Latest news with #intervaltraining
Daily Mail
02-08-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Forget Pilates, yoga and spin - Japanese walking is the latest fitness craze you need to know about
Japanese walking is becoming the latest fitness craze - taking over trendy workouts like Pilates, yoga and spin classes. The exercise consists of bursts of slow and fast walking which increases your heart rate. Also known as the '3-3 walking workout', you walk with intensity for three minutes, then slow down for the next three. This is repeated five times, totalling 30 minutes. It was developed by Professor Hiroshi Nose and Associate Professor Shizue Masuki at Shinshu University in Matsumoto, Japan, to help elderly people get the health benefits experienced by athletes undertaking high-intensity interval training. The three minute benchmark is when the researchers found most of the older citizens tended to get tired. It is advised to take longer strides in the fast intervals while bending the elbows and swinging he arms to help maintain the correct form. Participants of the study found that those walking at varying speeds experienced a host of healthbeneits, including weight loss and lower blood pressure. Thigh strength and physical fitness also improved. A later 2018 study by the same researchers found that over a ten-year period, those who did interval walking reported greater to age-related injuries and illnesses. The Japanese walking method has also been hailed for helping to regulate blood pressure and boost your VO2 max - a numeric measure of your aerobic capacity which reflects how well your heart, lungs, and muscles work together to deliver and use oxygen for physical activity. The higher this is, the greater your cardiovascular fitness and even translates to a longer lifespan, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However some experts are skeptical about the benefits of the walking exercise. Sean Pymer, an Academic Clinical Exercise Physiologist at the University of Hull said: 'So is this walking trend really the be-all and end-all? Or does it matter less about what exercise you do and more about how often and how hard you do it? 'The answer is likely to be the latter…We should focus on ensuring we perform regular moderate to vigorous physical activity and make it habitual. If that activity happens to be Japanese walking, then it's a worthwhile choice.'
Times
01-08-2025
- Health
- Times
Japanese walking: how the latest fitness trend shapes up
At first there was yoga. Then, there was pilates. Now, social media fitness fanatics have turned to a new exercise trend: Japanese walking. The simple workout, also known as Nihon Aruki in its homeland, boasts a range of health benefits, according to researchers. The exercise involves interval-style bursts of fast and slow walking, alternating between walking at a higher intensity for three minutes and a lower intensity for the next three. The researchers capped the fast intervals at three minutes because that was the point at which many older volunteers started to feel tired. During the fast intervals, people should aim to take longer strides than during the slow intervals. Engaging the arms by bending them at the elbows and swinging them with each step is recommended as a way to help maintain proper form during longer strides. It was developed by Professor Hiroshi Nose and Associate Professor Shizue Masuki at Shinshu University in Matsumoto, Japan, as a way to help elderly citizens get the health benefits experienced by athletes undertaking high-intensity interval training. According to the researchers, the high-intensity walking should be undertaken at a speed where holding a normal conversation is slightly difficult. The lower intensity pace should be light, and normal conversation should be possible. Their initial research, conducted in 2007, compared 'Japanese walking' with normal walking at a continuous speed, for 8,000 steps per day. Those who participated in the study found that those walking at varying speeds experienced weight loss and lower blood pressure. • Am I fit for my age? Exercises for your 30s to your 70s Both leg strength and physical fitness also improved for those undertaking the Japanese walking programme. A later study, conducted by the same researchers in 2018, found that, over a ten-year period, those who did interval walking reported fewer age-related declines in their muscle power and aerobic capacity. Some experts have, however, said that simply walking more, and at more rigorous speeds could boost health, and that this specific walking regime may therefore not have any particular benefits. 'Achieving a certain number of steps per day has also been shown to help people live longer,' Sean Pymer, an Academic Clinical Exercise Physiologist at the University of Hull wrote in The Conversation. • How to hit peak fitness over 40: the midlife rules 'For those aged 60 and older, the target should be around 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day and 8,000 to 10,000 for those aged under 60. Similar evidence does not appear to exist for Japanese walking … yet,' he continued. 'So is this walking trend really the be-all and end-all? Or does it matter less about what exercise you do and more about how often and how hard you do it? The answer is likely to be the latter … We should focus on ensuring we perform regular moderate to vigorous physical activity and make it habitual. If that activity happens to be Japanese walking, then it's a worthwhile choice.' Some scientists, however, suggest the original Japanese study may have been skewed by the decision to only monitor the high-intensity group with accelerometers, not the moderate intensity group. Dr Helga Van Herle, a cardiologist at the University of South Carolina, has said this may have triggered the Hawthorne effect — participants walking faster than they otherwise would have because they knew they were being watched. Even so, experts generally agree that vigorous bursts of activity, even for short periods, are likely to be beneficial. Compared with more classic forms of high-intensity interval training, interval walking is more approachable for some groups, especially those who haven't exercised in a while or who are recovering from injuries that make activities such as running difficult.
New York Times
31-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
‘Japanese Walking' Is a Fitness Trend Worth Trying
Going for a walk is one of the simplest workouts, but it can have powerful health impacts. Walking has been linked to improved mental and cardiovascular health, and it can be effective for managing back pain. But not all walking is equally effective. A method nicknamed 'Japanese walking' on social media — also known as interval walking training, or I.W.T. — seems to offer greater advantages than a simple stroll, or even than walking at a moderate pace for 8,000 or more steps a day. The strategy was first introduced two decades ago in a study led by Hiroshi Nose, an exercise physiologist at Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. The country has one of the world's oldest populations, and Dr. Nose hoped that, by applying interval-training techniques used by elite athletes to its senior community, he could improve older people's health and reduce the country's medical costs, he told The New York Times in an email. After seeing promising early results, he and his collaborator, Shizue Masuki, continued to study the method in depth. While this type of exercise isn't new, it has been a trend on TikTok this summer. Here's what the science says about the benefits of interval walking and how to get started. What is 'Japanese walking'? As the name suggests, interval walking is a form of interval training, which involves alternating between bursts of intense activity and more gentle movement or rest. In this case, it's basically just alternating between fast and slow walking. But compared with more classic forms of high-intensity interval training, interval walking is more approachable for many people, especially those who haven't exercised in a while or who are recovering from injuries that make high-impact activities like running difficult, said Dr. Carlin Senter, the chief of primary-care sports medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
