Cooling Down in Walking Fitness

Walking is a great way to get in exercise and to make yourself happier and healthier. Plan a goal and stick to it looking back once in awhile to see how you’re progressing.

We all need to walk and it is a cheap exercise program to improve our health and make a better person out of us all. Walking is good for strengthening, toning, lower back pain, and helps in preventing heart disease, colon cancer and strokes too. There is no special equipment needed just putting one foot in front of the other. You might have to buy a pair of walking shoes making sure you have the proper fit and consider what is needed for the weather, rain, snow, or shine.

Get started today making a plan and goal to keep you looking forward. Start out slow and each day pushes yourself to go a little further down the street. Soon you’ll look back at yourself and you’ll be amazed at the progress you made. You will feel inspired to carry on.

Walking 20-30 minutes, a day 5 or more times a week should be one of the goals in your plan. Be sure to add in warm up time; 30 seconds will do before start on your journey. Doing warm ups are stretches for the muscles and joints after you have walked at a very slow pace for 5 minutes. Your want your muscle to be warmed up before doing the muscle stretches. After walking, you need to have a time set to include a cool down.

Cooling down is just important and the warm ups because you need to bring your heart rate back to normal slowly. You want to cool down so your blood pressure doesn’t drop to quickly. If you’re sweating the cool down, time to slow down your body to let it know that the hard work is done. Cooling down will help to keep cramps and soreness from setting in afterwards. After your walking at a steady pace your should gradually slow your pace down for about 10 minutes. Once you have walked at a slow pace than you should do a few stretches to help prevent injury the next time you walk.

Your cool down stretches should include all major muscle groups while they are still warm. Stretch the muscle when they are warm because they are more flexible. Stretch until you feel a gently tension and hold for 30 seconds.

If you start to feel any pain at all let up on the stretch until it goes away; you should not feel any pain at all. Don’t bounce when you do these stretches because it could cause you to tear a muscle. Remember to breathe while doing your stretches to get the oxygen flowing to the muscle so they can breath themselves. Your cool down time should be longer than the warm up time. Once in awhile after your cool down time has a massage done and it will give your muscles even more flexibility for the next workout.

Be sure to give yourself plenty of rest and recovery time between each workout. When working out it will give you more energy and motivation as you see what changes are happening to your new you. Don’t overdo your new exercise program to the point your sore and stiff. You want to feel good after you’ve worked out. Walking to fitness in a correct manner will inspire you to continue your program.

BENEFITS OF WALKING FROM THE ARTHRITIS ASSOCIATION –

http://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/exercise/workouts/walking/wow-of-walking.php.