How to Build Muscle While Walking? Benefits, Variations and Studies

Power Up Your Daily Walk To Build Muscle!

Walking is the finest full-body workout. It can even help build muscle.

As you know, walking is a daily activity that you perform voluntarily. There are various studies that found its fruitful relation to muscle growth.

On top of that, it works on your complete muscular system making it the best full-body workout.

Whether bodybuilders or beginners, everyone prefers to have a treadmill session. The reason is evident.

Still, is there any truth to the wild claim? Does walking build muscle? Or, the simple physical activity is overhyped.

The blog is an attempt to dig out the actual truth behind it. You will find a scientific evaluation of different studies to clear out different points.

Does Walking Build Muscle?

Walking strengthens your lower body while working on a complete body. Thus, everyone includes physical activity in their workout program. Some prefer the treadmill while others prefer walking outside.

For muscle growth, reaching hypertrophy is important. However, walking isn’t like HIIT, it is an aerobic workout.

It helps eliminate body fat, but it won’t benefit the muscle-building process.

Of course, walking won’t activate hypertrophy effectively like any other muscle-building training program.

How Does Walking Affect Muscle Growth or Promote It?

Walking-related muscle growth varies between mountain climbers, hikers, and marathon runners. Moreover, their muscle gain differs according to their body type.

Also, there is a difference in muscle mass between casual walkers and professional athletes.

Let’s closely observe the science.

#1: Strengthens Lower Body

Walking is great for improving cardiovascular health. It particularly strengthens your leg muscle while shrinking them. Muscle loss occurs with age, with regular workouts like walking, it lessens.

#2: Slow-Twitch vs. Fast-Twitch Muscles

Walking is an endurance movement. The workout helps develop slow-twitch muscle fibers applicable for sustained motion.

Indeed, these are different from the huge gigantic muscle of bodybuilders and athletes.

Their training program involves intense lift and progressive overload to focus on big showy muscles.

In contrast, running, walking, and cycling are aerobic workouts focusing to develop slow-twitch muscle fibers. It helps eliminate excess body fat while preserving lean muscle mass.

#3: More Muscle and Less Fat

Walking helps melt down fat, particularly the body fat reserves in your legs. It helps eliminate flabs from the glutes, hips, thighs, and abdomen.

On top of that, it even helps strengthen your leg muscle providing a much-defined length. However, these benefits work incorporation with your dietary supply.

A high protein well balanced and nutrient-dense diet works in favor of muscle growth.

When body fat reserves reduce, the density of lean muscle increases as well. Various workout enhances your muscularity by utilizing this mechanism.

Walking helps develop small lean muscles rather than the long muscle tissue like weight lifting training.

Regular walking build glutes that not only help you to tone your butt but improve the overall body. So, take a look at the evidence mentioned below.

Walking and Muscle Gain: Some Scientific Studies

Walking improves your overall circulation. It tends to lose body fat, but it even accelerates muscle growth.

Various research organizations have tried to figure out the actual link between the two.

Does walking build muscle? Here are a few studies in this respect…

Study 1

10-week walking and home-based resistance training improved muscle size. The study tested the quality of muscle, physical performance, and other parameters to understand the impact of the training program on muscle building process. The training led to significant improvement in physical attributes.

Study 2

Another research investigated the impact of Nordic walking in terms of body composition. The walk involves cardiovascular workouts, which led to improvement in muscle strength, body composition, and the lipid profile of elderly women.

Walking works great irrespective of gender, body type, and age. Though its main job is to eliminate excess body fat, it does impact your muscle mass.

It lessens flabs to improve your muscle density to enhance body composition.

On top of that, it relatively increases your muscular strength. Indeed, the main focus remains on these benefits of walking.

5 Surprising Benefits of Walking

Walking isn’t all about the lower body, legs, glutes, hips, and hamstrings.

Similarly, it is all about benefiting from weight loss and muscle gain. Surprisingly, walking has many impressive benefits to bewilder you.

Here are 5 unknown but interesting advantages of walking.

#1: Curbs Cravings

Even walking for 15 minutes daily can reduce cravings for sweet things like chocolate. It even lessened the amount of chocolate consumed in daily stressful situations.

More recent studies affirm the craving-lessening effects of walking, particularly for sugary things.

#2: Fights Off Weight-Promoting Genes

Walking can reduce the impact of weight-boosting genes.

Researchers at Harvard investigated the impact of 32 obesity-promoting genes in a large population of 12,000 people. They found participants walking briskly for an hour a day had a half chance of turning obese.

#3: Strengthens Immune Function

Walking can improve your immune system. It protects your body against flu and cold.

Even if you get sick, it lasts for a shorter duration. It is easier to recover as well as the symptoms are milder comparatively.

#4: Eases Joint Pain

Walking lessens arthritis-related pain while releasing joint pain as well. Moreover, walking almost five to six miles weekly can prevent the problem in the first place.

Physical activity protects your hips and knees from osteoarthritis by reinforcing and lubricating them.

#5: Lessens the risks of breast cancer

Any kind of physical activity can lessen the risk of developing breast cancer.

Surprisingly, women walking for 7 hours or more a week had a 14% lesser chance of developing breast cancer compared to women walking for 3 hours or less a week.

Other common benefits of walking

Does brisk walking build muscle? The daily brisk walk supports overall well-being and health.

Here’s how the walking variation benefits.

• Less body fat more lean muscle
• Enhance cardiovascular health
• Healthier body weight composition
• Enhances coordination and balance
• Boost cognition, memory, and sleep
• Strengthens musculoskeletal system
• Heightens muscular strength, energy, and fitness level
• Relaxes body and mind by lessening stress and tension
• Prevents health issues like stroke, cardiac ailments, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

The benefits of walking aren’t just to body composition.

It offers a wide variety of perks benefiting every aspect of your health. Thus, everyone prefers the full body workout and adds a walking session to their workout program.

Behind these benefits of walking, there are some common misconceptions that revolve around it. As many people believe that walking makes your legs bigger or smaller.  Let’s talk about the possible downside of physical activity.

The Dangers of Walking for Exercise 

In general, walking is a simple activity to maintain fitness levels. However, it isn’t always beneficial for everyone in every instance.

The side effects of walking are real. Let’s take a look at them in detail.

#1: Risk of Shoulder Injury

Walking can help strengthen muscles. So, people want to know how walking builds muscle strength.

They use weights, resistance, and particular types of moves. It pressurizes your shoulder putting it at higher risk of injury. The key is to use lightweight and to maintain a medium-intensity walk to minimize

#2: Risking Muscle Tension

There are multiple physical dangers associated with walking. It doesn’t limit your lower body involving the legs and foot.

In general, the problem due to walking affects your leg and foot, but it can inflame your heel and even other muscle groups. It can even trigger muscle tension as well as stress ligaments.

#3: Shoe Matters

Walking requires perfect footwear. There are specified types of knee osteoarthritis (OA). It supports your joints releases stiffness, reduces pain, and protects cartilage.

Even if you are a regular walker, shoes are important because wearing the wrong shoe can trigger pain and may lead to injuries

#4: Sun Exposure

Specifically, outdoor running or walking exposes to sun damage. Though, outdoor workouts are more beneficial compared to indoor walking using treadmills.

However, greater sun exposure increases the risk of developing sun exposure. It is important to walk in the shade with proper clothing and to wear a sun-protecting agent.

#5: Lungs at Risk

Walking is a great way to elevate cardiovascular health. Instead of walking roadside near traffic, schedule your workouts around a park or a greener place.

Avoid high traffic zone, the pollution in this area can expose you to harmful pollutants. It prevents the amazing cardiopulmonary effects of physical activity.

Other side effects of walking are:

• Fatigue
• Joint pain
• Muscle strain
• Risk of Injuries
• Muscle soreness
• Posture problem
• Tension in ligaments
• Pain in knees and lower back

The side effects of walking are real, but it occurs usually with excessive walking.

Sometimes it can be the intensity of the physical activity or utilizing extra equipment like weights and resistance.

With additional care, avoiding the downside of the workout is possible.

Does walking build muscle? It does more than walking, but to maximize the impact, doing something additional works.

5 Ways On How To Build Muscle By Walking

If the sole motive for walking is to strengthen muscles, do something additional. It helps maximize the impact of physical activity.

Let’s know how to build muscle by walking.

#1: Increase Pace up

Speeding up challenges muscle tissue causing muscle pain. This can activate the hypertrophy necessary to build muscle.

From 3 mph jump to 3.5, later on, jump to 4 mph. maintain the speed for a few minutes. Slow down. Get back to the same pace, the technique works always.

#2: Switch Incline

Whether hill or treadmill, incline adds challenges and elevates the intensity.

The more intense workout the greater burn and build.

Thus, bodybuilders make their walks vigorous increasing the incline of walking up the hill. They know how does hill walking build muscle. It is the work of the intensity result of incline.

#3: Leave Handrails

Don’t walk holding the handrails of your treadmill.

Leaving it can make workouts more robust increasing burn and challenging muscle.

#4: Add Weights

Using weights during your walks strengthens the upper body particularly because it works on the arms and chest.

Begin with light weights, and gradually use progressive overload to challenge your body for greater build and muscle mass.

#5: Add cardio workouts and other moves

Adding some kind of movement in between a simple walk can challenge the body. Unfamiliarity always works for your body.

• In between your walk, do a burpee, jumping jack, or any other moves. Or, try a bodyweight workout to add a challenge.

The above-mentioned strategies are a great way to challenge your muscle mass. It can cause greater muscle damage to help build more muscle. This explains how walking builds muscle.

5 Walking Variations That Help You to KEEP FIT

Walking in different ways subjects the body to unfamiliarity. It works as a challenge to the body causing more muscle tears and burns.

So, how does walking build abs? By using the different walking variation in your routine, building abs are possible.

Stroll Walking

Never underestimate the health benefits of a daily stroll.

If you keep up your daily walk of at least an hour a day for 5 days a week you will still see health benefits like – improved bone and muscle health and weight control.

Power Walking

It requires pace and utilizes fast arm swings to develop cardiovascular endurance and greater strength.

To get most of the walking variation, swing your arms at a perfect right angle and also your heels-to-toe move. This is how power walking builds muscle.

Brisk Walking

The walking strategy requires taking a minimum of 100 steps every minute.

Use a fitness band or app to track steps and heart rate. This can direct you on when to speed up and when to slow down.

Marathon Walking

The walking variation for muscle building isn’t about fast speed. Instead, it is about keeping a steady pace for long distances.

Walk at a regular pace for an hour and extend the duration to 3 hours. However, keep water and nutritious snacks along with you during such long runs.

Nordic or Pole Walking

It is just like power or brisk walking, but it uses Nordic poles to add challenge.

So, how does Nordic walking build muscle? The Nordic pole targets your upper body to challenge forward movement. Indeed, it works great for your core, upper body, and lower body as well.

The full body workout elevates pace, balance, and stamina while increasing muscles.

These walking variations strengthen your calf muscles and also helps to build leg strength. So you should try to incorporate walking to achieve your wellness goals.

How Many Steps Should I Walk To Gain Muscle?

In general, it is suggested to walk at least 10,000 steps a day in the beginning.

Later on, extend your steps to increase the impact of walking. Plan your walks and add them in a way to increase the daily steps. 10000 steps a day ensures amazing results.

It just requires technique and skill to add it in a way in your daily routine to make it achievable.

Walking is a great way to improve fitness levels, burn fat, and gain lean muscle mass. A long-duration walking session is feasible enough to provide perks.

The entire discussion on the topic ‘does walking build muscle’ ends here. Let’s sum up the entire discussion.

Time to Wrap Up

An average being walks at a pace of 3.1 miles/hour.

Walking is a simple activity incorporated into our daily routine.  It develops slow-twitched muscle, which is different than the developed large muscle tissue as a result of bodybuilding.

The walking-related muscle gain varies from the popular mega gigantic muscular transformation. Marathon runners, hikers, and mountain climbers have different muscle distribution than bodybuilders.

So, how to make walking an everyday habit?

• Skip lifts and take stairs
• Park at a distance
• While coffee brews, walk around your house
• Walking during meetings rather than sitting
• For nearby errands, walk, don’t use cars.

You can try different variations of walking, but for beginners, a simple walking session is enough.

Remember, “Repetition is key for developing a habit.”

Do you have anything to add? Why don’t you share with us and let us know which walking variation you’ve tried to reach your fitness goal?