Human Walking Speed

The problem of excessive weight is extremely commonplace these days. In fact, more and more people today are suffering from expanding waistlines, thanks to their faulty living style - too much work, no time for exercise and excessive dependence on fast food. Though losing weight is not easy, for overweight people, all hope is not lost. A regular exercise regimen and a strict control on the diet can go a long way in helping them bring their weight back to a healthy level. When we talk about exercise, most of the people resort to walking, since it is easy, does not involve any dependence on gym-machines and cost nothing at all (except your time).

While many people have adopted walking for their daily exercise routine, some of them find that even after adhering to their daily walk schedule, they are not losing weight. If you are one amongst such people, you need to know that, for burning calories and losing weight, merely walking is not enough. You need to make sure that your walking speed is right. Slow walking won't be good enough to enable you to burn much of your calories. You need to put in extra efforts and maintain a certain level of speed while walking, if trimming down your expanding waistline is your objective.

If you desire to achieve a slim trim figure, as the result of your walking routine, you need to keep a track of your average speed. Calculating the average human walking speed means, to determine exactly how many number of steps do you take in a minute. There are different factors that tend to determine the average walking pace of humans, the most prominent being the motive of a person for indulging in a walk. Now, some people go about walking, so as to ensure health fitness. For them, the right walking pace would be 3 miles per hour, which means about 120 steps in a minute.

If you are one of those who intend to indulge in walking with the aim of shaping up your body, then taking only 120 steps in a minute will not at all be adequate. In such a case, you need to increase your walking speed to at least 135 steps per minute. To put it in other words, you will have to walk 4 miles per hour, to ensure results in your weight loss program. Talking about target walking speed for aerobic fitness, 150 steps per minute will be just fine. In short, depending upon your goal, you need to work out your walking speed and then adhere to the same, to achieve the desired results.