Varying Walking Pace Helps Burn More Fat

A regular walking routine not only improves vascular function and heart health, but it can help overweight individuals shed some unwanted pounds; the key is switching up the pace to make a difference in calories burned. 

New findings published in the journal Biology Letters reveal that contrary to previous research that suggests walking by itself is unlikely to result in serious fat-burning, study results show that simply by switching up the pace, walkers can burn more calories during their daily stroll.

Researchers at Ohio University found that exercisers who varied their pace throughout a walk burned about 20 percent more calories than those who kept a constant speed. However, researchers noted that the findings weren't particularly surprising as both acceleration and deceleration require more energy to maintain momentum and the more often a person changes speed, the more acceleration and deceleration is required. In fact,  researchers found that up to eight percent of the energy we use during normal daily walking could be due to the energy needed to start and stop walking.

"What we've shown is the distance over which you make them walk matters," study co-author Manoj Srinivasan, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State, said in a press release. "You'll get different walking speeds for different distances. Some people have been measuring these speeds with relatively short distances, which our results suggest, might be systematically underestimating progress."

If you really want to burn more calories while walking, Srinivasan's last bit of advice is this: "walk in a way that feels unnatural."

"How do you walk in a manner that burns more energy? Just do weird things. Walk with a backpack, walk with weights on your legs. Walk for a while, then stop and repeat that. Walk in a curve as opposed to a straight line," he concluded.

The study was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.

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