While walking is a great exercise, your gait matters too. A study shows one tiny change in your walking style can help burn more calories.
However, there are certain ways of walking you must avoid as they can negatively affect your posture and overall health. But what the study recommends is reportedly safe and effective.
Study suggests walking a certain way to burn more calories
A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, analyzed different speeds and step length variability to determine their relationship to metabolic cost of walking.
The research essentially focused on the impact of taking uneven steps on the rate at which the calories are burned. They used 18 healthy young adults for the study and made them walk 1.20 m/s while manipulating their step length variability.
They projected illuminated rectangles on the surface of the treadmills and asked the participants to follow that for a given time while tracking their movement using reflective markers on the feet.
However, the research used healthy young adults for the experiment and it isn’t advisable to walk unevenly with underlying conditions that can strain your knee, ankle, or legs.
Step length is the distance between the heel point of one leg to the heel point of the other. the study only determines the impact of changing step length while walking in a straight line on the body’s metabolic rate.
Increased step variability burns more calories
Simply changing the distance between two steps while walking can help you burn more calories. “Metabolic power was largest in the 10% condition (4.30 ± 0.23 W/kg) compared to 0% (4.16 ± 0.18 W/kg) and habitual,” the study notes.
It further states there is a 0.7% increase in metabolic cost for every 1% increase in step length. “This suggests that increased gait variability contributes to a portion of the increased cost of walking seen in older adults and neurological populations,'” it states.
