Study: Vigorous walking results in larger reduction in risk of early death (17 percent) than running (13 per cent)

Want to have good health? WALK

Want topflight personal performance? RUN

Everything has advantages and tradeoffs. I don't know why these topics engender such vitriol, but someone will arrive soon to slag walkers or call the study bull**** because of their pre-conceived notions.

I think all these studies on exercise are just showing that the longer you go in life before you are on the verge of frailty, the longer you will live. People who steer clear of heart disease, cancer, etc., will usually check out when they have lost so muscle muscle strength, mobility and bone density that they are prone to falling and cannot recover from any broken bones. My mother is 84 and had a pretty hard fall after she tripped over her little mop dog when going for a walk. But she does her silver sneakers at the Y and walks a few miles every day. When she went to the urgent care, the doctor was pleasantly surprised she only had some bad bruises. Most people her age will come in with multiple fractures when they have a bad fall. They then do not have the strength to recover from the fractures and end up in a wheel chair. At that point, they have at best a year or two left.

The takeaway is that physical activity is good for longevity whether it's running or vigorous walking.

To determine without doubt which form of exercise is more healthy one can only say that more than one study is needed - or a meta-analysis.

they don't give out medals on thanksgiving for the fastest walker in town

Try to keep running into your 70s while mixing in vigorous walking, start walking more after 60. Young people don't need to walk until they're old.

As you get older, you see how relevant walking is in relation to health and endurance based fitness.

Ive run 100,000+ in my running career and have had to obviously cut my mileage back with age.

But, I was curious as to whether or not I’m still actually fit going 35-40 miles a week ( counting walk)

I just talked to a neighbor who walks 18 holes a day of golf.

Today, his walk to the course, playing 18 holes then walking back home he walked 14,100 steps.

He needs to start keeping a log! He’s the fitness king on my retirement home block…

My piddly 35 a week is nuthin compared to these golfers.

I think you are trying to over conclude here.

1) Did the study identify a statistical difference between the two groups? Did they have statistical power to do so? Did they even compare this? From my brief review, I believe no.

2) In the study, risk reductions are calculated by comparing highest vs lowest categories of participation for each activity separately. Essentially they are comparing “People who walk a lot vs those who barely walk” and “People who run some vs those who don’t run”, which makes direct comparison between walking and running inappropriate.

3) Residual confounding may differ by activity as people who complete the two exercises may be systematically different from each other. Walkers may live a healthier overall lifestyle and have better underlying health, which was not controlled for fully.

This was a good study, but be careful trying to conclude things that were not stated in the conclusion of the study. Beyond this study, I would also be interested in seeing it completed in other cohorts. This one was in the 1) Nurses' Health Study and 2) Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which is primarily white health professionals. To confidently conclude based on epidemiologic studies, it is important to have multiple studies in a variety of populations to better understand the true nature of health trends. More studies would be needed to validate these findings across the globe.

I switched to vigorous walking more than a decade ago. I do 45 minutes 4 or 5 times per week, always at night. Also 15-30 minutes every night swimming laps in my pool. It's great here in Miami when I'm drenched with sweat after the walk but can go immediately into the pool.

I enjoy the walking most of all. I mentioned that I walked trails the day before world cross country in Tallahassee. It's not only healthy but inexpensive. Almost every major national and state park has trails associated with them. I make those trails a major focus of every trip, often driving hours away. National parks will have the main scenic attractions that receive all the attention, but great trails also.

My only issue is I tend to get overly carried away on descent, when it's a mountainous trail. In June 2024 I was descending so fast on the Pickens Nose trail in North Carolina that my left shoe went under a thick horizontal root. I fell face first and broke my foot.

Far more elderly people are capable of walking than running. Think about that.

Exactly right which was my point.

The older I got, the more that I realized that the neighborhood walkers and golfers were probably doing more endurance work than I was, which caused me to re-evaluate my training.

I could only run two or three miles at a time without experiencing pain but the golfers are doing 14,100 steps, at least 4 days a week!

I need to catch up with the non-running golfers and walkers to be as fit as they… apparently

and I am incorporating…. Walking done after what small amounts that I can “ run”

Your 35 mpw beats the 28 mpw that a 7200 yd championship golf course provides.

The main conclusion from the study is that combining running, walking and lifting weights gives you the most benefit. I alternate running days with weight lifting days and on top I walk my dog 3x a day. Guess I'll live to 150.

I am always suspicious of these studies, but walking is indeed wonderful exercise. So many people think they need to exercise hard to get in shape... "No pain, no gain". But just going for a 30-minute walk 5 times/week and making minor dietary changes makes a huge difference.

I wish that more people who are considering exercise knew that going for a 10-minute walk right now is a great way to start.

Maybe the way Steve Scott played a course but my neighbors don’t play in a straight line I’ll guarantee.

This all was a new revelation for me when I started gaining weight a year or so ago.

I had 3 miniscus surgeries and 2 lower back ablations and am just shot but considered myself a runner… my neighbors always considered me the runner ( 12,500 miles, limping since 2018), then it occurred to me that these walkers and golfers may be actually as fit as I was.

Then, I asked them what they did and asked them to record what they did…

My neighbor today, 14,100 and he does that maybe 4 times a week…I did burn 18k today but that’s a twice a week thing…

As crazy as it sounds, it really alarmed me that if these non-runners aren’t putting in the endurance work that I am, they are darn close.

And I don’t like that ( ha)

great topic is what I’m trying to say

Then, out of curiosity, I asked a guy who worked in a liquor store one night and who had just received a shipment of booze he had to unload to tell me the next day how many steps he took

He did 18k steps overnight at work!

I spot checked a guy at the end of his shift at a produce section in a store who is a really hard worker his Apple Watch.

I don’t remember the steps but he had burned 1,079 calories!!!!

And my pretty tough ( but crippled) running days are 750!!!

so, this was a timely topic and thanks for it…

Re-evaluating training is fun anyway

How out of shape to you have to be where walking is effective exercise? Maybe when I'm 80 that will make sense but hard to imagine it younger than that.

Right and it just shows training evolves like the runner evolves

I’ve run 115 miles this year so far and the guy with the golf cart and the blue aluminum Bud Light bottle on the side of his golf bag, does more steps and may burn more calories than me….
Walking has become even more important now.

Can Canadians be trusted to produce accurate information?

Probably because the control group is your typical obese geriatric American slob and a little bit of walking actually increased their life.

Running did too but their overweight frame wouldn't be able to handle it.