Walking is a good form of exercise that's easy to do and can be done anywhere at any time. But for weight loss and fitness, it's not as effective as running, which burns more calories than walking over the same period of time. Running also does a better job of improving your cardiovascular fitness (heart health), lung capacity, and your blood's ability to quickly deliver oxygen and energy to working muscles by elevating your heart rate to a higher level. People who don't like to run because it hurts their feet or knees should walk instead, but they should make sure they are walking fast enough to gain the cardiovascular benefits of exercise.
Effort Levels
Walking is a moderate-level exercise, and running, because it elevates your heart rate higher than walking, is a vigorous-level exercise. Vigorous intensity exercise forces you to breathe hard and fast, and you can only say a few words between gulps of air. Moderate exercise will also raise your heart rate and even make you sweat, but you can still carry on a conversation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you need at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, but only 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise. You can increase your fitness--and possibly lose more weight--if you exercise longer.
Burning Calories
According to the CDC, a 154-pound person burns about 140 calories walking about 3.5 miles per hour for 30 minutes. The same person jogging at 5 mph will burn nearly 300 calories in a half hour. That means to get the same exercise benefit as a runner, a walker has to spend twice as long walking. You can increase the calories burned by walking faster. A brisk 4.5 mph walking pace burns about 230 calories in half an hour, but walking--even walking uphill--will never burn as many calories as running.
Short Bursts
Walking is better suited to short exercise sessions. Health and fitness experts from the CDC and American College of Sports Medicine encourage people who are pressed for time to "accumulate" their exercise throughout the day in 10-minute segments. They suggest parking far away from work and walking to your job, or skipping the elevator and taking the stairs whenever possible. These segments are easier for walkers in street clothes than for runners in street clothes because even a 10-minute run can leave you drenched in sweat.
Complementing Each Other
Running, because of the vigorous nature and pounding on the legs, is not easy to do every day. So if you're trying to exercise every day, experts recommend alternating a day of jogging with a day of walking. Walking will help loosen the muscles in your legs and make you fresh for your run the next day. The running, meanwhile, will increase your fitness and allow you to walk faster on your walking days--allowing you to gain fitness and burn more calories.
Getting Started
Walking is a good way for many people to start an exercise program. They may not be capable of running long enough to get any health benefits from it, so many fitness experts advise them to start an exercise program with walking and to start mixing in short segments of running as they get stronger. Slowly, they can increase their fitness by increasing the time they spend running.
Walking Growing in Popularity
The number of frequent fitness walkers in the U.S.--those who participate more than 100 days per year--surpassed the number of runners in mid-1993, according to the Outdoor Recreation Coalition of American and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. The Outdoor Recreation Coalition determined that walking is the fastest-growing sport in the country. The average age of fitness walkers is 45, and the average age of frequent runners is 26.
