Looking for a good sports resolution to keep it effortless as the new year approaches? The recommendation of Australian researchers from Griffith University could inspire you: walking as much as possible every day is the key not only to maintaining your physical form and your health, but also to gain years of life expectancy.
On paper, this conclusion seems like a banal disappointment: what could be more trivial than putting one foot in front of the other. Walking is a gesture acquired and mastered from a young age, within everyone’s reach.
However, in the field, when it comes to making this physical activity a regular habit beneficial to health (which adheres to the recommendations), things are completely different. Ask yourself: are you really doing the 30 minute walk a day*, at least 5 days a week, to build your cardiorespiratory endurance?
Walking more every day means 5 to 11 more years of life
In our excessively sedentary daily lives, many of us lack these tips. But it’s never too late to start, urged the Australian researchers, with an argument that should hit home: “If everyone was as active as the most active 25% of the population, people over 40 years old could gain five years of life,” they conclude in the magazine British Journal of Sports Medicine.
For their study, researchers used data from Americans aged 40 and older who participated in the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey between 2003 and 2006. Participants wore accelerometers on their hips for at least 4 days.
The results are promising: for the most inactive, get into the habit of a simple walkone hour could provide a benefit of about six additional hours of lifeassures Professor Lennert Veerman, lead author of the study.
Even better: if the most inactive were put in tune with the most active, the gain could increase to 11 years of life expectancy for those concerned, scientists suggest. Specifically, what would this mean in terms of daily length? The researchers did the math. And the answer could calm the enthusiasm (or pose a challenge to the most motivated): it is equivalent to walking a little less than three hours a day. Not necessarily easy to fit into your schedule… However, these three hours of walking can easily be replaced by “any type of exercise”, specify the authors for comfort.