Upgrade your walk with these 5 core-tightening sequences you can start today.
Tightening your core is crucial for leading a healthy, active lifestyle. After all, your core is basically “body central,” giving you solid power, balance, and posture to conquer daily life. It provides a supportive base to help your body parts move freely. A strong core will also protect you from injuries and help you walk, lift, bend, and do everyday tasks so much easier.
Your core includes your abs, obliques, pelvic floor, lower back, glutes, and hips all working together, so it’s clear to see the importance of showing your core some love. We’re not talking hugs—abdominal work is an excellent way to strengthen your midsection. But we spoke with La Vonn Gilbert, founder of BCF Wellness, who shares five daily walking sequences you can add to your workout to tighten your core even better.
“Traditional ab workouts target and strengthen your abdominal muscles under belly fat, but do not give you a sustained calorie burn for fat loss like walking,” Gilbert tells us. “Walking drills help put the body in a fat burning mode. You really get a fat burning benefit from walking when done at a quick pace and over a longer period of time. The longer you walk the more fat you burn. When you walk tall and straight up with a neutral pelvis, you activate the core which helps work the ab muscles while helping to reduce the appearance of belly overhang.”
Incline Treadmill Walking
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When performing incline walking, your body moves against gravity and requires greater muscle activation. Your glutes serve as the “main driver” for incline walking.
“As you increase the incline, the more your glutes will be recruited to pull your body upward,” Gilbert explains. “Your hamstrings, calves, and quads will also be activated as you climb during your incline workout. Not to be left out, your core will be put to work during your incline walks. The abs and obliques will be engaged to stabilize your pelvis and help you maintain balance as you stride at an incline.”
Here’s how your incline treadmill walking session should play out:
- Warm up (2 to 5 minutes): Walk at a 0% incline at a leisurely pace.
- Workout (12 to 20 minutes: Set the incline to at least 3% and increase the speed so you assume a brisk pace. As you advance, you can bump up the incline and speed even further.
- Cool down (5 minutes): Lower the incline to 0% and decrease the speed to lower your heart rate and relax your body.
Arm-Drive Walking
“The shoulders (deltoids), back (lats), arms (biceps and triceps), chest(pecs), glutes, quads, and hamstrings all get recruited and put to work for the arm-drive walking workout. Putting all these muscles to work while the core acts as a stabilizer during an arm-drive walk makes this a great total body workout,” Gilbert says.
Here’s what your arm-drive walking session should look like:
- Stand tall with your head up.
- Hold your elbows at a 90-degree angle.
- Next, forcefully swing your arms forward and back along your sides as you walk. Your hands should reach mid-chest height on the forward motion and pass your hips on the backswing.
- Brace your core as you walk, maintaining throughout.
- As for posture and pace, walk briskly while keeping your arms and legs in a smooth rhythm, meaning your left leg should move forward with your right arm, and the right leg should stride with the left arm.
- Keep your gaze forward and avoid looking down
- Complete 2 to 3 minutes of arm-drive walking, then 2 minutes of relaxed walking.
- Repeat 3 to 4 times.
Interval Walking
Weaving intervals into your walking routine is a surefire way to burn calories and get your midsection into top shape.
According to Gilbert, “The glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves will all be activated during the interval walking workout. The faster your pace the more these muscles will be engaged. The abdominals also come into play by helping to maintain upright posture and provide stability.”
Here’s how to do interval walking:
- Warm up: Walk for 5 minutes at an easy pace.
- Workout: Alternate between 3 minutes of walking briskly and 3 minutes of slower-paced steps. Repeat each 4 to 5 times.
- Cool down: Walk slowly for 5 minutes.
Posture Walking
“The glutes are used to help propel you forward and stabilize the pelvis during the posture walk,” Gilbert points out. “The hamstrings, quads, and calves will all play a part in this full body effort during the posture walk while the abdominal and back muscles help stabilize and keep you balanced.”
Here’s how posture walking works:
- Stand tall with your gaze forward. Keep your shoulders relaxed and arms at your sides.
- Gently engage the core, keeping your pelvis neutral—not tilted forward or back.
- Be mindful of your body as you walk forward. Allow your arms to swing naturally back and forth at your sides. Keep your elbows slightly bent, and avoid swinging your arms across your body.
- Take quick, short steps, allowing the power to come from pressing off the rear leg. Make sure you don’t over-stride by reaching too far forward with your front leg. Shorter strides lessen the impact on your hips and knees.
- Perform posture walking for 20 to 30 minutes.
High-Knee Power Walks
“High-knee power walks engage the hip flexors, quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. The core (abs, obliques, lower back) works on stability and balance,” Gilbert notes.
Here’s how to do high-knee power walking:
- Stand tall with your head up and gaze forward. Keep your shoulders relaxed and your core gently engaged.
- Lift your right knee up to hip level. As that knee lifts, drive your left arm forward and up—the elbow should be bent at 90 degrees.
- Slowly lower your leg and arm and repeat on the opposite side, moving forward with each step you take.
- Avoid leaning too far forward and keep your chest tall with your shoulders pulled back during the duration of the walk.
- Perform high-knee power walks for 30 to 45 seconds.
- Repeat for 4 to 6 rounds.
Alexa Mellardo
Alexa is a freelance writer, editor, and content strategist based in Greenwich, CT. She has 11+ years of experience covering wellness, fitness, food, travel, lifestyle, and home. Read more about Alexa
