Walking is a great exercise for getting in shape, losing weight and achieving a whole host of major health benefits. You already know how to do it, no special training is required and you won’t need any special equipment. You can do it anywhere – no need to make a trip to the gym – which also means that there are no costly membership fees to be paid. You can slot it into your daily schedule whenever it’s best for you. Get your exercise in one long session or subdivide it into a series of shorter sessions throughout the course of the day. It’s your choice.

One item of essential walking equipment is a comfortable pair of shoes or boots. If your shoes cause you pain, or give you blisters, then it will be hard to stick to your walking exercise plan. So be sure that you have a good fitting, comfortable pair. If you like, you could get some of the latest designs of fitness shoes which help to raise the amount of work that your lower body muscles perform whilst walking normally.

There are a wide range of different makes on the market – Skechers Shape Ups, Reeboks Easy Tones, Fit flops exercise sandals and Masai Barefoot Technology are amongst the best known and most popular – but there are more brands appearing on the market all the time. They do have some slight differences, but the common thread running through the various designs seems to be a specially designed sole which raises the amount of work performed by the muscles in your legs and butt. This increases the effectiveness of your workout and helps you to get the maximum return from your walking schedule.

Health professionals suggest that, in order to achieve the health benefits, we should be aiming to take 10,000 steps daily. Many people find that wearing a pedometer can be a useful motivational aid to help them add more steps into their day and get closer to the target figure. Pedometers are fairly inexpensive today but, if you believe that having one would help you to keep your motivation up, then you should be sure to get a decent quality one.

Recent research found that a large number of pedometers were inaccurate – some by as much as 50%. It seemed that inaccurate pedometers tended to overestimate the number of steps – meaning that someone who was walking for 5,000 paces daily might be under the false impression that they were reaching their 10,000 step target. This is because the cheaper pedometers generally use hairspring technology which is factory calibrated during the manufacturing process. These generally become less and less accurate as the pedometer ages – with an ever increasing tendency to overestimate the number of steps taken being in evidence.

Better quality models make use of coiled spring technology and dual accelerometer sensors with the result that they are more accurate and have an extended usable lifespan and can be carried in a bag or your pocket as opposed to being worn on your belt. An Omron pedometer typically has an accuracy of plus or minus 5%. Other quality brands include Taneka, Yamax and New Lifestyles.

Should you wish to find out just how accurate your pedometer is, there are two very simple tests which you can perform. The first is to simply count out 100 steps and compare it with what your pedometer has recorded. The second is to note the reading on your pedometer when you first sit down – at your desk at work for example – and then to check it again after being seated for half an hour. If it goes up significantly because of your normal movements whilst you are seated then it will definitely overestimate your step count over the course of the day.

The majority of pedometers are digital these days. They usually have some on-board memory memory and you can typically see 7 days worth of results – which is good if you want to track your progress. A lot of them even let you download load your results into your computer via a USB connection so that you can keep track of your results over time. You can normally change the way in which your results are displayed as well. Choose from the number of steps, the distance covered or the number of calories burned – whichever helps you to keep motivated.

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