Peloton’s Guided Walking Workouts Are Great Even If You Don’t Have a Treadmill
I’ve never considered myself a walking girl. I’ve never joined in on the “hot girl” trends on social media, or gone on “mental health walks” during the pandemic. In fact, I’ve long thought that walking—a milestone most of us reach as infants, an activity most of us do every day to accomplish all of life’s other basic tasks—was overhyped, especially after learning that the much-touted “10,000 steps” we should be taking each day was based on an arbitrary, made-up number for the marketing of pedometers. If I’m going to do cardio, I reasoned, I’m going to do cardio: bike, run, swim, or play sports with friends. If I’m not sweating, what’s the point? After trying Peloton’s guided walks, available on the at-home fitness giant’s incredibly versatile app , I learned the benefits. Now I’m finally a girl who goes out.
Is walking a good cardio exercise?
The reductionist view I once held about cardio—that I had to be sweaty and tired for it to matter—was and remains false, and I knew it intellectually. As Lifehacker senior health editor Beth Squareschi explains, walking is cardio —and it’s actually a pretty good form of it. How fast you walk can even be used to measure your health and performance.
Different cardio intensities have different effects on your body, but at its most basic level, walking still burns calories. It’s also a great, easy way to add some movement to your life, especially if you’re new to fitness or have an injury. The catalyst for me looking into Peloton’s walking offerings was actually when my mom was “prescribed” walking as a treatment for a back problem. The problem prevented her from walking for long or fast, so after a medical solution with doctors and physical therapists, her homework was to walk longer and longer on a walking mat in the living room.
As an able-bodied person living in a walkable city (by which I mean a city where I’m essentially forced to walk my 10,000 steps a day whether I want to or not), I definitely take walking for granted. I decided to test out Peloton’s walking workouts to see if they’d be helpful for my mom, but they ended up being helpful for me.
What is Peloton walking workouts all about?
To find walking workouts in the Peloton app, select Walking at the top of the home screen, or type “walking” into the search bar. Peloton’s walking workouts are designed for use on its Tread treadmills (or any treadmill, really) — but I’ve found that I enjoy them just as much if I head outside, though I obviously can’t control the incline if I do that. The guided walks available in the app are like any of the classes Peloton offers: They come in a variety of lengths and formats, are led by a certified instructor who encourages you and reminds you of safety precautions, and feature playlists of music to keep you going.
I start most weekday mornings with a walk to Dunkin’ Donuts and then to the post office to turn in all the stuff I ’ve sold on resale apps , so I sign up for a Peloton walking class for my journey. While I don’t necessarily have an instructor in my ears reminding me to, well, walk, it does encourage me to keep up my pace; I just ignore everything they say about fiddling with the incline and resistance buttons since I’m not on a treadmill. This morning, I followed a five-minute warm-up walking routine from instructor Logan Aldridge, who shared encouraging reminders that walking, even when it feels easy, is “hugely worth it” for a person’s health. He also provided pacing cues using practical, real-world examples, rather than simply relying on cues built around the treadmill’s features. At one point he described the pace as “not walking through Manhattan, not walking through New York,” which was funny because I was actually walking through Manhattan on my way to Dunkin’, so I slowed down a little bit.
You can turn on location sharing for more accurate measurements, and of course I have an Apple Watch paired with my Peloton app to give me more accurate data on my heart rate, output, and speed. I forgot to turn on location tracking at the start of the walk (I don’t have automatic tracking set up, although you can), so at the end I was prompted to enter my distance for a more accurate measurement. I glanced at the watch, which showed me how far I’d walked, entered that number, and was directed to a screen where I could view my output.
You can certainly do this on a treadmill, too, and the workouts are more or less designed for you. There are live classes that are archived on-demand after they’re over, and you can choose from cool-down walks, power walks, hikes, walks with specific types of playlists (like ’90s music or EDM), or even “walk and talk” walks with two instructors if you’re into that chatty podcast vibe. Some classes incorporate both walking and running, and their titles tell you that up front. As you scroll through the options, you’ll mostly see titles with instructors on treadmills in a Peloton studio, but you’ll also see a few where the instructors are outside. These guided walks are more for the outdoors, and instructors will call out the halfway point so you always know when to turn around and head home (or back to the office or wherever). Workouts come in a variety of lengths, from five to 75 minutes, with the longer ones often incorporating both walking and running.
Why I Love Peloton Walking Workouts
These workouts are an easy way to fit a little extra intentional movement into your day. I already walk a lot, but I don’t always do it with purpose. Having a trainer to remind me to keep track of my steps and a playlist designed to keep me at a certain pace turns a standard coffee run into a mindful workout. Walking is also low-impact and accessible, so even on a day when you’re tired or even if other forms of cardio aren’t available to you, it opens up a world of fitness possibilities. Perhaps most importantly, it’s the most accessible workout on the app because you really don’t need anything fancy. You don’t need a mat, yoga blocks, or weights, let alone a fancy treadmill. As long as you have good shoes, you can walk as much as you like while still getting the company’s signature support and guidance from trained professionals.