The Switch from Brisk Walking to Jogging

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After you've been brisk walking long enough, you can gradually shift to jogging. I don't recommend anyone doing jogging or running at once. There has to be a gradual switching process. Even for young athletes.

What I mean is, young athletes should have a warm-up phase before breaking into a jog or run. The warm up can be a brisk walk for a minute or two. This makes running or jogging safe for the muscles, preventing them from suffering injury.

Injury is the number one thing you have to avoid, especially injury in your ankle tendons and ligaments, your forelegs and others. If you don't walk or jog properly. you can also develop injuries on your knees or hips. And this creates problems to your sports performance. whatever your sport is. And the first thing on proper walking or jogging is warm up.

With adults, I strongly recommend doing brisk walks for some months before switching to jogging. This conditions the leg muscles and the body before you take on a more strenuous course. In my case, I brisked walked for 2 years (after my muscle trauma incident) and then started to mix brisk walking with jogging.

Another time I stopped jogging for a while, I again started with brisk walks for some 6 months or so before I proceeded to jogging and running.

And that's another vital tip---initially mixing walking with jogging before doing full-swing jogging. And much later, mixing jogging with running, and then all three.

The important thing is to avoid shocking the body with sudden and intense workouts. Be gentle and kind with your body, even if you're still young, and give it time to adjust to new physical culture. Shocks against it will prove unhealthy (even dangerous) later, especially when age starts to get the better of you.

And the last but not least tip is to always consult your medical doctor first before trying any physical exercise. Yesterday, I was talking to a 74-year old guy at the Capitol Medical Center clinics. He underwent quadruple bypass recently even if he has been active with tennis since he was a teenager. And one colleague of his suddenly dropped dead right after bouts of tennis.

Why did all these happen?

They failed to check with a medical doctor. Never assume good health, although you feel in tiptop shape. Always consult your medical doctor, especially on brisk walking and jogging.

Okay, it's 6.30 am and time for me to go out and jog now! See you all later.

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How to Start Your Very First Brisk Walk and Determine to Keep Up

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It's not like sky diving or skiing or basketball which are optional. You can choose to do them or not. But brisk walking is different. We ALL should brisk walk to keep healthy and fit, especially when you're advancing in age.

You have to start brisk walking now.

And starting is easy. Simply go out and start walking. Do it in the clothes you now have on. It doesn't require a special uniform or getup to brisk walk. I do it with slippers on my feet and even while wearing maong jeans---although wearing something loose is better.

Do it 30 to 40 minutes a day or every other day.

I always consider it a fast leisurely walk. I'm not in a hurry but I maintain two steps per second, and sometimes I go a bit faster. I take long strides, but not too long. Most of all, I enjoy God, the scenery, the neighborhood and other brisk walkers and joggers I meet.

When I started my first jog when I was in grade 7 (at 4 am in the morning), I felt strange and foolish. Back then, jogging in the streets was out of this world. Joggers did it only at the Luneta Park. So, when my neighbors saw me jogging in our streets, they laughed.

Aside from that, there's always that eeriness when you are a newbie at something. "Am I really going to jog?" It was like my first time to shoot a basketball. "Am I really going to play basketball?" But don't let negativity like that bother you. Just think---"I have to do this. I have to be healthy."

So that's the first thing you need to do to start your first brisk walk. Convince yourself that it's not just an option or you'd just try it today. You have to do it starting today. And then enjoy it.

I love walking early mornings when sunlight just tickles your skin and everything is fresh, cool and gentle. I love watching around me how a day starts and how people go about it. Often, I watch how birds start their activities, and they always start by playing and singing. And then later they get down to work. I think we should learn from them.

Sometimes, I brisk walk with my wife in the late afternoons. She's a busy grade school teacher and I have to remind her of her need to brisk walk. I tell her to relax or nap for 20 minutes when she gets home from school and then we'd go out for a brisk walk. Sometimes, I teach her some arnis lessons. Well, this 2017, I think we'd do it more frequent, even with the kids.

It's so easy to start and maintain a brisk walk daily routine. The thing is, tell yourself always, you have to do it. You have no choice.

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How Diabetes is Helped by Brisk Walking

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First and foremost, brisk walking helps you lose weight effectively. And losing weight is a big step to controlling your blood sugar levels if you are diabetic. After your medical doctor approves of your brisk walking workout, do it regularly at least 30 to 45 minutes a day with proper diet.

Brisk walking helps shrink dangerous abdominal fats that increase the risk of diabetes. The excess fat building up around your waist and abdomen can lead to inflammation in your cells which can result to your being resistant to insulin---a hormone controlling sugar levels in the blood.

A Canadian study in fact discovered that women who did brisk walking for an hour or so each day lessened their abdominal fat by 20 percent after just 14 weeks or 3 and a half months---even without changing their eating habits.

"Walking is one of the best types of 'medicine' we have to help prevent diabetes, or reduce its severity and potential complications—such as heart attack and stroke—if you already have it," states JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, in an article on the site Prevention. She is also chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, at the same time a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

My cousin, Ismael, goes biking regularly to keep his blood sugar levels normal. According to him, it works, requiring him less medications. But brisk walking is better than biking because with biking you have more idling time, like when you stop pedaling because the bike keeps moving on via the momentum anyway, especially downhill. 

With brisk walking, you have to keep your legs working, uphill or downhill. 

My friend and shooting range buddy, Lito, who's also a diabetic, jogs regularly at UP Diliman and says he gets wonderfully normal blood sugar levels after such runs. "It's like I'm not diabetic at all!" he exclaims.

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Something Diabetics and Hypertensives Should Know about Climbing Up and Down Stairs

From Livestrong Website

A study presented at the American Heart Association showed how walking downhill (going down stairs, for instance) improved blood sugar levels. While walking up stairs improved fat levels in blood.

Thus, if you go up and down stairs, there is a huge chance you may normalize your lipid and glucose levels in your blood.

Well, the study was done on the mountains of Austria, but it also said you don't need to do this in the mountains or hills. Just look for uphill streets or stairs and it would work as effective. God blessed my neighborhood with uphill streets so this is easy for me. It may be the reason why I always have normal blood sugar and blood lipd readings, especially triglyceride. Thank God!

But I also climb up strairs. If you want something more strenuous, try climbing up and down stairs. I tried this at SM North, Walter Mart and even at the Philippine Heart Center along East Avenue---in case a heart problem suddenly occured, hehehe. Just kidding.

Make sure your doctor gives you a go signal before doing this. Look for a building near your place and ask the owner if you could just drop by everyday to climb up and down its stairs. Then do the exercise. Or, go to the nearest mall. Better if you have a street in your vicinity that goes uphill.

The study showed that walking downhill improved the subjects' glucose tolerance by 8.2 percent. Uphill walking improved it by only 4.5 percent. However, uphill walking, according to the study, lowered the triglyceride levels of the subjects by 11 percent. But they only had a 6.8 percent improvement when they walked downhill.

How did the researches explain this? They thought it had to do with using more concentric muscle power when going uphill and more eccentric power when going downhill. Obviously, more studies need to be done to establish the internal processes behind it. 

To be sure, climbing up and down stairs is healthy (but make sure your heart physician approves of it).

You don't need a high stairs to do this. A two-level building would do. A stairs with 13 to 15 steps ought to do it for beginners. The stairs at Walter Mart in Munoz has about 20. The ones at SM North and Heart Center have more.

Do it slowly at first---sometimes, even really slow. No need to hurry up. Then, as you build more power and heart and lung strength (after probably a week or so), do it a bit faster. 

Doing it on footbridges should be ideal but the problem is pollution from traffic. So I'd rather do it in malls or in subdivisions with plenty of trees, like our place.

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3 Things You Shouldn't Do Just Before Brisk Walking

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There are three things you shouldn't do right before doing a brisk walk.

1. Never eat a full breakfast. I often eat something before brisk walking but never a full meal. You may stand up or walk slowly around after a full meal, but don't walk briskly. It will cause more problems with digestion. After your brisk walk, then you can eat a full healthy meal. I said "eat a full healthy meal," not overeat.

2. Don't take stress with you. Leave stress at home---in fact, get rid of it. Never brisk walk or exercise with bad emotions or negative stress. It creates free radicals in you and that wouldn't go well with your exercise. It might even make things worse for your health. Make sure you're in good spirits when you go out. relax, be happy and enjoy your surroundings.

3. Don't neglect your toilet rituals. Never---I say again---never hit the road without emptying your bladder and sigmoid colon. Well, what I mean is, make sure stool in your colon ready for elimination should be eliminated. I can't fully describe the horror of needing to urinate or eliminate stool right in the middle of nowhere.

You usually take a bottle of water with you when you run, right? And then you get all excited and drink water now and then. But that makes your stool go down closer to the exit and fills your bladder with more urine, especially in the morning.

Now, imagine if you suddenly feel the need to go to the restroom and you're 5 miles away from home.

Besides, it isn't good for your health to be keeping them stuck up in you while exercising.

To help eliminate morning stool, I take 2 to 3 tall glasses of water first thing in the morning. And it's a big help, too, to eat nothing but vegetables the night before. I often eat pineapple to ease my bowels.

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Brisk Walking in the Rain

From businessinsider.com

If it's raining---like now. It's been raining hard since last week---you can still do an aero workout outdoors---brisk walking with an umbrella to protect you.

I actually tried it several times. It's more refreshing.

But don't jog or run. I don't need to tell you how the street pavement is slippery. And do wear rubber boots. In my case, I wore this cheap rubber shoes with lots of hole designs on them. I just avoided walking on flooded areas and getting my feet wet with water from the street canal. And I made sure I didn't have any wounds on my feet, too.

To avoid leptospirosis.

It's kind of odd brisk walking in the rain under an umbrella. People looked at me like I was the Penguin and they had to call Batman right away. But I think there's more adventure in it. You brave the heavy rains, get all wet eventually, enjoy the streets to yourself, and be the talk of the town later (suddenly you are popular).

And I believe you develop your heart and lung health this way more. The air tends to become thin when it's raining hard. So, if you brisk walk in it and gasp for air more, you strengthen your heart and lungs.

Not to mention you save on water, too. It's like swimming---you workout and also "take a bath," as it were, at the same time. So you need just a bit of water for the final bathing later. Imagine if this happens everyday. You save on your water bill, too.

Well, some folks I know don't bother with umbrellas. They just get wet in the rain either brisk walking or jogging. Some take off their shirts.

But whatever you do, never brisk walk or jog during a thunderstorm. I've seen joggers here brave fierce lightning and thunder and they think that just because they got away with it, it's safe. In any open area where you prove to be the highest thing standing, lightning could strike you. Don't wait till something terrible happens to you before you realize how silly a thing is.

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Why Relaxing is Essential to Brisk Walks, Runs and Jogs

From watchfit.com

Never go out there to brisk walk with worries. Leave your worries where they originated. Office worries should stay in the office, family worries at home, and so on. When you brisk walk, jog or run you have to be relaxed.

Worrying causes stress and stress multiplies free radical damage in your body. Now, did you know that aero workouts produced added free radicals in your body? But it's no cause for concern as long as your aero workout really keeps you healthy. The body will naturally get rid of the free radicals created.

But not if you workout with worries and too much stress. The free radicals produced may become too much than what the body can deal with.

Thus, relaxing is essential when you brisk walk, jog or run.

What I do is forget about worries and problems and look at my surroundings as I brisk walk outdoors. I keep myself in the "now."

I tell myself, "I'm here, walking, jogging or running, and I'm on this road that has lots of trees, gardens and Zen houses. Wow!" Then I appreciate God. Then I look around and appreciate everything or take note of things. Of course, mind where you're going or stepping on. In our area, we have lots of booby traps and land mines. I mean, don't step on dog poo and don't step into large holes in the streets.

It will help you relax to start slow and very gradually build up speed. I walk leisurely at first and then brisk walk before I break into a jog. And then I run. And then I switch motion---brisk walk, jog, run and on.

This way I keep myself relaxed.

Do you need to set goals or beat the record you made yesterday? If you're not an athlete participating in a competition, you don't need to. I never joined walking or running competitions, although I've been running to shape up since grade school. Just enjoy your workout. So what if I just jog for 15 minutes today? So what if all I did this morning was brisk walk? The thing is, you did something.

But often, I make it a point to jog and shadow box at least 30 minutes a day. If at times I do less than that, it's okay. no worries. Sometimes, I just lay idle all day long if that's what would relax me. Sometimes give yourself idle breaks---probably once a week.

Don't kill yourself trying to get fit.

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