I’m pretty time-poor, so home workouts suit me perfectly and mean I can squeeze in exercise during the day before I collect my kids from school. One thing I am trying to prioritize is walking and while I’d prefer to be outdoors, an indoor walking workout is the next best thing when I’m super busy.
This 6,000-step workout by fitness influencer YanaFit (who’s behind one of the most popular 10,000-step workouts on YouTube) is really fun and energizing. In just over 40 minutes I was more than halfway to reaching 10,000 steps.
Walking may be low-impact, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t work up a sweat or burn plenty of calories doing this home workout. Here’s what I discovered.
How to do YanaFit’s workout 6,000-step workout
Although you can choose a shorter 10-minute walking workout, you are too busy moving around with this workout to get bored and the time passes quickly. The countdown timer for each move helped to keep me focused, too.
My experience
Step workouts are great for menopausal women
When we walk, the bones in our lower body have to bear our weight and it’s this stress that helps to make them stronger and thicker.
So a walking workout is particularly helpful to women like me who are in the perimenopause transition, because we are more prone to developing osteoporosis (weak and brittle bones).
Another of my perimenopausal symptoms is waking up with joint pain and I noticed that after doing this workout a few times my joint pain had significantly reduced.
Low impact doesn’t mean easy
The older I get the more I realise that low-impact workouts suit my body better—I stopped running because it resulted in niggles in my hips and knees, and YanaFit’s no-jumping step-count workout is much kinder on my joints.
But don’t be fooled, it doesn’t mean that it’s easy. After 40 minutes I was in need of a shower and felt like I had a really good workout. Plus, when I checked my Apple Watch I’d burned over 250 calories!
It works your upper body, too
YanaFit incorporates arm moves, including punching (my favorite), so you’re not just working your leg muscles. While you’re unlikely to see any strength gains (you’ll need weights for that), it can help develop your muscular endurance.
When you put in maximum effort, it boosts your calorie burn too!
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