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Walking is one of the most underrated, underutilized ways of maintaining cardiovascular health and fitness. Upon Googling, you can find a plethora of articles & infographics regarding its benefits but today I'd like to talk about a few benefits that are directly related to strength training:

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1) Work Capacity Increases

The conditioning and aerobic gains you get by increasing steps help to increase something called "Work Capacity" - in short, this is your ability to recover between microcycles (sets f an exercise, entire workouts, weeks of training). Think about your main pillars of recovery - eating enough of the right foods, hydration, sleep. You can consider these to be the gasoline that fuels your training. Continuing with the car metaphor, work capacity is the size of the gas tank in the car. The more volume you get accustomed to via walking, the more training in the gym you'll be able to do. You will also begin to recover more effectively because...

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2)You will burn more calories

This is great on its own if your goals are centered around weight/fat loss but consider that protein is one of the building blocks of muscle. If you are shooting to maintain your weight, but would like to increase strength, eating more protein will surely aid in that goal. Carbohydrates will help you perform your best in the gym due to your body using them for energy. However, eating more calories than you burn increases the amount of weight on your body(thanks a lot, stupid laws of thermodynamics)

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Burning more calories means more energy (FOOD!!!) is needed to maintain weight, more food (YUM) means you are showing up to each session  better fed, more energized (carbs), and repairing muscle better during recovery (protein)

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3) Makes a great warmup for a gym session

Walking provides a great warmup for a gym session for multiple reasons:

- Helps to circulate blood

-Involves moving your entire body

-Vitamin D and increased lung function are fantastic ways of getting a short-term energy boost before the gym.

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Walking won't steal your gains! Make time for it.

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Kiss Hug Kiss Hug - Evan