Spice Up Your Walk With These Muscle Toning, Body Trimming Tricks

ExerciseTV

By Laurel House

I get it; you slip on a fierce pair of "Sex and the City"-esque Choos or Manolos and you strut your saucy stuff like nobody's business. But there's another form of walking that can actually get you in the type of shape that can warrant such attention-demanding sauntering.

Sure, you could power walk- moving through the streets with arms swinging and an air of intensity that triggers leisure amblers to step aside as if you were paving your own sidewalk fastlane. But more than motoring on foot, a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other cardio routine can be instantly transformed into a total-body toning, calorie-burning, fat-obliterating workout if you just tweak your exercise mentality and view your environment as your gym.

Cindy Whitmarsh, an NASN Licensed Sports Nutritionist, published fitness author, and an ExerciseTV Top Trainer chimes in with an enthusiastic "Yes! You can absolutely get a total body cardio/toning workout from just a walk! What's great is that walking is low impact, creating less wear and tear on your body and joints, and you can do it anywhere! No need for a gym membership if you can walk outside!" Try Cindy's Walking Lunge workout below to get started:

So what does it take to transform your average destination-oriented amble into your daily workout?

-Intensity

-Intervals

-Body-Weight Resistance.

To create your own neighborhood walking workout, Cindy suggests:

1. Make sure you walk for at least 20 minutes to start efficiently burning fat! I would start by walking 5 minutes first, then start your intervals!

2. Wear a heart rate monitor to ensure you are burning fat and walking fast enough! Your goal is to keep your heart rate at 65-85% of your heart rate maximum! To determine your max, take 220 minus your age. That is your max and then you take 65-85% of that!

3. To turn more calories, step up your normal walking routine with muscle toning intervals including:
- Side shuffling
- Side stepping squats
- Walking lunges
- Reverse lunges with upper back squeeze
- Triceps dips off a bench or curb
- Pushups on a park bench
- Crab crawl
- Bear walk
- Bunny hops
- Power skipping

The great thing about a walking workout is that the end result is lean, long, cut muscles (kind of like a model). If you want to up the intensity and increase the musculature of your legs, insert a few running intervals into your routine, walk with ankle weights or try weighted NGR shoes. Now you can slip into those stilettos and strut it. Just don't be too shocked when guys seem to flock and your clothes are no longer too tight… it's a consequence of looking so great.

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