Does Walking ‘Count’ as Cardio, or Do You Need to Pick Up the Speed?

When you want to add a little movement to your day, there’s nothing simpler than heading outside for a walk. You don’t need a gym or specific equipment—or even any special skills. All you’ve gotta be able to do is put one foot in front of the other. “Walking is just the easiest form of exercise that you can do,” Alexis Bhagat, MS, a clinical exercise physiologist with Kaiser Permanente in Colorado, tells SELF. It’s no wonder so many of us are now embracing our low-key strolls.

But if your goal is to get in a true cardio workout, is walking really enough? Or do you need to push yourself harder to get legit heart health benefits? Well, experts say that depends on both your current fitness and the exact approach you take once you lace up those walking shoes. Here’s what to keep in mind to make sure you’re getting everything you want out of the time you spend racking up your step count.

If you want a true cardio workout, you probably need to walk with some intention.

When it comes to cardio, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends healthy adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity workouts per week, or 75 minutes at a vigorous intensity to improve and maintain overall health and fitness. To drill down into the nitty-gritty of those recs: The organization considers a cardio workout “moderate” when you hit 64 to 76% of your maximum heart rate, while “vigorous” means you’re at 77 to 95% of your max. (FYI: The easiest way to get a basic idea of your max heart rate is to subtract your age from 220, though if you wear a fitness tracker, it can also estimate it for you based on your data.)

So a 35-year-old, for instance, would need to hit at least 118 beats per minute to reach that moderate threshold. This is typically the effort level where we can chat with a friend, but we’re breathing a little heavier and faster than usual, Jordan Boreman, MS, CPT, an exercise physiologist at Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF. If you were thinking of it on a scale of 0–10, with 0 representing no effort at all, and 10 your absolute max intensity—what fitness pros refer to as your rate of perceived exertion—this would be roughly a 4 or so. You might end up legging it a little faster than your mom would; the key is just to hit a pace that brings you to that moderate heart rate.

Can walking get you there? Absolutely—you just need to be intentional about it. Ambling along without much of a hurry (say, the pace you use while window shopping or walking a slow-moving senior dog) is unlikely to get your heart pumping to that level.

“If it’s lower [than a moderate heart rate zone], I personally do not count it as cardio,” Stephen Ranellone, CSCS, an exercise physiologist on the sports rehabilitation and performance team at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery, tells SELF.

For some of us—especially if we’re a little bit deconditioned—that moderate intensity isn’t too hard to hit once we begin walking, Boreman says. Others who are more fit, however, need to be pretty deliberate about keeping a “brisk” pace or climbing an incline (or maybe even wearing a weighted vest) to get their heart rate high enough through walking alone. Think of it this way: Rather than just puttering around the mall, Bhagat says most of us need to approach walking as “dedicated exercise where you’re consistently trying to move for a duration of time.”

That said, even a leisurely stroll can get your blood flowing, improve your sleep, boost your mental health, and more.

Even if you don’t hit that moderate intensity, there are still good reasons to go for a walk. “Moving slowly is better than not moving at all,” Ranellone says. Bhagat adds that some of her cardiac rehab patients simply do laps around their house to work some movement into their days.

Cardiovascular perks aside, walking offers us a whole host of good stuff. It can improve our sleep and energy levels, help to control depression and anxiety, keep joints like our knees healthy, and help manage our blood sugar levels (if we do it after eating—fart walk FTW). Plus, it just makes us feel better. “Especially for people who are sitting at a desk all day, getting up and walking can help relieve some of that tension that they feel,” Boreman says.

And if you do pick up the pace, you boost the benefits. For instance, a higher speed can increase the amount of impact forces you’re putting through your body, which can help strengthen your bones, Ranellone says. What’s more, multiple researchers have found that brisk walkers have a lower chance of developing heart disease or dying prematurely. How’s that for motivation?

Here’s how to get the most out of your walking workouts.

To be sure you’re getting real cardio benefits out of your walks, Ranellone recommends checking your heart rate (either through a fitness tracker or just by counting your pulse) from time to time to hold yourself accountable and guarantee that you’re pushing hard enough.

And if walking is the only form of cardio you do, he suggests including some harder pushes or intervals during some of your workouts to fit in some of that vigorous effort too (say, by challenging yourself to book it for the length of a song). That same 35-year-old would just need to walk hard enough to get her heart up to 142 beats per minute for a few minutes at a time—at least a 6 out of 10 effort-wise, or a pace where it’s tough to have a real convo. Then they could pull back to a recovery pace before pushing hard again. Going fast enough will fire up your anaerobic system and fast-twitch muscles so your body is prepared to handle higher-intensity work when, say, you want to join that pick-up soccer game or run to catch the train.

Another way to amp up the effort is to add in incline, which also offers the benefit of activating the back of your legs, Ranellone says. “Most people are a bit deficient through their posterior chain,” he says. Proactively strengthening those hamstrings and glutes through hill work can help us build more balanced strength throughout the body. To do this on a treadmill, Ranellone suggests setting the deck to 3% to 6%, then walking at about three to three and a half miles per hour for 30 minutes. Though pay attention to your effort level or heart rate to make sure you’re hitting the intensity zones you’re after.

But you don’t actually need an uninterrupted half an hour to get the benefits of walking. Although experts usually recommend shooting for 30 minutes of moderate cardio five days a week, “people can split that up into two 15-minute walks a day,” Boreman says. Bhagat says some of her patients even do just 10 minutes at a time. The key is simply staying consistent.

The bottom line: Walking with a bit of a spring in your step is the healthiest approach. But it’s almost never a bad idea to do any kind of walking. Bhagat shares that she used to be an elite karate athlete, but now as a new mom, sometimes a 20-minute walk is all she can manage. Although it’s nothing like the strenuous training she once did, she knows it’s still worth it. “Just doing what you can with what you have and just enjoying what you’re doing is great,” she says.

Related:

• Do You Get a ‘Better’ Workout With an Elliptical or a Treadmill?
• The Beginner’s Guide to All the Different Cardio Machines at Your Gym
• 14 Ways to Make Your Daily Walk Feel More Like a Walking Workout

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