Why Walking is the Best Aerobic Exercise | Live 10 Years Longer by Walking Daily | Doctor Prasoon
- Build new collateral blood vessels in your heart by brisk walking 20 to 30 minutes daily, acting like a natural bypass.
- Train your calf muscles to act as a second pump that pushes blood from your legs back to your heart against gravity.
- Reduce joint stiffness naturally as walking stimulates the release of lubricating fluids within the first few minutes of movement.
- Burn stored carbohydrates and fats at a rate of five to seven calories per minute to achieve your weight loss goals.
- Maintain healthy blood pressure levels in the long run by committing to at least 150 minutes of brisk walking every week.
Hey, what’s up? Doctor Prasoon here. Have you ever wondered why doctors and cardiologists all of them are advising you to walk walk walk and walk every day. What is so magical about walking and what are the health benefits of walking?. That’s coming up in this video. This is Dofody. so, let’s get started. If you haven’t subscribed to our channel yet please hit on the subscribe button, and when you do that please click on the bell icon and then the all button. Because if you do that you will be notified every single time when we release a new video.
Walking is considered as one of the best exercises in the world. It is one of the best medicine that you can give to your heart, and it can be also used to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Now before going into the details as to why walking is considered such a good exercise. You should first understand the anatomy of heart. Our heart is actually a pump, it pumps blood to different parts of our body.
The blood vessels which carries the blood to different parts of the body is called as arteries and those blood vessels which carries the blood back from different parts of the body, to the heart they are called veins. Now the thing that you should understand is that heart itself is an organ and for hard to work it needs blood supply of its own, and those blood vessels which supply blood and nutrients to the heart they are called as coronary vessels.
It is when these coronary vessels gets blocked you experience heart pain. Our heart being a muscle requires constant supply of blood and oxygen and it gets it from the coronary vessels. Now when a block occurs, this supply is cut off and that’s when we experience heart attack. In medical terms it is called as an angina and when this heart attack is a massive one, sometimes the heart can suddenly stop beating, and that condition is called as a cardiac arrest.
Now all of us are susceptible to blocks in our coronary vessels. Blocks in the form of cholesterol, plaques and calcium deposits gets deposited in our coronary vessels from the food that we eat and the lifestyle that we maintain. If you’re a person who has never exercised in your life and if your age is more than 60, then your chances of developing a heart attack is very high when compared to other persons who workout.
Now why is that so? as we age, the deposits that gets build up in our coronary vessels becomes bigger and bigger, and when this deposit completely blocks the blood supply to your heart, that’s when a heart attack happens. Now it doesn’t happen in one or two days. It takes several years, sometimes 10 or even 30 to 40 years.
If you haven’t heard about bypass surgery, surgeons open up your chest and what they do is that they take another vein from your body, Most probably from your thighs and they keep it in your heart in order to bypass the blood supply to those parts of your heart which were damaged by the heart attack. Now that is what happens in a normal bypass surgery.
Now what if you can do the same thing in your home itself, all you need is a good pair of walking shoes. If you walk 20 to 30 minutes every day you are literally doing a bypass in your home itself. Now what do I mean by that, if you are walking every single day you are building new blood vessels in your heart. These blood vessels also known as collateral vessels are formed and these blood vessels are then used to carry the blood to different parts of your heart when the normal blood vessels gets blocked.
But, forming new blood vessels that also doesn’t take place in one or two days, that also takes years and for that you have to train yourself regularly.
You have to walk at least 20 to 30 minutes every single day. Just like heart is your pump, there is another pump which is situated in your leg muscle, in your calf muscle. The pumping of the heart is not that strong to bring the blood back from your toes against the gravity back to the heart.
In order for the blood to travel back from different parts of your body back to your heart and that too against the force of gravity, some newer forces required and that’s where the second pump or the calf muscle comes into play.
Now how can you train your calf muscle pump?, You just have to walk!. when I say walking, it is actually brisk walking. There is actually no health benefit if you are walking casually. You should be working at a higher pace, you should be walking fast and when you are walking make sure that you are swinging your arms. Walk at least 20 to 30 minutes every single day and walk as much as possible. There is no limit to walking, 20 to 30 minutes every single day is the minimum that you should be doing. At least 150 minutes, that is recommended every single week. If you walk for at least 150 minutes every week then you are working your second pump also, you are boosting your circulation, you are protecting the cardiovascular system, you are making sure that the blood supply to all the parts of your body is maintained properly.
When you start walking your calf muscle pumps the blood back to the heart. Your heart also has to work extra hard to pump blood to different parts of the body, Not just your legs. So, your heart rate increases, the number of beats per minute increases, more blood reaches different parts of your body and your body gets the sufficient nutrition and oxygen from the extra amount of blood that is being pumped out by the fast-beating heart. The stiffness in your joints decreases when you start walking, this is because a certain type of lubricating fluid gets released when you start walking and this reduces the stiffness. You feel that the stiffness has gone away immediately after you start walking.
Within the first 10 minutes itself, you start to burn energy at a rate of at least 5 calories per minute. Now carbohydrates and fats those forms of macronutrients which are stored in your body they are used up to burn the energy which is required for walking and that why walking is considered as a better exercise when it comes to weight loss. If you want to lose weight then walking is the first thing that you should be doing regularly every day.
If you walk non-stop for 10 minutes, your heart rate increases from a stable 70 beats per minute to 100 beats per minute, and if you keep walking for more than 10 minutes then your heart rate jumps from 100 beats per minute to 140 beats per minute. So, when your heart is beating that fast more blood is pumped your blood pressure also increases. This is the time when more energy is burnt every single minute and if you are really targeting weight loss then you should be working at least 10 to 20 minutes every day. You don’t have to worry because when I said that your blood pressure will increase. If you walk for more than 10 minutes this is a temporary effect and in the long run your blood pressure is going to be maintained by an interplay of your heart, Your body and your cardiovascular system. There are several other mechanisms which works to maintain your blood pressure and the normal range, and walking should be the thing that you should be doing first,
When you continue walking for up to 20 minutes or more than 20 minutes then at that time your body temperature starts to increase. This is primarily because of the sweating which is your body’s way of adapting to the increased body temperature. The blood vessels underneath your skin, those blood vessels dilates to release the heat. you will be then burning at least seven calories every single minute your breathing will become more shallow and as you continue walking for more than 20 minutes the benefits that you reap by increasing the heart rate, by increasing the blood flow to different parts of your body by burning the unhealthy fats and carbohydrates in your body. Those benefits keeps on increasing.
In addition to fortifying your heart, burning those extra fats and boosting your immunity. Walking is also considered as one of the best medicine for depression for managing stress for relieving anxiety and tension. It is said that walking is just as effective as taking an antidepressant medicine.
At the end of the day, if you’re a person who walks you will feel great about it. You will feel that you have accomplished something, you will definitely feel the health benefits of working within one or two months. So the take-home message is that try to walk as much as possible every single day. Say no to your friends lift, say no to the elevators and escalators, prefer to climb those stairs instead of searching for the elevator door, and when you go for grocery shopping walk to the supermarket, walk inside your office and take breaks every now and then.
So that’s it for this video, I really hope you like this one. If you have any doubts you can write it down in the comment section below. Give us a thumbs up if you really like this video. Please consider sharing this video with your friends and family and don’t forget to subscribe to our Channel. So I will see you in the next one, This is me Dr. Prasoon. Signing off, take care, stay healthy, keep walking and thank you so much for watching.
Frequently asked questions
Walking briskly for 20 to 30 minutes every day helps build new collateral blood vessels in your heart over time. These new vessels bypass blocked arteries and supply blood to areas that need it.
You should engage in brisk walking for at least 20 to 30 minutes every single day. Doctors recommend a minimum of 150 minutes of walking every week to protect your cardiovascular system.
When you start walking, your body releases a specific type of lubricating fluid into your joints. This fluid reduces stiffness, and you can often feel the relief within the first 10 minutes of walking.
Yes, walking is an excellent exercise for weight loss because it uses up stored carbohydrates and fats for energy. You can burn anywhere from five to seven calories per minute depending on how long you walk.
The calf muscle acts as the body's second pump. Since the heart cannot easily pull blood up from the toes against gravity, walking trains the calf muscles to push the blood back up to the heart.
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Dr Prasoon C
Dr. Prasoon (MBBS, BCCPM) is a medical doctor with over 15 years of clinical experience. An active member of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), his clinical interests span lifestyle disease management, preventive fitness, and palliative care. He is on a mission to make trustworthy healthcare accessible through telemedicine—and when he isn't consulting patients online, he’s likely busy scrutinizing supplement labels to ensure they meet his strict clinical standards.
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