeatedly walk up and down the bottom step, in the style of step aerobics in a gym. Even if you only have ten or twenty seconds, you can fit in a quick exercise snack by stepping up and down a set number of times.

I’ve concentrated on walking in this article, but runners and cyclists can use the same approach to their activities. Running and cycling up a hill will give you more bang for your buck than running or cycling on a flat stretch of road. I was reminded of that at lunchtime today when I cycled up a hill on my daily at-least-5-kilometre active journey. My heart was pumping fast, and I was definitely out of breath when I reached the top.

So, over to you. Now it’s your turn. This article contains a few tips for you to think about and build into your daily routines. Have fun trying them out and let me know how you get on via the Find Time for Exercise pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.