Your New Walking Guide
If you deal with any lower-body pain whether it’s from being overweight or another ailment, it can be hard to motivate yourself to get up and put yourself through it.
The Restorative Exercise videos are designed to help reduce tension and teach you biomechanics that can improve what ails you when you are active.
This plan is also set up to motivate you to approach walking with a new level of intensity that maybe you haven’t tried before. This will help enliven virtues within, improving your internal fitness, thus improving your body composition and making you a more integrated human!
Understanding Intensity:
In order to properly execute this walking program, you’re going to use an intensity scale to measure your walking.
The scale is simple; on a 1-10 scale — 5-6 means you are breathing quickly but can still talk.
8-9 effort should leave you barely able to answer Christ’s questions out loud.
Since everyone’s fitness levels are different, using this scale is a great tool for anyone. You can vary your speed and intensity in order to reach the effort range for each walk. One side note — don’t cheat yourself on your scale and be honest with how hard you are working.
Review the different walking types you will use throughout Lent (and hopefully beyond):
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Power Walking
Dust off your track suits and grab your grandma’s hand weights, just kidding!
For this workout, power walking will be an effort level of 5-6 on your scale. Walk for a few minutes to warm up and then focus on maintaining a 5-6 effort level.
Once your power walking session is done, spend 3 to 5 minutes taking a cool down walk.
This is the time you need to spend cooling off and catching your breath.
Revisit the week’s Restorative Video after you walk if you have time, or do some light stretching after your walk.
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High-Intensity Interval Walking (HIIT)
High-intensity interval walking is a great way to go further in less time.
Take a 10 minute warm-up walk, spending time with the audio reflection and Christ’s question for you for the day.
After the reflection you’re warmed-up, and you will start your interval sets.
Spend 3 minutes walking at a brisk pace — an effort of five to six on your scale.
Power walk at an intensity of 8 to 9 for 60 seconds.
Repeat the intervals until your session is done.
As always, spend three to five minutes post-workout to cool down and catch your breath.
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Self-Paced Walking
Many of us underestimate the power of simply getting out to walk. Studies suggest that walking is a form of stress relief, which means it helps keep our cortisol levels lower.
When the easy walking part of your week comes, it’s time to get out and enjoy the movement. Walk at a comfortable pace —3 to 4 on your scale.
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