The Incredible Benefits of Walking and Zone 2 Exercise!

While High Intensity Interval Training is all the rage these days simple brisk walking has some huge benefits for health and longevity!

A newly published study following more than 400,000 adults showed that 10 minutes of brisk walking per day was associated with longer life expectancy, and brisk walkers have up to 20 years great life expectancy than those who walk slowly!  Brisk walking is defined as walking at or above 100 steps per minute or at least 3 miles per hour.

Benefits of Zone 2 Exercise

For many people brisk walking is an ideal form of Zone 2 Exercise.  Exercise intensity can be divided into 5 zones as follows:

Zone 1 – 50 – 60% of Maximum Heart Rate 

Zone 2 – 60 – 70% of Maximum Heart Rate 

Zone 3 – 70 – 80% of Maximum Heart Rate 

Zone 4 – 80 – 90% of Maximum Heart Rate 

Zone 5 – 90 – 100% of Maximum Heart Rate 

Each zone provide benefits, but Zone 2 provides several powerful health and longevity benefits:

Increased number of mitochondria – the mitochondria are the energy producing organelles in all your cells!

 

Increased mitochondrial efficiency – meaning your mitochondria can produce more energy per unit of fat or carbohydrate burned!

 

Increased “metabolic flexibility” which is the ability to use multiple different types of fuels for energy production including fat, carbs, and lactate.

 

Lower resting heart rate and blood pressure which takes pressure off your heart and cardiovascular system

 

Lower risk of injury than higher intensity exercise

 

Improved insulin resistance which is correlated with improved fat burning ability

 

Improved ability to run/cycle longer

 

How to reap the benefits of Zone 2 Exercise

To get the most from zone 2 exercise you need to get at least 150 minutes in each week spread over 2 – 4 sessions per week.   Each session should be at least 30 minutes and preferably 45 minutes or longer.

The Goldilocks of Zone 2 Exercise

For many Zone 2 will feel easy and they will tend to work too hard to reap the benefits.    There are two ways to make sure you are exercising at the proper intensity – monitoring your heart rate or using the talk test!

There are many options for heart rate monitoring, and for walking wrist, arm, and chest strap monitors all work well.     

To use Heart Rate Monitoring, you must determine your zone 2 minimum and maximum heart rates.

Starting by estimating you max heart rate using one of these three formulas:

220 - Age - most common and widely used formula for Max Heart Rate

207 - (.7 X Age) - more precise formula, adjusted for people over the age of 40

211 - (.64 X Age) - slightly more precise formula for highly active people

Once you estimate your max heart rate multiply it by .6 and .7 to determine your zone 2 training heart rate range.  For example, if your maximum heart rate is 172 then your zone 2 heart rate range would be 103 – 120 Beats Per Minute!

Then exercise for 30 – 90 minutes keeping your heart rate in this zone the entire time – higher is NOT better!

The 2^nd method is using the talk test.   You should exercise at an intensity where you can talk comfortably in short sentences BUT you should start to feel a bit breathless with continuous talking!