You might be walking incorrectly if your main purpose is to improve fitness.
You’d think that getting into a groove and staying there would be the best way to walk and burn those calories, but a group of researchers from the State University of Milan are suggesting that when people walk for 10 to 30 seconds, they need a lot more chemical energy to travel each metre than it takes if you walk for longer durations.
The discovery is the result of two experiments carried out by the group of researchers. The study, by Francesco Luciano, Luca Ruggiero, Alberto E. Minetti and Gaspare Pavei, was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
In the first experiment, 10 people were asked to sit for three minutes and then, when requested by the researchers, started walking on a treadmill designed to simulate climbing stairs. The duration of the walk varied from 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds or four minutes. Each participant walked for all five durations, in random order. At the end of each period, the participant was asked to remain seated for seven minutes. In the second experiment, 10 people repeated the walking sessions, but on a normal treadmill.
An instrument called a metabolimeter was used, which allows measurement of the consumption of oxygen and the production of carbon dioxide both during rest and during walking. This analysed the total volume of oxygen consumed for each walk.
The tests showed that walking or climbing stairs in 10- to 30-second bursts required 20 to 60% more oxygen than covering the same distance in one continuous session, mainly because walking is more efficient after moving for several minutes.
Luciano likened the efficiency to that of cars, which use more fuel while stopping and starting, and less while cruising at a constant speed.
“When you start walking after sitting, your oxygen consumption increases over time until you reach a stable value after a few minutes. Using the metabolimeter, we also studied how quickly oxygen consumption increased in the participants, a measurement that allowed us to calculate how much chemical energy was used by each for each metre travelled,” Luciano explained.
It was found that, during these brief walking periods, chemical energy is converted into mechanical muscle work less efficiently.
“The results of the study also have implications in the field of animal biology, as they help quantify the energy consumption of many species that move intermittently. In any case, moving a short time can mean spending a lot (of energy),” Luciano said.
The results could also have implications for designing fitness regimes following illness, injury, or heart attacks, or for addressing obesity.
