Go For a Walk!

Walking

A Simple and Effective Strategy for Managing Low Back & Hip Pain and Overall Health

Walking holds tremendous potential for maintaining and improving both physical and mental well-being, and is one of the keys to unlocking better cardiovascular health. It improves circulation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces the risk of heart disease.

It also has multiple benefits for state of mind and emotional health such as reducing stress and anxiety, boosting mood and energy levels, and has also been shown to enhance some cognitive functions.

A few of the common physical benefits of walking include boosting basic metabolism, providing balance and proprioception (awareness of the position of your body in its immediate surroundings), and maintaining bone and joint health, among many others. An added bonus, recently published in a medical study, is that walking can be shown to be an effective tool in reducing low back pain.

A recent study, by Pocovi et al, found that walking 130 minutes or more per week showed a 46% decreased recurrence of low back pain, 28% in reduced activity limitations, and a decrease of 43% for those reporting low back seeking care. After 12 weeks in the study, the subjects weren’t struggling with their low back pain as much as compared to the control group who was not assigned the walking intervention.

So how can you apply this to your life?
Work on setting a schedule or plan to walk 3-5 days per week for 20-30 minutes at a time. The key is consistency over time and not getting the majority of your minutes in only a few days. Understand that this is a process that takes time, just like in the study where it took at least 12 weeks for noticeable benefits.

The best part? It’s low-barrier to getting started!

Grab your dog, a friend, or your headphones, and start walking!

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Natasha C Pocovi, Chung-Wei Christine Lin, Simon D French, Petra L Graham, Johanna M van Dongen, Jane Latimer, Dafna Merom, Anne Tiedemann, Christopher G Maher, Ornella Clavisi, Shuk Yin Kate Tong, Mark J Hancock. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an individualised, progressive walking and education intervention for the prevention of low back pain recurrence in Australia (WalkBack): a randomised controlled trial. The Lancet, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00755-4