Unlike many health and fitness trends on TikTok, Japanese walking — an interval walking training method developed by researchers in Japan — might be worth the hype. This walking regimen, which alternates between slower and faster paces, can improve physical fitness, muscle strength, blood sugar control and blood pressure, research suggests.
“We are not surprised at how effective it is because it follows the basic principles of exercise training for increasing physical fitness; however, we are surprised at how popular it has become,” says Shizue Masuki, Ph.D., one of the developers of the trending interval walking training method. She is a professor of sports medical sciences at Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan.
What is Japanese walking?
Masuki and colleagues developed interval walking training about two decades ago to help keep walkers engaged and motivated. In an earlier study, they asked people to walk at a steady pace for more than 30 minutes per day, more than four days per week, for five months. But no one followed through — they said it was too boring and difficult, Masuki says.
So, the team took inspiration from interval training, a common regimen for athletes and fitness enthusiasts that alternates harder exercise with lighter exercise. Their version — interval walking training — includes five or more sets, each with three minutes of low-intensity walking followed by three minutes of high-intensity walking. You do the workout four or more days per week. This time around, 60% or more people stick with it, the researchers found.
How do interval walking workouts improve your health?
Studies of interval walking training show that in as little as 12 weeks, participants’ physical fitness improved via peak aerobic capacity, the body’s ability to use maximal oxygen when exercising. “The increase in physical fitness was accompanied by improvements of risk factors for lifestyle-related diseases (such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes and obesity) and other age-associated diseases,” says Masuki.
One explanation? By improving fitness, interval walking training might help offset some of the chronic systemic inflammation that builds up with aging. “We found that interval walking training suppressed pro-inflammatory gene expression with increased physical fitness,” says Masuki. “In other words, the seemingly diverse symptoms of the diseases are fundamentally caused by chronic inflammation and can be improved if physical fitness is increased by interval walking training.”
Decades of research suggest that interval training — the inspiration behind interval walking training — has wide-ranging health benefits, whether you’re walking, running or doing other cardio. Intervals are also more efficient than steady, moderately paced workouts.
“By doing both moderate and vigorous activity during the same workout, you can get the same volume, or even a little more volume, of work done in less time,” says Peter Ronai, MS, ACSM RCEP, CSCS-D, FACSM, a clinical professor of exercise science at Sacred Heart University and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and Clinical Exercise Physiology Association. “That’s one major selling point.”
“The higher-intensity portion of the interval training may also build slight increases in strength in the muscles that you’re using when you’re picking up that pace,” says Ronai. Keeping muscles strong helps combat age-related muscle loss, or sarcopenia.
Plus, boosting your walking pace might have health benefits of its own. Researchers increasingly consider walking speed as a vital sign because it signals how well your muscles, nervous system, cardiovascular system and respiratory system work together, says Ronai. “With interval walking, because you are pushing the intensity envelope and forcing someone to walk faster, it addresses that very issue of walking speed,” he says. “The things that you practice and push the envelope on are usually the things you’re going to see the most improvement in.”
How to start walking interval training
The good news if you’re able to walk even short distances, the chances are you can adopt a fitness routine that incorporates Japanese walking intervals into it. Just follow these simple steps.
1. Check yourself.
If you already exercise and do not experience chest discomfort and other signs suggestive of either cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases, you’re OK to start right away. If you haven’t exercised routinely for several months, fill out a pre-activity screening tool like the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q+), suggests Ronai. This checks for any red flags or symptoms that could make exercise unsafe. Discuss the results with your doctor if recommended on the instructions based on your answers.
2. Carve out time.
At least 30 minutes per day, four days per week is recommended, but there’s flexibility if your schedule is all over the place. “If it is difficult to find continuous 30 minutes for interval walking training, it is also OK to perform interval walking training for 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon and 10 minutes in the evening,” says Masuki. “Four days of exercise per week is best, but if that’s too challenging, you can do it on the weekend and cram the workouts into two days.”
3. Do a warmup and plan a cooldown.
Prime your muscles, joints and cardiovascular system with some dynamic stretches or a few minutes of slow walking before you get started. “It doesn’t have to be extensive and sophisticated, but it’s like a neuromuscular and cardiovascular rehearsal of the movements you’re going to make,” says Ronai. After your last interval, perform an active cooldown and some flexibility exercisesto enhance mobility and gradually restore normal blood flow to pre-exercise levels.
4. Get moving.
You set the pace based on your fitness level, which makes this exercise a great option for beginners and experts alike. “Interval training can be molded to almost anyone at any level, provided that the intensities are relative to that person’s capacity,” says Ronai.
For the low-intensity intervals, you walk at around 40% of your peak oxygen capacity. At that pace, you’re on the move, but you’re not winded. You can still speak in short, full sentences, says Ronai. For the high-intensity intervals, you walk at 70% or more of your peak. At that pace, you can only say three-to-four-word segments before you need to pause and catch your breath. Of course, stop if you feel lightheaded, dizzy or nauseated, says Ronai. Seek medical attention if you feel pain or tension in your chest, head, or jaw or pain radiating down your arms.
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