The Most Important Exercise

Improving

If you are interested in improving your health and athleticism then we want to know what the most important exercise you can do to help you achieve this will be.

The most important exercise is probably the pushup, the squat, the pullup, the deadlift, or some other nifty gymnastic maneuver. Right?

Sorry, but the answer is not that glamorous. The most important exercise you do is walking.

Let’s look at why this is the case.

Walking

We require a good vertical alignment of our skeletal system in order to move well. If we are bent over we won’t be able to turn well. If we are not aligned vertically our balance will be compromised.

We are always adapting as a result of forces applied to our muscles and bones. And, there is an incredible amount of force entering our bodies from the activity of walking. Let’s look at that math associated with these forces.

For comparison purposes, let’s imaging that I press a 50 pound kettlebell 20 times on each arm. That would be 1000 pounds of work. I will adapt and I might become stronger.

How does that 1000 pounds of work compare to walking? The manufacture of the FitBit device recommends that normal, active people take 10,000 steps per day. But, even sedentary people take around 4,000 steps just walking to their cars and to the fridge.

How much force are we talking about in each of these steps? Studies have shown that in normal gait a force of 2 to 3 times your body weight enters your foot during each step. So, assuming a bodyweight of 150 pounds the math would look like this.

4000 steps X 2 X 150 = 1.2 million pounds

No Comparison

There is no comparison of the adaptive effects of lifting a kettlebell 20 times and that of our daily walking activity.

Now that we know how important this activity is, what can we do to use this knowledge to make us healthier, pain-free athletes?

Check back next time. We will take a look at the role of our feet and ankles in the way that we walk.