What makes walking so great for your health and what else do you need to do

Health experts say walking is an easy way to improve physical and mental health, bolster fitness and prevent disease. Doctors say people should also add other activities to their fitness routines, including resistance exercises like lifting weights and activities that keep you flexible like yoga or stretching. “You don’t need equipment and you don’t need a gym membership,” says Dr. Sarah Eby, a sports medicine physician with Mass General Brigham. “And the benefits are so vast.” Walking can help meet the U.S. surgeon general’s recommendation that adults get at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate-intensity physical activity every week. This helps lower the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, dementia, depression and many types of cancer. Walking also improves blood sugar levels, is good for bone health and can help you lose weight and sleep better. Another advantage? It’s a low-impact exercise that puts less pressure on joints as it strengthens your heart and lungs. But is it enough to maintain overall health and well-being? Walking doesn’t provide resistance training that builds muscle strength and endurance and it is a good idea to incorporate that into your routine says Eby, "Additionally we recommend two days at a minimum of strength building, kind of muscular building exercises. Whether that's body weight exercises, true kind of weight training, or resistance band exercises. Something that's kind of working the muscles to build strength more than just kind of day-to-day activities." But do you really need 10,000 steps a day? Nearly everyone has heard about this walking goal, which dates back to a 1960s marketing campaign in Japan. But experts stress that it’s just a guideline. "We've all heard of 10,000 steps a day, and that's—was an ad campaign launched in the 1960s that has somehow had had some significant staying power despite not really being based on any true science, " explains Eby. "What we know now is that we see significant health benefits from even a modest amount of activity. And if we're talking specifically about walking even 2 1/2 to 3 thousand steps a day is—we see some health benefits from that," she adds. This article was provided by The Associated Press.