Experts say it is easy to modify your walking routine to target other muscle groups and adjust for chronic pain
Other than strengthening your muscles, walking also helps maintain the muscle mass you already have. This activity, when done consistently, works several muscle groups in your legs—which include the flexors and extensors of the ankles, knees, and hips—and activates your core.
According to experts, it is easy to modify your walking routine to target other muscle groups and adjust for chronic pain. A few muscle groups that you can strengthen through walking include:
Ankle muscles
Walking helps engage your leg muscles—which include the ones in the ankles—through upward dorsiflex and downward plantarflex. Both of them help pull and push your toes upward and downward—to let your legs swing forward and backward while walking.
Knee muscles
While walking is a great exercise for your knees, it helps engage the knee flexors and extensors.
Apart from that, by being regular, walking helps strengthen your hamstrings, which are the primary knee flexors located in the back of the thighs. Knee flexors help bend the knee joint. Also, you can strengthen your quadriceps, located in the front of your thighs, which support your body weight while you walk.
Core muscles
Walking completely engages your core muscles—that balance your entire body as you walk. They include the pelvic floor along with the rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques, and transverse abdominis—also known as the six-pack muscles.
The pelvic floor is loaded with multiple muscles that support your bladder, bowels, and reproductive organs, while internal and external obliques are both located on the sides of your abdomen. The transverse abdominis is a deep abdominal muscle that wraps around your spine and supports it.
Hip muscles
Walking engages your hip flexors—which include extensors and abductors. The hip flexors are located at the front of your hips. They not only lift your thigh and move your leg forward with each step but also keep your balance. Hip extensors propel your body forward with each step and provide stability for the leg you are standing on. The hip extensors include the gluteus maximus and hamstrings.
The third muscle that gets strengthened with walking in your hips is the abductor, which stabilises your pelvis area.
How to easily tone your muscles while you walk?
A few ways you can tone your muscles as you walk include:
- Add 30-second bursts of speed walking or jogging
- Choose a walking route with hills or adjust the incline if you are walking on the treadmill.
- Increase your speed
- Pause and perform push-ups, squats, or other body-weight resistance exercises.
- Use walking poles
-
Wear a weighted vest
