What the Experts, Institutes and Universities have to say about Walking

Dr. Ken Cooper, the Father of Aerobics and Founder of the prestigious Cooper Institute, "This company has found the key to creating a perfect environment for walkers by catering to their physical and emotional needs. Healthy Living Hit Music allows walkers to get a precise level of intensity and duration in their workouts while making exercise fun and enjoyable."

The Cooper Institute

• In a landmark study at the Cooper Institute, this situation occurred. "As we verified the efficacy of walking 10,000 steps per day or more in this study, as the project progresses, we were confronted with a problem: although we began our exercise program with 730 subjects, by the end of the study, we had only 83 participants who had completed the full 12-week walking schedule. These unfortunate results confirm the difficulty of continuing an exercise training program on a steady basis. It also indicates that some methods are needed to encourage people to continue exercising on a regular schedule…
• In an article entitled Walking for Health and Fitness published by The Cooper Institute, the authors found – "A recent study showed that 40 minutes of walking significantly reduced anxiety and tension and enhanced overall mood state."
• In the aforementioned study the authors also found that "Walking is a particularly appropriate exercise to prescribe as a component of a weight-loss program, and since it is a low-impact activity, there is low risk of injury."
• According to a report issued by the Cooper Institute in November of 1989, walking five times a week for 30 minutes a day at the rate of 3 miles per hour reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke by 58%. Furthermore, the same rate of reduction occurs by walking three times a week at 3.5 miles per hour, or two times a week at 4 miles per hour.
• The American population is becoming increasingly obese. Thirty-one percent of our population is at least thirty pounds overweight. According to the Cooper Institute, this number is expected to rise to fifty percent by 2010. It is a commonly held belief of fitness experts that Americans need both caloric restriction and exercise to reduce the potential health risks that face them.

Fitness and Mortality

The results of the largest study ever conducted measuring fitness and risk of dying was recently published by  Dr. Steve Blair of the Institute for Aerobics Research and his colleagues. This landmark study "will be talked about by the scientific community for the next 50 to 100 years," says Dr. Lester Breslow, a leading researcher and Dean Emeritus of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health.

What makes the study unique is that aerobic fitness of 13,344 mean and women was actually measured on a treadmill. Other studies use the less accurate method of self-report of physical activity. Subjects were assigned to five fitness categories, ranging from low to high, according to treadmill scores. They were followed over eight years to track any deaths and their causes. Results show lower death rates in the more physically fit.

Major findings include the following:

• Death rates from all causes for the least-fit men were 3.4 times higher than the most-fit men and for the least-fit women, 4.6 times higher than most-fit women.
• Higher levels of physical fitness were beneficial even in those with other risk factors such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, cigarette smoking, and a family history of heart disease. In other word, unfit people with these risk factors had higher death rates than fit people with them. "Fitness appears to compensate even for other risk factors that might shorten life," says Blair.
• Cancer death rates were much lower in physically fit men and women. Scientists consider this a striking finding which must be pursued.
• Even moderate levels of exercise will result in a fitness level associated with a greatly reduced risk of death. According to Blair, "Just getting out of the least-fit category into the moderate-fitness category provides substantial benefits. I'm not telling runner to slow down. I'm saying to other, 'Turn off the TV, get up and move around a little bit.'"

Have diabetes? Live Longer by Walking

• If you have diabetes, walking just over 8 blocks a day can slash your risk of dying by more than one third. Go a little farther, and you’ll cut your risk by up to 50%, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• After comparing activity levels and death rates of almost 2,900 adults who were diagnosed with diabetes 11 years ago, researchers found those who walked at least 2 hours a week at a moderate 3-MPH pace – that’s just 6 miles a week, or 8 blocks a day – were 39% less likely to die from heart disease, the number one health threat to people with diabetes. Walkers who logged 3 to 4 hours a week (30 to 45 minutes a day) sliced their risk in half.
  - Prevention Guide. Walking Fit, April 2004

The University of Maryland

• A recent study from the University of Maryland concludes that "people who listen to music during exercise activities such as walking or jogging tend to exercise MORE frequently, for LONGER periods of time, and with GREATER intensity. In addition to getting better workouts, people who listen to music ENJOY THEIR WORKOUTS MORE than people who do not."

Ohio State University

Listening to music while working out helps people with severe lung disease. Researchers believe that listening to music helped people with severe respiratory disease increase their fitness levels, based on the results of a new study. Subjects with serious lung disease who listened to music while walking covered an average of 19 total miles over the course of an eight week exercise intervention study. In comparison, the group that didn’t listen to music only walked an average 15 total miles – 21 percent less – by the end of the study. That four-mile difference is significant, said Gerene Bauldoff, a study co-author and an assistant professor of nursing at Ohio State University. It suggests that participants in the music group may have felt less hindered by shortness of breath, the primary physical symptom of serious lung disease.

"Music could help distract people with serious lung disease from certain negative physical symptoms," Bauldoff said. "The positive effects of increased exercise spilled over into other areas of the participants lives – they were better able to handle routine daily activities and, in turn, retain a good degree of independence."