Interval Walking at 71: How I Do HIIT Without Leaving My Wife Behind
The short version: Interval walking, also called Japanese walking, alternates fast and slow walking. In a Japanese study of 246 people averaging 63, it improved aerobic capacity, blood pressure and thigh strength more than steady walking. To stay with Kathy on our 1.8-mile evening walk, I walk away from her fast for two minutes, walk back to meet her, walk beside her for a minute, and repeat.
Every evening Kathy and I walk 1.8 miles together. That walk is not negotiable. It is time with my wife, and I am not giving it up to chase a training effect.
But I wanted the training effect too. Here is how I got both.
Where the Idea Came From
Jeff, in The 200 Year Life Project Facebook group, mentioned he was doing interval walking. I had never heard of it. I went and read about it, and it turned out to be one of the better-supported things I have come across in a while.
The full name is high-intensity interval training — HIIT. Applied to walking, researchers call it interval walking training, or IWT. Lately it has been going around online as “Japanese walking,” because that is where it was developed.
So thank you, Jeff. This one came straight out of the group.
What the Research Actually Found
The study everybody points to came out of Shinshu University in Japan and was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2007. Researchers took 246 people with an average age of 63 and split them three ways for five months: no walking, steady moderate walking at 8,000 steps a day, or interval walking.
The interval group did five or more rounds of three minutes fast and three minutes slow, four or more days a week.
Against the steady walkers, the interval group came out ahead on peak aerobic capacity, on blood pressure, and — the one that stopped me — on thigh muscle strength. Leg strength, from walking. Thigh strength is what gets you out of a chair, up a curb, and off the floor at 80.
A larger follow-up of 679 people, average age 65, found aerobic capacity up 14 percent over five months.
Same shoes, same road, same sort of time. The only thing that changed was the pace pattern.
The Problem With the Standard Protocol
Three minutes fast, three minutes slow, over and over, is a solo exercise. If I did that on our evening walk I would spend the whole thing either leaving Kathy behind or standing around waiting for her.
That defeats the point. The walk is the part of the day I look forward to.
What I Do Instead
I asked Claude to work out a version that keeps me next to my wife as much as possible. This is what I run now:
- Five minutes walking with Kathy at a moderate pace, to warm up.
- Two minutes walking away from her as fast as I can go.
- Turn around and walk back to her at a normal pace until I meet her.
- One minute walking beside her.
- Repeat until the 1.8 miles is done.
The turnaround is what makes it work. Because I am walking back toward her while she keeps coming forward, we close the gap from both ends and I am never out of sight. She walks her 1.8 miles at her pace, start to finish, uninterrupted.
My intervals are two minutes rather than three, and my recovery runs longer than the protocol calls for, because the walk back counts as recovery. That is a fair trade for getting to do it at all.
The Part I Have Not Measured Yet
I have no idea how far I actually walk on these nights. Every fast leg gets walked twice, out and back, so it has to be well over 1.8 miles — but I am guessing, and guessing is not the point of this project.
I will put the ring on it this week and report the real number. It should also tell me what my heart rate is doing on those two-minute pushes, which matters more than the distance does.
Why This One Is Worth Copying
Most longevity protocols cost money, or a subscription, or a supplement. This one costs nothing. You already own the shoes and you are already taking the walk.
And there is a second thing in it. A protocol you can do alongside your wife is a protocol you will still be doing in ten years. The ones that pull you away from the people you live with are the ones that quietly get dropped.
If you are starting from scratch, do not open with two minutes flat out. Walk a bit quicker for one minute, recover, and build from there. Fast should mean fast for you, not fast for somebody else.
Keep Going
The rest of what I do to hold onto muscle and balance is on my fitness page, everything I take is on my protocols page, and every number that comes back from a test goes up on test and stats.
Have you tried anything like this? And if you walk with somebody, how do you handle the pace difference? Tell me in the comments, or come argue about it in the Facebook group — that is where this idea came from in the first place.
Live long and prosper,
Gary
A note from Gary: I am not a doctor, and I am definitely not your doctor. I am a 71-year-old man running a 129-year experiment on himself in public, and everything here is what I do, not a recommendation for what you should do. Interval walking pushes your heart rate up hard — talk to your physician before changing anything.
These are products I use on my push to 200. I only put something on this list after I’ve tested it on myself. The links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.
See more products →
