Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Brendan O'Connor on RTÉ Radio 1. You're all very, very welcome back. And now we're going to talk about walking. It's a form of exercise that's often dismissed, but it can actually really have fantastic health benefits. And personal trainer Carl Henry is with me now to tell us why. Carl, you're very, very welcome to the show.
Chapter 2: What are the health benefits of walking as exercise?
Terrible. Buen Camino. I'm over in Santiago in Spain talking to you. How are you?
I know. Buen Camino. And you've actually done a route I haven't yet done, which is the Portuguese Camino. How was that?
It was amazing. We just finished yesterday with 100 people over here with us. And you know what? It was five days of just time. It's the gift of time. It's a bit of hard work. There's a few hills. There's a lot of trails. But it's when you come into Santiago after five days of hiking and really have to work hard for it. It's an amazing experience. How many blister packs have you gone through?
Well, my job is to mind my group of 100 people. So we had about 20 packs of blister plasters all the way across, loads of Vaseline and lots, lots more. But we minded everybody and we got them there, thankfully. A few sore feet today, but everyone's safe.
How many kilometres roughly were you doing?
We covered about 110. The Portuguese is a little shorter than the French way. So it's about 110 kilometers. So each day you're talking 20, 22, 23 kilometers, depending on the day and where the hotels are and stuff.
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Chapter 3: How does walking on the Camino differ from regular walking?
So there's a lot of work in it. But unlike walking at home where you might go for a walk over here when you're on the Camino, it's much more chilled. It's much more relaxed. You stop for coffee whenever you want. You stop to enjoy and appreciate things whenever you want. And there's no major time pressure. So it's a lot slower than walking at home.
But that quantity of time when your feet can prove challenging for people. And we had two days of rain at the start and three days of glorious sunshine. And when the sunshine came, feet started to swell over the course of the day. Hence the blisters. But it's a great adventure. It's a great crack.
You are obviously a big advocate of walking, which is a form of exercise that is available, thankfully, to most of us. Remind us of the key benefits of it.
Although there's nothing it doesn't do. I think sometimes when we think of exercise, we look for the complicated, the new, the difficult, the expensive. Walking is the elixir of health. It's something we've always done. It's something that's so available. It's so accessible. It's good for our bones. It's good for our heart health. It's good for our cholesterol levels.
It's good for our muscle mass. It's good for our aging. There's nothing walking won't improve, even like down to sleep, stress levels. We forget how simple it is and how easy it is. But we also forget just how beneficial it is, whether it's a stroll, which is a form of exercise, or whether it's walking at more intensity, which gives you more benefits. Both deliver so many benefits.
And the beauty of it is it is free.
it's a choice that you know you're presented with we call them otms right they're opportunities to move so for example when i go to dublin uh for work i get the train from cork i live in clark guilty now speak up i go from the train i'll be into houston i will choose to walk to wherever i have to go to as opposed to getting a taxi or getting a bus or getting the lewis so it's taking those choices when they present themselves taking the stairs for example in the airport or in a shopping center
parking your car further away from wherever you're meant to be, whether it's work or travel. They're all OTMs and we call that strolling, which is really beneficial.
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Chapter 4: What should you know about preparing for long walks?
It's really good for you.
But what's the sweet spot? Like, I mean, you know, I know we've been through the whole 10,000 steps a day, but, you know, should you be getting your heart rate up? Should you be a little bit breathless when you walk? Where do the real sort of, I suppose, those big strategic benefits kick in?
Okay, so there are benefits to strolling, right, which is low-intensity exercise. So that's you and me going for a walk, chatting at this kind of intensity. We're chatting away. It's no problem. It's good for our stress levels. It's good for our social contact. It is movement. But to really get the benefits, you need to be working harder.
So the simplest way to explain that to anyone is that you're huffing and puffing. So are you walking fast enough or up a hill where it's challenging enough that you're slightly out of breath but can still hold a conversation? And that's where you really get the aerobic changes, the muscle changes, the bone changes because the body's having to work harder a little bit harder.
And by doing that, you get the maximum benefit out of it. But Bo will deliver benefits. You were mentioning 10,000 steps there. Like 10,000 steps is a marketing term from the 60s. It's been around forever. With the sweet spot from the university studies, tends to be about 7,000.
But the real world answer is the more steps you do, whether it's 2,000, whether it's 20,000, are more steps than you do sitting on the couch. So it doesn't matter how many you do. Just keep doing as many as you can.
Yeah. And it's kind of really, you know, is it quality or quantity? Is it better in short bursts or long stretches? Like, is there an ideal kind of amount of time? And, you know, which is the bigger benefit? Because we could all clock up maybe six or thousand steps if we're not just really going back and forward.
But is there an ideal kind of thing that, you know, a good 20 minutes, a good half hour?
You know the best bit about that? The body doesn't care. It doesn't mind whether you go for two hours of a stroll or five hours on the Camino or five hours over the course of the day or an hour. So it doesn't. There isn't a sweet spot in terms of time. And that's really important to say. So some people think I haven't got enough time to move more. Well, you do. It's a choice.
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Chapter 5: What are the key benefits of walking for overall health?
That can be going from down for lunch, for example. That's a brilliant burst of energy. It's really good for your stress levels. It's producing loads of hormones into the bloodstream that are going to make you happier and healthier. And it's keeping your bones strong as well. So it doesn't have to be, you know, another thing to have to do. It can be on the weekends, maybe when you have more time.
It's a brilliant way to do it. But actually, the body doesn't mind. All our bodies want to do, if at all possible, is to move. And the more sedentary we are and sedentary for the listeners is under 2000 steps a day is classed a sedentary lifestyle. So over that, you're then you're out of the sedentary. It wants to move, whether it's in big, long segments, short bursts, short segments.
It absolutely doesn't matter.
What about, where do you kind of stand on, you know, there's always lots of trains, but the walking mat trend or people kind of going for treadmills because it's sunny today, but sometimes the weather is inclement here and you might really particularly feel like heading out on a big walk.
Walking pads are trendy, and for anyone who doesn't know what they are, they are, I wouldn't call them treadmills, they're a lot simpler than that, but they're basically enabling to stroll at home or stroll while they're working if they're under the desk.
My challenge with them is they tend to be very, very cheap, they tend to break really easily, and they tend to be quite noisy and uncomfortable to use. They're absolutely better than nothing, They are trendy at the minute. They're being pushed by all the influencers, which is never particularly a great sign, to be very honest with you. If you can stretch to a treadmill, go the treadmill route.
And for some people, like it may be weather, but also some people are very conscious about walking outside. So if it suits you to walk inside while watching a match or watching a movie or watching television, go for it. Is there a way to walk?
You know, because sometimes you see people going on the arms or, you know, up on their, you know, kind of those fast walking. Is there a particular technique? And also probably, presumably to avoid falls.
There is. There's a couple of things. First, you start with the feet. So everyone should have their gait analysis checked. And most sports stores and foot stores will do that now. It's a free check. They'll look at how your foot falls and they'll put you in the correct footwear to suit your gait.
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